Alanya Turkey’s Mediterranean pirate and package-holiday capital

The once unsullied beaches stretching away on either side of the center are today backed by serried ranks of look-alike hotels and apartments. The town center, too, is given over to the “necessities” of mass tourism, with few businesses other than cafés, bars, clubs, restaurants, clothes shops, hotels and travel agencies having survived from the days before cheap packages and bargain charters opened up this part of the Mediterranean to the sun-seeking hordes from northern Europe.

It still makes a wonderful independent travelers’ destination, however, as what time and the relentless march of “progress” have failed to alter is Alanya’s peerless setting. Its old town heart and harbor are squeezed dramatically between the lush, variegated green foothills of the Taurus Mountains, here running down almost to the shore, and a spectacular cliff-fringed promontory that rears up from the milky blue waters of the Mediterranean like some great calcified sea monster. As if the towering headland was not ostentatious enough, its flanks are embellished in fairytale style by a lacework of over six kilometers of medieval defensive walls and crowned by an imposing castle and Ottoman mosque. It is the vista of this proud promontory, pocked by caves, dashed by waves and steeped in history, that makes lounging on the beach here such a pleasure, even for those congenitally incapable of finding a link between “sand, sea, sun” and “fun.”

Ascent to the castle

Few visitors can resist making the pilgrimage from the town up to the castle. Many make the long, winding trip in a tour bus, but independent travelers can either take a taxi (around TL 15), or, much cheaper, one of the fairly frequent municipality buses. The best option, however, is to walk, as only then do you really begin to appreciate the impregnability of this fantastically sited fortification, and can take full advantage of the wonderful panoramas unfurling at each twist and turn of the road. Of course, if its summer, you’d be foolish to try ascending on foot any time other than early morning or early evening, as the temperatures here on Turkey’s southern shore are searing.

Parts of the route are now lined with a wooden-decking sidewalk, making the climb (around 45 minutes) easier on your feet and separating you from passing traffic. The castle (kale) can be seen from the town center and is reached either from the eastern terminus of the western beach or from the end of İskele Caddesi, which runs along and above the pretty, boat-filled harbor.

After just a few minutes’ walk the views back down and across the Selçuk-era Kızılkule (Red Tower) and harbor, to the eastern beach and its formidable mountain backdrop, are stunning. The gardens of the houses and cafés (yes, there are plenty of places for a refreshing drink or even a full-blown meal on this most civilized of ascents) are a riot of flowers, trees and shrubs. The oleanders, blooming profusely in shades of white and pink, are rivaled only by great swathes of purple bougainvillea. Less common but more beautiful are the creamy white or brilliant red hibiscus flowers peeping out from massed ranks of fruiting cacti. Then there are the fig, persimmon, mulberry, pomegranate, medlar and quince trees that make the steep slope one big orchard -- and that’s without mentioning the pines, palms and purple-flowering jacaranda. As you climb higher the houses thin out, but those that are left are delightful, time-worn Ottoman structures, with overhanging cumbas (projecting windows), brick-filled timber frames, sun-bleached wooden shutters and lichen-crusted tiled roofs.

Within the walls

After squeezing through a narrow gateway in the outer walls and winding up past a lighthouse and a couple of cemeteries, you eventually reach the castle (İç Kale) itself. It was built by the Selçuk ruler Alaeddin Keykubad in 1226, when Alanya was his winter residence and the second most important settlement (after the capital Konya) of the great Selçuk Empire. The much-restored walls are in good condition, and you can easily see why the castle was well nigh impregnable, especially when you note the numerous cisterns inside (there are reputed to be over 400 dotted across the headland). Inaccessible behind an iron fence are the attractive remains of a 12th-century Byzantine-era church, with a crumbling trefoil-shaped nave supporting a polygonal, dome-topped drum.

With the honorable exception of a handful of specialists, few, bar legions of pre-pubescent boys, have a genuine love of medieval castle architecture, and most visitors are here to enjoy the superlative views from the crenellated battlements, down to the waves crashing at the foot of the cliff and, less dizzyingly, across to the western beach. According to local lore, in times past prisoners on death row were taken to the western tower and given a chance to save themselves. If they could hurl a stone from the tower straight into the sea below, and not hit the sheer cliffs on its descent, they would be spared. If not, in typically grisly medieval fashion, they were pushed from the parapet to meet a gory death on the rocks some 250 meters below. Visible below the castle, and worth exploring on your way down, are a 16th-century Ottoman mosque, the Süleymaniye Camii, and a restored caravanserai.

Pirates, caves and an Egyptian queen

Back down at the foot of the headland the Kızılkule, or Red Tower, is the symbol of Alanya. Thirty-five meters high and built of a reddish-hued stone, the defensive tower was built, like the castle, during the reign of Alaeddin Keykubad. It now houses a small ethnography museum. Beyond it, by the water’s edge, are the graceful arches of the Tershane, a shipyard built by the Selçuks, a people who had not long before swept in from the land-locked steppes of Central Asia but who soon realized the importance of controlling the seas. Alanya’s archaeological museum, at the western end of town, cannot begin to compete with nearby rivals at Side or Antalya, but it’s set in a pleasant garden and worth a look if you have any interest in the history of the region.

Of course, there’s lots more to do in Alanya. Regular boat tours run out along the promontory, giving you the chance to see a number of the caves set into the cliffs. One of them, the Korsanlar Mağrası, or Pirates Cave, is a reminder that long before the Selçuks ruled the region, Alanya (then known as Coracesium) was the “capital” of the notorious Cilician pirates, who defied the might of Rome until 67 B.C. Beyond this lies Cleopatra’s Beach where, according to legend, the beautiful Egyptian queen used to bathe, having been bequeathed Coracesium by her Roman lover, Marc Antony. Without taking a boat tour it’s possible to visit the Damalataş (Dripping Stone) Cave at the promontory end of the western beach. Full of stalactites and stalagmites it is reputed to help asthma sufferers.

Downtown Alanya

The town center, much of it tastefully pedestrianized, is pleasant enough to wander around in, especially on balmy summer evenings, and the importuning of the shopkeepers and restaurateurs only mildly irritating. Alanya is certainly the place to come if you want to purchase what is purported to be the local handicraft specialty, a decorated gourd. Most visitors’ purchases are rather more prosaic, however, as who could resist 30 pairs of sports socks for 10 euros, three faux-Lacoste polo shirts for 10, a knock-off replica football strip or a “Sex Teacher: First Lesson Free” T-shirt. The sale of counterfeit designer clothing and accessories is a major business here, and anyone who works in the licensing departments of Dolce and Gabbana, Diesel, Quiksilver, Converse, Abercrombie and Fitch or the like is liable to have a heart attack on their arrival in downtown Alanya. Still, no one seems to care, least of all the droves of immaculately coiffured local blades (deli kanlar), their hair teased and gelled into early 1970s David Bowie “Ziggy Stardust” era spikes, nor the passing Nordic blondes they are eyeing up from the doorway of their favorite hairdressing salon.

Alanya has certainly changed from the 1960s when travel writer Michael Pereira visited. Having spent a night in a hotel for TL 10, the price he’d happily negotiated with the receptionist, the next morning he went outside and fell into conversation with a man who enquired how much he was paying for his room.

When he told him the man bristled with righteous indignation, exclaiming forcefully: “What! Too much, far too much. … TL 6 is what you shall pay!’’ Pereira was nonplussed to find out that the man was none other than the hotel’s proprietor. I doubt that any of today’s hard-nosed businessmen would be so impulsively generous -- but then again I doubt that 1960s Alanya could have offered Pereira 10 pairs of “Bjorn” boxer shorts for a bargain 10 euros.