Antalya (day 2)

As you could read in the previous post, it ended up being quite late yesterday. I didn’t get to bed until around 3:30 a.m., but I barely slept because of all the planes flying low overhead (the hotel is right on the approach route to the runway, which isn’t far away). Luckily, there’s a certain period during the night when there’s no air traffic (until 5 a.m.) and then it all starts up again... So I managed to get a little sleep before being woken up by the first plane that was allowed to land. Later in the morning, the air traffic eased up again for a while, so I could catch a bit more sleep. Eventually, I got up around 9:45 a.m. (in the meantime, my parents had already bought bread, cheese, and cold cuts at the supermarket). After breakfast, we finally set off, only toward the end of the morning.

Our first stop by car was the Düden Waterfall, which, for various reasons, took longer to reach than planned (an hour instead of 20 minutes). This waterfall and the surrounding park reminded me (with a bit of imagination) of the lakes at Plitvice in Croatia: a beautifully landscaped park surrounding the waterfall, though here it was just a single waterfall, and there was also a bat cave. You could walk through a semi-open cave, where every few meters you had a new view of the waterfall. This cave also runs a short way under the waterfall, so you can look out from behind the water curtain. After seeing all this, we drove on to Termessos, again about an hour driving. Termessos is a collection of Roman-era ruins, including an amphitheater on the edge of a gorge. To get there, you have to drive 9 km up from the main road along a winding mountain road full of hairpin bends. Eventually, you arrive at a parking area, from where you still have to walk uphill to reach the ruins. Luckily, it felt pleasant up there, with a refreshing breeze and lots of shade among the trees. Walking back down was fortunately much easier and less tiring.
Once back at the car, we drove a bit further on to the old town of Antalya. By the time we arrived, it was almost dinner time, so we first walked to the harbor, where we had a nice meal with a view over the water and that refreshing breeze again. After dinner, we strolled through the old town for a while until we had seen enough, then we walked back to the car and drove back to the apartment, where we arrived fairly early in the evening (around 8:30 p.m.). Tomorrow we’ll leave Antalya and continue our journey to Demre. There’s not much to do in Demre itself, but the route from Antalya to Demre runs along the coast, and this stretch is known as the Turkish Riviera!

Day 1

Travel overview

Day 3