Antalya

Kaleiçi, the ancient sites and beach days over four days to a week

Four days to a week suits Antalya. Two days cover Kaleiçi old town, the Roman harbour, the Antalya Museum and a boat to the Düden Waterfalls. Four days add Perge, Aspendos and Termessos, and a week leaves time for beach days at Konyaaltı or Lara. Decide early whether to sleep in Kaleiçi or a beach resort.

Treat the city as two places: a compact walled old town on the cliffs, and a resort coast running off on either side. Decide early which one you sleep in. From a room in Kaleiçi you can walk to the harbour and the museum, while the big Lara hotels sit near the airport and a long way from the old streets.

• Two days: enter Kaleiçi through Hadrian's Gate and wander past the Fluted Minaret Mosque and the clocktower down to the Roman harbour, then give the afternoon to the Antalya Museum. Next morning, take a boat from the harbour along the cliffs to the Düden Waterfalls, where the river drops straight into the sea.
• Four days: add Perge and Aspendos, easily combined on one early start; the Roman theatre at Aspendos is among the best preserved anywhere. Give another morning to Termessos up in the mountains.
• A week: mix sightseeing with beach days on the pebbles of Konyaaltı, with the mountains behind, or the sand at Lara. Side and Kemer are each about an hour from the airport, and Belek, the golf resort, is half that.

All-inclusive beach hotels fill early for summer, so book them well ahead. Harbour boat crews quote freely: never accept the first price or the first departure time you are given.

A taxi for a few hours covers Perge, but for Aspendos and Termessos a hire car or a tour works out better. Mountains hem the city in, so road trips inland are long: coaches to Cappadocia take about 8 hours via Konya, and a flight to Istanbul is far quicker than the bus.

Antalya's hot summers and the gentler months for ruins and swimming

Summer here is relentless. July and August reach about 35°C by day with almost no rain, nights average 23 to 24°C, and the mountains wrapped around the bay trap the heat. Spend those months in the water and see the ruins at opening time. The sea is the reason crowds still come: it reaches about 27°C at its warmest and stays swimmable well into autumn.

For sightseeing with a swim on the side, aim for May or late September to October. May brings 26°C and only light rain; October is still around 27°C with a warm sea, and the Golden Orange Film Festival is held that month. June is already hot at 32°C.

Winter is mild but genuinely wet. Between storms come bright, cool days with highs of 15 to 17°C. Perge and Aspendos are much quieter then, and you can have the theatres almost to yourself. Snow on the city is extremely rare.

March and April are the quiet shoulder. Afternoons reach 18 to 22°C, but the sea is still cool after winter.

Piyaz, hibeş and burnt-milk ice cream in Antalya

Antalya's best-known local dish is piyaz, boiled beans dressed with tahini, garlic and walnuts, often eaten with şiş köfte. Try hibeş, a cumin-spiced tahini spread, grida grouper and yanıksı dondurma, an ice cream with a burnt-milk flavour. Canteens around the Muratpaşa Mosque are cheap, and Kaleiçi restaurants charge more.

Piyaz comes first on any list of local dishes. The local version dresses boiled beans with tahini, garlic and walnuts. Piyazcı Sami downtown serves it with şiş köfte, spiced meatballs grilled around a skewer.

Look also for hibeş, a sharp spread of tahini spiced with cumin. Tandır kebap and cold olive-oil dishes fill the lunch counters, and grida, the white grouper, turns up on fish menus.

Snacks carry the local signature. Yanıksı dondurma is an ice cream with a burnt-milk flavour, bağaça a spiced tahini pastry, and tirmis the boiled lupin seeds people nibble on the seafront. The streets around the Muratpaşa Mosque are lined with cheap canteens. Kaleiçi restaurants charge more for garden settings and fresh fish, and Hasanağa is a long-running family place for traditional cooking.

Kaleiçi is a lived-in quarter with working mosques, so cover up to go inside and keep swimwear for the beach. Tip about 10% in restaurants, and ask prices before ordering where no menu is shown. The Doluca vineyard stands by the airport entrance.