THE MOST CORRECT REVIEW
ANTALYA OLD TOWN KALEICHI:
Be everything!
How to get there:
Option one - take the bus "Kemer - Antalya" at the stop near the White Tower in the center of Kemer (stop from the side of the White Tower), and drive for about 50 minutes, the trip will cost $ 3.5 one way (or 8 lira, whichever is cheaper). In Antalya, you can ask to stay anywhere. All buses and minibuses pass by the Oceanarium and a large Migros supermarket, which is located about 200 meters from the Oceanarium. So if you need to go there, then it will be very convenient to get there.
If you go back to Kemer from Antalya, then minibuses make a long stop near the Oceanarium and Migras, waiting for customers. Also, in any other place in the city where the express bus to Kemer passes, you can stop it, so there will be no problems with the road, and in Turkish buses you pay for the fare at the end of the trip.
ATTENTION: to get to the Oceanarium or Migros - stop opposite (you have to cross the road at the traffic lights) - buses from Kemer do not go directly there (on the other side).
Further, from the Oceanarium stop, you need to take a bus to Kaleichi-Old Town. If you are coming from Migras, the bus stop is from Migras. The cost of the trip is 2 lira per person. The desired stop is called "Hadrian's Gate", or in Turkish "Adrian Kapisy". The taxi driver will take a minimum of 20 lire, they demanded 10 dollars from us (5 people) (that is, 35 lira). It takes about 15 minutes to drive. Plus, a taxi will stop right in front of the elevator. You can also go back by bus. IMPORTANT - NOT all buses from the center of Antalya go from the Old Town to Migros! To return back to Migros and then return to Kemer - we left the Old Town, crossed the road and walked 1 block (50 meters) to a parallel street, turned left and there will be a bus stop - CHECK the bus number from the locals so that you will be taken to Migros. Or take a taxi - there are always 5-6 cars there. When we returned back - through a pedestrian bridge with an escalator to the side of Migros. Well, everything is simple there - minibuses back to Kemer (see above).
SAFETY - now in Turkey the rules are VERY tightened not only for staying in the country, but also for simply moving outside the hotel. In addition to the police, a new unit was created - the gendarmerie. Gendarmes go both in uniform and in civilian clothes. They can check not only minibuses, but also buses of travel agencies. Therefore, if you even have a passport with you, but there is no voucher with a note from your hotel guide, you will be taken to the gendarmerie to find out the reasons for your stay in Turkey. But there is no need to be afraid - your hotel guide will be called to the gendarmerie and everything will become clear. We have NOT seen this and have NOT heard from anyone in Turkey, but we decided NOT to take risks and called our hotel guide not the next day, but immediately on the day of our settlement at the Hotel. Moreover, IMPORTANT: the hotel guide puts a mark on the voucher ONLY if there is a person with a passport and air tickets. The mark is just laughter: some kind of stamp. But this is VERY IMPORTANT, since the next day we gathered in Antalya on our own, so we did everything and went for a free walk both in Kemer and in Antalya.
What else is IMPORTANT - in the minibuses in Antalya you can NOT pay for the fare in cash - you need a card that you replenish for the number of trips, before there was a minimum of 10 trips, then cards were introduced for 5 trips. But you can get on the bus and ask one of the passengers to pay for you with his card, and you give him your pennies (we did this last year), by the way, that's why you need lira in Turkey. Please note that the bus ride is paid before leaving.
OVERALL RATING OF THE OPTION (bus - minibus / taxi): 5 (EXCELLENT), cheap and good.
Option two - a sea tram runs directly from Kemer to Antalya (morning - about 9-00 from Kemer and back from Antalya to Kemer - about 17-00, cost 5 dollars per person). There is a big plus - you will be brought directly to the Old Town in Antalya.
OVERALL VALUE FOR OPTION (Sea Tram): 5 (EXCELLENT), but there is a schedule to stick to, but also cheap and good.
Option three - when you check into the Hotel, you can be offered a FREE shopping trip to Antalya by three shops: leather, textiles and jewelry. This is DIVORCE. Prices are just laughter, for example, leather jackets show prices in Turkish lira (TL), and they will tell you that this is EURO, that is, a jacket for 1200-1400 EURO and they will say that only for you today there is a discount and the price is 800 EURO … The same in textiles and jewelry store. Therefore, we went for FREE from the Hotel to Antalya for this shopping scam, but only bought in a jewelry store (only because we wanted to buy) small gold jewelry, the proceeds from the sale of which go to the children's treatment program and after that we were dropped off at the Andrian Gate and We went for a walk around the Old City. We went back directly to Kemer by taxi for $30 (we started haggling from $70). So you can generally go from Kemer to Antalya and just go back by taxi, but it's up to you how and for how much (see the options above).
OVERALL VALUE OF THE OPTION (free shopping - taxi): 5 (EXCELLENT), if you are three people or more - this is your option: a little more expensive, but good.
OLD TOWN KALEICHI:
The walk is best to start from Hadrian's Gate. Then go down to Karaalshuglu Park (Karaalioglu Park), walk to the Tower (Antalya Saat Kulesi) and then enter the Old Town (Kaleici), get to the observation deck overlooking the port (Kaleici Marina) and walk along the streets to the port (Kaleici Marina), and then take the elevator (Elevator Kaleici) to the observation deck and back to Kemer.
See MAP: seven stars (SUPER USEFUL).
HADRIAN'S GATE:
HISTORICAL SUMMARY: Antalya was founded in 159 BC e. Greek king Pergamum Attalos II (Greek Α τ τ α λ ο ς ) and was originally called Attalia. In 133 B. C. by the Romans, becoming a winter residence Emperor Hadrian. For a long time Antalya was a possession of Rome, then D0%B8%D1%8F">Byzantium. It is believed that Hadrian's Gate was built into the city wall on a special occasion - in honor of the arrival of the Roman emperor Hadrian in Antalya in 130 AD. They were built as a triumphal arch, and therefore especially amazed with their splendor and grandeur.
Hadrian's Gate is in front of the entrance to the old part of the city / old city, and on the other side is the wonderful Karaalshuglu Park (Karaalioglu Park).
Being near Hadrian's Gate, you understand that no photographs and other people's stories will betray the atmosphere of the city and warmth, suede-looking stone and those wonderful sensations from getting to know a part of history, so everyone should definitely visit Antalya and be sure to visit the attraction Hadrian's Gate, Moreover, it is one of the symbols of the city!
Here you will have a choice - either go through Hadrian's Gate to Old Gord or go to Karaalioglu Park.
Karaalioglu Park is a small but very well-groomed park, as for us, it is one of the personifications of Turkey - how they know how to appreciate and protect their city and how they take care of the resting places of their citizens.
There is a taxi station in front of the park, and in front of the entrance to the park there are small cafes, the design of which fits very well into the greenery of the park. Prices bite a little, but you can afford to buy coffee for 10-20 liras.
Passing inside the park, you will pass through small fountains and get to the embankment overlooking the sea, where in the shade of the trees on the lawns there are benches on which there are not always empty seats, after all, the park is not only a favorite vacation spot for tourists, but and local residents.
There are also several small children's attractions, boiled corn and Turkish ice cream (dondurma) for sale.
HISTORICAL SUMMARY: Turkish ice cream - dondurma is thick and does not melt for a long time. It is kneaded from goat's milk and the powder of dried orchid tubers. The homeland of the dessert is the southeastern part of Turkey, where these orchids grow. Dondurma ice cream was made back in the days of the Ottoman Empire, the sultans believed that orchids increase male strength and the dessert is still sold from wooden barrels on the street. The ice cream maker is forced to constantly knead the ice cream so that it does not thicken. In a barrel, as a rule, there are dozens of servings of dondurma. Therefore, only a strong man can cope with dessert.
Serving ice cream is accompanied by almost tricks - this is a whole ritual that, if the ice cream man is in a good mood, can last quite a long time. When buying ice cream, the ice cream man played a prank on us - giving ice cream, he returned the cone with the ball to himself, and we had an empty cone in our hands! Moreover, the ice cream man himself laughed more than we did!
The cost of ice cream is $2. By the way, you can buy ice cream - dondurma not necessarily in Antalya, but also in Kemer near the port (Marina), but we decided to buy it in the Old Town, it seemed to us that it would be tastier there.
Further, walking along the embankment, you will reach an observation deck overlooking the port (Kaleici Marina) and there are spotting scopes (viewing costs 1 lira, that's why you need lira in Turkey when everything is for dollars and EURO).
Here you can also get acquainted with another attraction of Antalya - the Tower (Antalya Saat Kulesi), by the way, this is also one of the symbols of Antalya.
HISTORICAL SUMMARY: Hidirlik Tower (tour. H? d? rl? k Kulesi) in Antalya is a Roman building dating back to the 2nd century AD. e. The tower, erected in the southern part of the Antalya bay, probably played the role of a lighthouse or performed defensive functions. The massive drum sits on a square base, probably built in Hellenistic Period. The total height of the structure is 13.5 meters.
By the way, the Tower is a good landmark for determining where (in which part) of the Old City you are or it can be a great landmark for a meeting.
On the one hand, it's just a beautiful Tower with the flag of Turkey, and on the other, until recently, it was a symbol of the city, which was replaced by an orange...
In general, a walk through the Old Town gives you the feeling that you have been transported many centuries ago. Kaleichi is translated from Turkish as “inside the kale”, that is, inside the fortress. The city is located inside the old fortress walls, which, as it were, separate it from modern Antalya. Here, like nowhere else in the city, you can feel the flavor and atmosphere of the East.
Here you can walk along the old alleys, along the cobblestone pavements, everything is so cozy, nice. On the narrow streets there are numerous shops and just street vendors with souvenirs, spices, clothes, silverware.
Many shops are not really shops, because they sell, like everywhere else, Chinese goods, BUT still there are shops where the master makes a thing right in front of you (you can attend) and there are only handmade goods shops, unfortunately , there are fewer of them every year...
If you walk from the Tower towards the Port, then passing through the Old Town you can get to the observation deck overlooking the Port from the other side.
The most interesting thing is that, walking along the streets of the Old Town, we just walked towards the Port to go up to the observation deck and a local resident (a man of decent age) approached us and began to tell us about the history of the city, which of the houses were the first in the city and took us to the observation deck, which we did not even know about.
It is also worth paying attention to a local resident who loves his city so much that, as an Odessa citizen (we know that), he approached us and began to tell us about his city himself and took us on a completely free walking tour of the Old City - what a great fellow!
The observation deck is so breathtaking, so it took our hearts literally and figuratively! The observation deck is a very neat little park, decorated with flowers and figures made of trees, an observation deck with a glass floor, everything is so that you just didn’t want to leave...
Moreover, there is a beach and a small waterfall below, and on the other side there is a Port and a little to the left of it a larger waterfall, in general, beauty!
In general, you can walk through the whole Old Town in 20-30 minutes, but you can wander for hours, there are so many nooks and crannies, descents, lanes, you think to get into one place, but you go out to another, it feels like time has stopped.
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There are also a lot of very original cafes, hotels and very original shops.
Moreover, the design of the cafe is very different from each other - there is something for every taste (from the marine theme to stylish youth).
We chose the cafe based on the appearance of the chef (he turned out to be the owner) and the smell of hot chicken and veal sandwiches, and we were right!
The price in a cafe, what kind of coffee, what kind of french fries, what kind of sandwich is the same all for 10 lira, individual sandwiches (such as shawarma) were 14 lira.
Moreover, there is no beer and it is IMPOSSIBLE to drink openly - a Muslim country, we were warned by the owner of the cafe and a citizen in civilian clothes passing by (probably a gendarme). But there is WIFI.
It's hard to call what they brought sandwiches, they all took different ones, and they were all wrapped in pita bread, there was no sauce inside, but there was a lot of greens. French fries are served separately and separately ketchup and mayonnaise. The owner of the establishment, when he saw that we were eating potatoes just with ketchup, ran out into the street and mixed ketchup with mayonnaise for us - he said, there is only that. It turned out very tasty.
Let's move on and we get to the Port: The heart of the Old Town is a very beautiful port (Kaleici Marina). Once it was the main port in Antalya. To protect the city from external enemies, powerful fortress walls were built near the port, which are very well preserved to this day. In our time, the new main pier of Antalya has already been built, but the port in the Old City is operational, it is now used only for the delight of tourists. It is worth passing by elegant yachts and ships for every taste and size, and you will immediately get a lot of offers to ride along the coast of Antalya, to see several nearby waterfalls.
ELEVATOR (Elevator Kaleici) - a platform above the Old Town overlooking the bay and there is an observation deck with a glass floor and you can look at the boats through a telescope for 1 lira. Here again, why do you need lira in Turkey.
LIFT - free (two buttons: up and down).
On the observation deck (at the top of the elevator) such views are breathtaking!! ! Red brick roofs of houses against the background of the blue sky and the blue sea, ships in the port, ancient fortress walls - the beauty is indescribable!!!
!!! ! THANK YOU FOR APPRAISING THE PHOTOS!!! !
