Turkey Holidays in December
July and August sit in the mid 30Cs on the Mediterranean shore with very little rain, so a washed-out week is genuinely rare.
Side has a Roman theatre and a shoreline temple standing inside the resort itself, which turns sightseeing into an hour rather than a day.
Belek was laid out around large all-inclusive hotels backed by pine forest, many with their own slides and clubs inside the grounds.
The Mediterranean side runs big and sandy while the Aegean peninsulas run smaller and rockier, so one country covers two very different trips.
Belek is about forty minutes from the arrivals hall, which counts as quick here and matters a great deal with small children.
Card payment is normal across the resorts, and the lira has seen high inflation in recent years, which tends to work in a visitor's favour.
Picking between the Riviera and the Aegean shapes a trip far more than chasing cheap holidays to Turkey on headline price alone.
Walled old town: Antalya's historic quarter rises above the Roman harbour in a grid of restored Ottoman houses on lanes closed to most traffic. Hadrian's Gate, from the second century AD, stands at its edge, and the Konyaalti and Lara beaches spread either side of the modern city. The Taurus Mountains sit directly behind.
Golf and sand: Belek lies east of Antalya and was built around large all-inclusive hotels and a cluster of championship courses. Its beaches are long, dark and gently shelving, backed by pine forest rather than buildings. Aspendos and the ruined city of Perge are both short drives inland from the strip.
Temple on the shore: Side occupies a small peninsula between Antalya and Alanya, built on and around a classical Greek and Roman town. The Temple of Apollo stands at the tip of the headland and a large Roman theatre marks the entrance to the old quarter, with sand running both west and east.
Sheltered inlet: Marmaris wraps around a deep bay ringed by pine-covered hills, with one of the largest marinas on the Turkish coast and a small Ottoman castle above its old streets. Icmeler sits about 8 km around the same water, and Dalyan with the Kaunos ruins is an easy run north.
Harbour castle: Bodrum stands on the site of a classical city whose Mausoleum was among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, and its ruins can still be visited. The Castle of St Peter, begun by the Knights Hospitaller in the fifteenth century, holds an underwater archaeology museum on the harbour.
Lycian cliffs: Fethiye is a working harbour with rock tombs cut into the rock above it, including the fourth-century BC Tomb of Amyntas. Oludeniz and its enclosed lagoon lie about 14 km south, beneath Babadag, which rises close to 2,000 m directly behind the beach.
Most day trips here can be arranged once you arrive, which helps on last minute holidays to Turkey when nothing is booked ahead.
Celsus library: Inland from Kusadasi, UNESCO-listed Ephesus stands largely complete, including the two-storey facade of the Library of Celsus and a Great Theatre cut into the hillside. It lies roughly 20 km from the resort, which makes it a half-day trip, and it is the standard cruise excursion too.
White travertines: Pamukkale's hillside of mineral-formed pools sits below Hierapolis, a ruined Roman spa city, and the two are inscribed together by UNESCO. The terraces are built up by hot springs running over the rock. It is a full day out from the coast rather than a morning.
Intact stage: Aspendos, built in the second century AD, survives with its stage building largely complete, which is rare anywhere in the Mediterranean. Performances are still staged inside it. The ruined city of Perge pairs with it naturally on the same run inland from the Riviera resorts.
Tandem descents: Paragliders launch from platforms on Babadag above Oludeniz and come down over the lagoon to land on the sand itself. The mountain rises close to 2,000 m, which puts it among the higher commercial tandem launches in Europe. Flights run through the season when conditions allow.
Blue Cruise: Multi-day sailings on traditional wooden gulets run between Fethiye, Marmaris and Olympos, anchoring in bays rather than ports. Shorter day versions leave from all three harbours. Gulet building is still an active trade in both Bodrum and Marmaris, so the boats are locally made.
Cold canyon: Saklikent cuts around 18 km into the Akdaglar mountains, with its lower stretch accessible on boardwalks and by wading through the water. That water is snowmelt, so it stays cold straight through August. It is the standard inland trip from the Fethiye area.
Waymarked trail: The Lycian Way runs roughly 760 km between Fethiye and Antalya, passing ruins, beaches and mountain villages along the former Lycian coast. Short day sections suit solo holidays to Turkey in spring or autumn, which are the two practical walking seasons here.
Not as a beach package, which is what we sell. The resort coast is closed for the winter, the hotels are shut and the charter flights have finished. Travelling independently to the cities and working towns is perfectly possible, but it is a different sort of trip from the one most people are picturing.
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