Rhodes Tourism & Travel Guide

Antalya – Situated on the coast, provides one of the most breathtaking views – the turquoise waters with mountains in the background.

I can without a blink say that a vacation in Antalya would be my favourite beach trip in my life. I had planned my summer vacation in Antalya with my cousin, who is a year younger to me. We wanted to spend our holidays in a beautiful beach destination and to our parents surprise we had chose the Turkish beach destination. First of all, we had planned a budget trip to Antalya and did not buy any tour packages instead took a 4 days all-by-alone trip to explore incredible resorts in Antalya.After some web research, I had booked a flight ticket with Rehlat from New Delhi to Antalya with Turkish Airlines 717 (Boeing 777). After 8-hours long journey from Indira Gandhi International Airport (New Delhi), we were landed in Istanbul Atatürk Airport (Istanbul) with a little bit nervousness and taken another flight (Turkish 216) from Istanbul to Antalya, which was a 3 hours journey.

Day 9: We checked out of Lazer Pension post breakfast and headed for a Gulet cruise to explore Duden Waterfalls. We returned to the hotel in the evening to collect out luggage and to take the overnight bus to Cappadocia. We travelled by a Metro Turizm bus that departed from Antalya at 07:30 pm.

Day 8: Post breakfast we took a yacht cruise from Antalya Marina through the turquoise waters and then headed to relax at Konyaaltı Beach.

Day 7: We arrived early morning at 6:15 am at Antalya and then travelled to Kaleici. We checked into our hotel Lazer Pension. We explored the old town of Kaleici and Antalya Marina.

The city is really good I was staying near the old city, it’s good to walk around, most of the things to do and see are in the old city. Antalya Archaeological Museum is one of the amazing museum’s I have seen.

Day 8 – Antalya I had a fight with Somya next morning because she was being annoying. We had an early morning bus and she was taking all her time to get dressed and have her breakfast. We boarded a minivan to Denizli and took a bus to Antalya thereon. We reached Antalya around 2 pm, after completing a five-hour long journey. We had booked a luxurious beach-side hotel in Antalya, because we had decided we would spend money in Antalya if we were saving elsewhere. The local bus from the bus station in Antalya to our hotel took around one hour to reach. We finally reached the bus stand next to the beach, exhausted. But the beautiful side of a sea stretching out to touch the hills was enough to help me relax. Our hotel was nice, not as luxurious as we had thought, but we got a beach-facing two-room suite with a huge balcony so we were quite pleased. Oh! The site was awe-inspiring. I have shared a photo for you to see. Till the time we had checked-in, it was getting dark so we decided to go to a nearby mall and see if there are any shacks at the beach for dinner later. The mall was around 2 kilometres and we walked all the way. It was dark when we decided to leave the mall. Antalya was one unsafe city, I must say. Every now and then a car would stop near us, as if we were to get onto it and would leave when we ignored. Somya even saw a man jerking off on the pedestrian. And adding to our list of horrors, we heard a car pass-by and we swear by all the gods of all religions ever created, we heard a girl screaming from the car. We were shaking with fear. We hurried towards the beach and except for darkness, there was nothing at the beach. We ate at a nearby restaurant and rushed back to our hotel. We were extremely put-off as we had heard that Antalya is one city where restaurants are open till 3 in the morning. Where was all of it? We couldn’t find anything. All we saw was a prostitute going away with a truck driver at 10 in the evening. Day 9 – Antalya Our second day in Antalya was not as disappointing as our first day. We went to the beach, had a nice swim in the sea and sun-bathed. I even slept on the beach and woke up to see myself utterly tanned. In the afternoon, Somya forced me to go grab a bite as the scorching sun was burning her skin. We ate at a really, really nice café, ‘Big Yellow Taxi’, recommended by a friend. The location of the café made sense to us now. So, our hotel was a little off the main tourist spot. The party was here! After resting the entire evening in our room, we again went for dinner to BYT and were quite happy with Antalya by now. But, we had realized that Antalya was not a place that we couldn’t give a miss. And we had one full day still left in Antalya and we had no idea what to do with it. Ohh, I forgot to mention about the alteration in our plan. By the end of Antalya I was quite tired and was missing Istanbul terribly. So, I talked Somya into cancelling Cappadocia and going back to Istanbul for the last three days. She agreed because Cappadocia is far from both Antalya and Istanbul and we had to anyways go to Istanbul on our last day to catch our flight. We realized it would become very hectic. Moreover, Cappadocia is famous for its hot air ballooning, which is quite expensive. Now, as backpackers, we weren’t really looking forward to spending over 11,000 INR per person over a hot air balloon session. So, we decided to give it a skip and head back to Istanbul by a night bus. Day 10- Antalya We were clueless about what we would do in Antalya that day. So, keeping in line with our random acts, we boarded a local bus to the city and got off at a travel agency to book a bus back to Istanbul. Then we started walking towards a mall, which Somya had seen on the first day in the beach city while we were going to our hotel. On our way to the mall, we stopped at a small restaurant hidden away in some corner of a street for some cheap Turkish food. We had some mouth-watering meat with the best salad and were hosted by the most polite gentleman. The best thing about Turkish people is they do not understand your language but they will go out of their way to help you and make you feel comfortable. So after the Turkish food, which I miss terribly, we went to the mall. Basically we were just killing our time. We did some window shopping and went back to the travel agency’s office to catch the mini-bus to the bus station. And in no time we were headed back to our favourite city, Istanbul.

Anyalya is the Turkish Riviera and on the Mediterranean coast. It’s a thriving up to date city with a historic focus. A percentage of the Ottoman manors are being restored and there are new boutique inns appearing, adding more class to the city. Autos are not permitted in the downtown area, which makes for a charming environment. There is awesome mountain landscape, offering incredible perspectives of the coast. There truly is plenty to see and do in this district.