Antalya Old Town (Kaleici): A Walking Guide

Almost every visit to Antalya begins in the same place. Kaleici is the walled old town, a compact tangle of cobbled lanes, Ottoman houses and Roman monuments stacked above a horseshoe harbour. It is the one part of the city that feels nothing like a resort, and you can see the best of it on foot in a morning. This guide walks you through it in a sensible order, tells you what is worth stopping for, and explains how to get there and when to go.

Start at Hadrian's Gate

The natural entrance is Hadrian's Gate, a three arched triumphal arch in white marble built in 130 AD to mark the visit of the emperor Hadrian. It is one of the best preserved monuments of its kind anywhere, and it survived precisely because it was swallowed by the later city wall and forgotten, which kept it out of the reach of stone robbers.

Look down as you pass through. The original Roman paving is still there under a protective walkway, deeply rutted by cart wheels, and the grooves are a jolt: they are the actual traffic of a Roman street. Look up too, at the coffered ceilings of the three arches, where the carved rosettes are still crisp. The towers on either side are later, one Roman and one Seljuk, which tells you the whole story of the gate in one glance.

The clock tower and the fluted minaret

A short walk from the gate brings you to the clock tower, a stubby stone tower that was once a bastion in the old defensive wall and now serves as the unofficial meeting point of the old town. Just behind it rises the building that appears on every postcard of the city: the Yivli Minare, the fluted minaret.

Built in the 13th century under the Seljuk sultan Alaeddin Keykubad, it is a tall brick shaft divided into eight half round flutes, decorated with turquoise tiles that still catch the light. It is the symbol of Antalya and the oldest major Islamic monument in the city. The mosque and the surrounding complex, including a dervish lodge and tombs, form a quiet enclave a few steps off the busiest lanes.

Getting lost in the lanes

Between the gate and the harbour there is no route you need to follow. This is the part of Kaleici that rewards wandering: narrow lanes of restored Ottoman houses with projecting upper storeys, heavy wooden doors, bougainvillea over the walls and cats asleep on every step. Many of the mansions are now small boutique hotels, and their courtyards are open for coffee even if you are not staying.

Two things are worth noticing as you walk. First, the houses are built to a climate: thick lower walls of stone, timber upper floors that overhang to shade the street, and shuttered windows that pull air through in the evening. Second, the street plan is medieval, not Roman, so it curves and dead ends and doubles back. You will get briefly lost. That is the point, and the old town is small enough that you cannot get seriously lost.

The broken minaret and the layers underneath

Tucked in the lanes is the Kesik Minare, the broken minaret, and it is the single best illustration of how many times this city has changed hands. The building underneath began as a Roman temple, became a Byzantine basilica, was converted to a mosque, went back to being a church, became a mosque again, and finally burned in the 19th century, leaving the truncated minaret that gives it its name. It is not a grand ruin, but standing in front of it with that sequence in mind is worth the two minutes.

The old harbour

The lanes eventually funnel downhill to the old harbour, a horseshoe of water tucked under the cliff. This was the reason Antalya existed: a sheltered Roman port that traded along this coast for two thousand years, silted and neglected for much of the modern era, then restored in the 1980s into the marina you see now.

Today it is lined with cafes and the ticket desks of the boat operators. Trips run all day, from short cruises along the cliffs to the lower Duden waterfall to longer swimming trips, and the view back up at the old town from the water is the best single view in the city. Even if you do not take a boat, walk out along the mole and look back: the wall of Ottoman houses rising above the harbour is the image most people take home.

Hidirlik Tower and Karaalioglu Park

Climb back up on the west side and you come out at Hidirlik Tower, a solid drum of Roman stone on a square base at the edge of the cliff. Nobody is certain what it was: a tomb for someone important, a lighthouse, a bastion, or some combination. What is certain is the view. The tower sits at the corner of Karaalioglu Park, a long, well kept clifftop garden of palms and flowerbeds with the Mediterranean spread out below and the Bey mountains along the horizon.

This is where the city goes at the end of the day. Come an hour before sunset, walk the length of the park, and finish at the tower as the light goes orange over the sea. It costs nothing and it is the best free half hour in Antalya.

The Kaleici Museum and the Antalya Museum

If you want something indoors, the Suna and Inan Kirac Kaleici Museum is a restored mansion and adjoining Greek Orthodox church housing a small ethnographic collection and a good ceramics display. It is modest in scale and gives a clear picture of Ottoman domestic life in exactly the kind of house you have been walking past.

The much larger Antalya Museum is a short ride west and is one of the most important archaeological museums in Turkey, holding the sculpture from Perge. It is not in Kaleici, but it pairs naturally with a morning in the old town, especially in summer when an air conditioned afternoon is welcome. Our guide to what to do in Antalya covers both.

Eating and drinking in Kaleici

The old town has more restaurants per square metre than anywhere else in the city, and quality varies with how hard the place works to catch passing tourists. As a rule, the courtyards a lane or two back from the busiest routes are better value than the terraces with someone outside inviting you in. Look for a printed menu with prices, and be careful with fish sold by weight: agree the price of the actual piece before it is cooked.

What to try: meze to start, grilled fish or a proper kebab, and a glass of Turkish tea afterwards, which is often brought without being ordered. Rooftop terraces with harbour views charge for the view, which is fair enough once in a trip. Breakfast is a good reason to come back a second time, because a full Turkish breakfast in a shaded courtyard is one of the better meals of a holiday.

Shopping and haggling

Kaleici is full of carpets, ceramics, spices, sweets, jewellery and leather. Haggling is normal in the smaller shops and bazaars, and it should stay friendly: decide what a thing is worth to you, offer below it, and be willing to walk away without hard feelings. Fixed price shops exist and are usually labelled as such.

Good things to carry home are light and typical: tea, spices, honey, dried fruit, olive oil soap and Turkish delight. Be aware that exporting genuine antiquities is illegal, so anything sold to you as ancient should be treated with suspicion, while modern reproductions are entirely fine.

How to get to Kaleici

The old town is about 15 km from Antalya Airport, roughly 20 to 30 minutes by car depending on traffic. Your options:

• Private transfer: the easiest, especially on arrival, because the driver knows which lanes are closed to cars and where the nearest drop off point to your hotel is. Fixed price, met at arrivals.
• Tram: the Antray line stops near the old town and is cheap, though awkward with luggage.
• Taxi: quick for a short hop from the city, metered.
• On foot: if you are staying in the centre, Kaleici is walkable from most central hotels.

From the resorts it is a straightforward drive: around 20 minutes from Lara, about 35 from Belek, about 50 from Kemer. Fixed prices for every resort are on our destinations page.

A suggested half day route

1. Hadrian's Gate, looking down at the Roman ruts and up at the ceilings.
2. Clock tower, then the fluted minaret and its courtyard.
3. Wander the lanes without a plan, taking in the Ottoman houses.
4. The broken minaret, for the layers of history.
5. Down to the old harbour, out along the mole for the view back.
6. Optional short boat trip along the cliffs.
7. Up the west side to Hidirlik Tower.
8. Karaalioglu Park at sunset, then dinner in a courtyard.

Practical tips

• Flat, grippy shoes: the cobbles are polished and slippery in the wet.
• Carry water in summer, and treat the middle of the day as coffee and shade time.
• Carry some cash for small shops, cafes and tips.
• Dress modestly if you plan to enter mosques, and cover your head as a woman.
• Fix the price before eating fish sold by weight.
• Come back after dark. The old town is a different place in the evening.

Is Kaleici worth it?

Yes, and it is the part of an Antalya holiday most people remember. The beaches and resorts are excellent but interchangeable with other Mediterranean coasts. Kaleici is not: a Roman gate you walk through, a Seljuk minaret over Ottoman rooftops, a two thousand year old harbour still full of boats, and a clifftop park where the whole city goes to watch the sun go down. Give it a morning, come back for an evening, and it will do more for your sense of the place than a week on a sunbed.