Beaches and Mountains in Turkey
 

I previously posted that I was taking a Rick Steves tour for turkey. Well, plans have changed. Once I was ready to book, my sister called to say she wanted to join me and then the next day another call that her husband will also join us. I am now planning a Sept trip for the 3 of us, all with different interests. So, there is some compromise in order. They don't want to do alot of driving or spending alot of time traveling from palce to place, so I want to minimize moving as much as possible.

My sister wants the beach, my brother in law the mountains and I want Istanbul and Cappadocia. Sister is thinking she wants to go to Rhodes as our third stop. When I look at getting there, it seems like it would take a long time (fly Cappadocia to Istandbul to Bodrum and then ferry to Rhodes). I'm wondering if it makes more sense to go the the Turkey side of the Mediterranean, except the reports I've read here do not make it seem that enticing. What is the nicest place in Turkey along the Mediterranean that would be near the mountains and not umbrella-to-umbrella beach coverage. Does this make more sense than Rhodes. It seems that all this cuts out is the ferry, which I'm thinking will create less stress with making connections.

Oh, yea and sister needs a pool in hotel. Was looking at Hotel Sapphire in Istanbul. Has anyone stayed there?

Thanks for any advice or alternatives you can offer.

Cappadocia has mountains (see pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca/...7622933537559/ ). While even the Turkish coast where we visited, near Ephesus, is hilly, I would not consider it mountainous for those who seek mountains.

You are a saint, go without them! good luck!
I agree, bil should be satisfied with mts in Cappadocia, but I don't know much about coast.
maybe turkeytravelplanner.com can help.

The best mountain-beach combination is in the region to the West of Antalya, starting at Beldibi and continueing with Goynuk, Kemer, Camyuva and Tekirova to Cirali and Olympos.

Cirali is very laid back and sedentary, Olympos is for the young and the wild.

Kemer is the bigger resort with both the advantages and the disadvantages.

The mountains come almost directly to the sea in Beldibi and Goynuk, all covered densely with pine forests giving off a terrific smell. There is a Renaissance in Beldibi which gets very good reviews.

For someone who loves mountains, there are hikes and jeep safaris in the region, and also the terrific antique city called Termessos on the mountains Northwest of Antalya.

The beaches are rather pebbly in the area except for certain bays in Kemer (where the terrific Club Med Kemer is located) and Camyuva (Kiris)

In these areas most of the beaches have holiday villages, many with bungalows on them. The smaller hotels will not have their own beach front. All the big and small hotels and holiday villages will have pools.

Especially second half of September will be good because the school year will have stated and the weather would have cooled a bit but with the sea temperatures about 78-80F

There are is one airline with regular flights from Cappadocia to Antalya in the summer.

if you are staying only 4-5 days in the area, it may make sense to rent a car at Antalya airport, because your transfer costs may be actually more than two days rental costs.

Unless you enjoy a fast night life, i do not recommend Bodrum.

The fastest ferry route to Rhodes is from Marmaris, and Marmaris and its satellites like Icmeler, Armutalan and Turunc are extremely crowded resorts.

The areas i recommended will have the lowest tourist density per square mile, very beautiful, blue flag beaches, and incredible mountain scenery.

For more adventurous souls, who had already been to some of the mentioned areas, i would have also recommended Silifke/Tasucu and Anamur also for a budget holiday but long distances from airports.

Depending on how many days you have, i suggest 3-4 days in Istanbul, 3 days in Cappadocia and a guided tour for two of those, and hopefully enough on the beach to soak up the sun and fresh air with some boat, or jeep, or antiquity excursions thrown in.

Thanks for your response. Michael-I enjoyed your pictures and bookmarked your trip report to read later. It is so hard to see the perspective on the mountains. In some places, it looks like you will need ropes to climb them and in others they look like hills. Are there hiking trails?

yorkshire--I have become a student of the turkey travel planner (TTP) and spend much time there and have learned alot.

I travel with my sister and BiL quite frequently. They let me do all the planning. As long as I continue to throw in some mountains and a beach, its all good.

otherchelebi--I have spent several hours checking out your suggestions. I looked at the Renaissance and Club Med--they are quite pricey. Cirali looks wonderful. Getting into some of the websites in very slow work, but it gives me a new area to focus on. I checked every Turkish airline listed in the TTP looking for the airline with the direct flight from Cappadocai to Antalya, but was not able to find it. Do you recall which one it was?

So far the plan is to stay 4 or 5 nights in three places and probably to get a car in Cappadociia and the beach stay.

<i>Are there hiking trails?</i>

I have no idea, but they definitely qualify as mountains in my book, just look at the snow at the top.

okay, dump question. You and yorkshire have convinced me there are mountains.

The airline which flies from kayseri to Antalya is Sunexpress, and it is very reasonably priced, but may get booked up fast.

kayseri is one of the airports which serve Cappadocia. The other airport is Nevsehir which is closer but smaller with fewer flights.

regarding Cirali, unfortunately there are no hotels directly on the beach, but within easy walking distance. some like Hotel Canada will even loan you bikes to cycle to the beach. The beach is wide and has restaurants and cafes under the trees. There is a pleasant very local village and lots of small fruit and veggie landholds around the village.

cirali has a unique eco system. Its lush valley has trees and plants not always found together in other parts of the Mediterranean. You can have hikes to Olympos and the ever-burning fires of the Chimera on the beach or longer ones towards the highway.

But, for hikes up the mountain trails, you would need to find a guide (they can be found) because the mountains are young mountains and very densely forested, so easy to get lost.

The necessary hike up from the parking lot to the top of th mountain at the antique city of termessos should be fun, especially if you can get off the beaten path and discover your own ruins, as long as you can navigate in and around the bushes.

Do not forget to take a can of 'OFF', which is available in Turkey at pharmacies and supermarkets, or its Turkish equivalent, "SINKOV". It also helps to start taking an antihistamine ,like Claritine, a few days before your trip to protect you against most types of allergies, dust, pollen, sun, bugs, food, wasps, mosquitos, etc.

The only mountains in Turkey which are as magnificent as the ones in the Antalya region, are those on Eastern Black Sea. Just to satisfy your curiousity, have a look at areas like, Kasgar, Sumela Monastery, Borcka, Macahel, Savsat, Artvin, Yusufeli, Barhal, Ovid, Uzun Gol.

The mountains around cappadocia are older ones, Erciyes, in Kayseri is a skiing resort. Hasan dag, to the South is an interesting stand alone mountain although the land does rise in between to about one mile, with an interesting pass which we traversed just after it was opened up on the 30th of March from Nevsehir to Nigde three years ago. (had been closed since mid December)

Also, you probably know this already, but though not in "mountains" per se (though as you know now there are some in the area), the trails in Cappadocia are magnificent--in particular the Ihlara valley and of course among the fairy chimney rock formations there are many fine walks.

Otherchelebi--you are not making cirali sound very charming and certainly not like the typical European vacation. The prospect of dense forests to get lost in would appeal to my BiL. It reminds me of a trip to Belize where they handed us a machete for the vines when we went for a night walk thru the jungle. The hotels looked a bit too rustic, so I'll check out some of the other nearby areas you mentioned.

Unless we can find that direct flight out of Cappadocia area, I doubt we would get down that way, but I will pass this info along. I checked the Sunexpress site and still don't see a direct flight, but their website is a bit funky and doesn't work well. I have contacted a Turkish travel agent as suggested by TTP, but they are slow in responding and I'd like to get this figured out.

I check out the areas you suggested in my Turkey travel guide (an old Lonely Planet version from the library) and it barely lists those places. From what I can tell on the map, they are way too far east for this trip. Maybe the next one??

Yorkshire--Cappadocia is sounding more and more appealing. I thought that would be the area they would balk at, but I might have to allocate another day.

thanks for the advice.

Yorkshire: I just read your posts over on the Greece site about Crete. That's funny because a place like Crete is what I have in mind for our third stop--Mountains and Beach. We loved Crete! It does take a week, tho and we never even left the Chania area.

You mentioned airfare. When I flew to Athens (3 yrs ago?), Delta flights went on sale (Feb/March) and I paid $600 from Boston, sister paid $500 from NYC. I keep looking for those same fares to appear. Any day now......

jackie,

it is unfortunate that i seem to have difficulty providing info or advice on this thread.

i am sure that some previous international travelers will give more of what you need, rather than a local traveler.

i hope you handle the respomsibility heaped on you by two other travelers well.

Otherchelebi--I really appreciate the information you provided. Antalya is an area I am researching. Cirali looks appealing and not a place I would have discovered on my own. I contacted the travel agency about purchasing plane tickets and finding that direct flight there from Cappadocia since I couldn't find it on my own. I don't understand your post.

Jackie, I understand your desire to minimize travel time from place to place (and I forget how many days in total you plan to spend on the trip), but we flew from Cappadocia to Izmir on a connection through Istanbul and it wasn't bad at all. The connection time was short and the flights were on time. I'm wondering if Rock Valley Travel in Urgup might be able to help with flights. They were wonderful to work with and they have a website. I also used turkeytravelplanner.com extensively when I planned our trip.

As yorkshire mentions, there are some trails in Cappadocia that are beautiful and might very well satisfy your bil. Have you googled Ihlara Valley? The pictures might help you I can't imagine going to Turkey and not seeing that area of the country.

Ellen

Thanks Ellen, I will check out Rock Valley for the flights. Cappadocia and Istanbul are definite, its the third leg of trip I am working on.

We used Pegasus for a cheap flight from Kayseri to Istanbul.

I forgot to add: Pegasus lands on the Asian side of Istanbul, and unless you are willing to take the airport bus or public transportation, the cost of the taxi should be factored into the total cost of the flight compared to a flight that lands on the European side. I explain what happened to us in my trip report.

Michael I saw those $25 flights on Pegasus and read your experience with vans. I have been in touch with Rock Valley and put the flights into their hands. I found the direct flight from Cappadocia to Antalya on the Rock Valley site. So, the Antalya region looks like a go for our last leg.

We saw no vans on the domestic side of the airport, so that is really not an option when arriving from Kayseri.

In case someone with similar interests stumbles upon this thread, I wanted to follow-up with what I learned about flying into the coast from Cappadocia.

I checked with the travel agent and learned there are no direct flights to Antalaya from Cappadocia. There is an early morning flight through Istanbul that will put us there at 10:30 am. As an option, I also asked about direct flights to Dalaman, which is closer to Marmaris and Fethiye. Again no direct flights, but we could get there in the same amount of time as flying to Antalya.

I read a wonderful trip report by Lemon Lady that convinced me that Cirali was a good destination for us. So that is the plan and everyone is on board. Considering either Hotel Arcadia or Hotel Canada for the 4-5 nights we will be there. I asked about the need for the car and was told one wasn't necessary, but should we decide to do so, we can rent one nearby.

I calculated the air fare to fly from Istanbul to Nevashir to Antalya and back to Istanbul. The cost on Turkish Air is $235 out of the main airport. It was worth it to play around with the travel days looking for the best fares and times. Also, I checked with several hotels and they typically offer a 10% discount for cash payments.

Thank you all for your help.

We've been to Cirali and Antalya.... just make sure that you realize that with Cirali you are choosing a tiny "village" which you'll preferably need a car to access. On the other hand, with Antalya you are choosing a modern city but one that has mountains and a beautiful beach (with mountains in the background) but you also would probably prefer a car too. Antalya also has some very nice waterfalls and museums.

Another area to consider is Fethiya/Oludunez/Kaya Koy. It has mountains, beach and the old village of Kaya Koy for history. There is also an all inclusive hotel (I think it was German) with a pool and mountain setting--- Green Forest. Beautiful hotel!