Our visit to Side was the first time we had visited not only this area but also Turkey, we had a fantastic holiday and it was full of history and fantastic places to visit. Here is a view of our visit.
The beautiful town of Side sits on the Med coast of Southern Turkey. It lays between the provinces of Antalya and Alanya, around 1 hour from Antalya airport.
Side is full of historical places to visit and there are a lot of Roman ruins which are there to visit and take lots of photos of. There are new ruins being discovered daily and being architecturally dug to be show the old Roman outlay of this beautiful town.
Side town has a number of reasons to visit, if not just to see the ruins but also to shop. The town has a variety of shops, bars and restaurants which are surrounded by history. The shops sell everything from Turkish delight, spices down to all the latest designer clothes and bags. there are even leather shops there if you want to purchase a new leather jacket or bag. The bars and restaurants offer a wide variety on the menu from a full English breakfast to a traditional Turkish meal or kebap.
Some of the bars offer a seaview or you can sit around the harbour while dining or having a cold Efes and take in the beautiful scenery around. Side town and bars can be tranquil in the day and ideal for sitting and relaxing watching the world go by whilst drinking a cold beverage, but at night side comes alive with tourists who want to shop. The bars also become more lively. There are also nightclubs in the old town too, karma and Liman are worth checking out for the party atmosphere. The streets become a sea of tourists from early evening until late at night.
What else does Side town have to offer?? the ancient ruins are a must see while staying in the vicinity of Side. The journey into Side town is full of things to see. Whether you go by foot, by taxi or by the train which takes you from the bus station into the ancient town.(no public vehicles are allowed to drive into Side). There are ruins which stretch from the bus station into the old town. You may also see ruins around the hotels or while travelling around. Due to the area once being an ancient city so they are not just isolated in Side. (we learnt this from the locals here).
If you choose to walk into the town you can veer off and discover the ruins of things like the hospital and houses which are all displayed on a map for you to see the outlay of the ancient town/city. If you choose to stay on the main road into the town you will be greeted by the ampitheatre and the arch into the old town. Aswell as the museum. (The Ruins are illuminated at night and are totally breathtaking). Once you enter into Side town there are relics covered by glass floors for you to walk over. Drop down the main street into the harbour area and you will see the beautiful Apollon Temple to the left of the harbour. You will not be disappointed at all.
We visited the city of Manavgat on Market day, the market is on here on a monday and a thursday. Here too like Side town you could literally buy anything from spices to suitcases. lots of stalls selling clothes, bags and shoes.
We also booked some trips and went to see Green Canyon which was a breathtaking paradise, we did a boat trip down along Manavgat river then out onto the open sea. The trip price included the price of a meal but not the drinks. We also had time to swim out at sea by jumping off the boat. Make sure you take your suncream because you may be open to the sun for a while. but we really enjoyed it.
There are other places which are accessible from Side with tour operators e.g Pamukkale and Cappadocia (these places are now on my wish list after watching a few vides of the places.) But apparently you need to spend more time in Side to visit other beautiful historical places nearby.
Side is also surrounded by other areas which host a various of star rated hotels, these areas are Kumkoy, Ilica, Colaki and Evrenseki. There are also other places that branch away from Side but can be reached either by taxi or a dolmus (small minibus).
The above named places also host a vast number of restaurants from a normal turkish pizza restaurant, grill restaurants or restaurants that have a wide variery of meals on their menus to cater for everyone.
A few places we have visited include Cihan pide which is not just full of tourist the Turkish citizens also visit here. The food is good and reasonably priced and the service was great, a place I would revisit.
Another good place to visit is Kribit kasap restaurant, the meat you order is cooked fresh while you wait, again the service is good and the price is resonable. They also do a dinner time menu deal too. This place gets quite busy so you may wait a while for your food. This place is great for the meat lovers.
Also a restaurant/bar that I visited was Corner bar, the menu had a variety of food to offer on their menu. The food was great and again the prices were reasonable. This place was also busy and they also knew people by name which was a great feeling. Due to this becoming a local for the people who lived around it. the atmosphere felt like a family bar with a great service. i will definetly recommend this to others.
We also found a little community of its own just off the main road behind Arnor deluxe hotel. There was a few boutiques, shoe shop, market, money exchange office,tour operator and a restaurant.
The restaurant in this area was Hawaii restaurant, they had a wide variety of food on their menu including gluten free meals. The restaurant has a small play area for young children and a football table. The staff were really friendly and the service was fantastic. The food was the best we had tasted in the week we had been in Turkey. We ordered steak, and a pizza for the children. We could not fault this meal or the service we recieved. Plus the free starter was a bonus, fresh made Lavash bread and dips (the bread that puffs up). While we were eating some people were sat watching F1 on the tv, and another family came in to see if the football that night was being shown. To their delight it was. They also had people ordering meals to take away and while they waited they offered them a drink. All the service, the price and the atmosphere of this place was all positive. So before we left we booked for their BBQ party on the friday night, which let me say for 270 lira and eat all you can was awesome. We attended the BBQ and it was a fun packed night with street acrobats, staff dance and then karaoke if you wanted to sing. We made a few new friends at this restaurant and will definitely be visiting again when we return in sept.
The area we stayed in was quite close to Side. Anywhere could be easily accessed by dolmus and taxi. The best thing about Turkey is if you would like to go look at a hotel while walking the majority of the hotels will invite you in and give you a guided tour.
We browsed a few hotels of different star rating while there.
Firstly Side square hotel which was on the main roundabout next to McDonalds and this hotel looks well from the outside, it also is 1 km away from Side old town and 450 metres away from the beach. This was a 4 star hotel. The inside was just as nice as the outside. The pool had plenty of sunbeds and the hotel also offers a free shuttle bus to the beach.(the kids loved this due to McDonalds being 10 meters away).
Around 200 meters on the same road was another hotel Side Resort which was a 4.5 star hotel, this was quite busy so didnt ask to go and look around but it looked very nice from what we could see from the road. The pool area also sounded quite busy as we passed. So I would imagine the hotel is popular to many tourists.
Walking along the same road, which you can access the beach was the next hotel we encountered. Arnor deluxe, this is a 5 star all inclusive and recently built hotel. We had the opportunity to have a quick tour around this hotel and there were a lot of tourists in there, this hotel had slides for the children and had its own stage for the entertainment. The rooms were very clean and some rooms had a sea view. The restaurants in this hotel looked amazing.
Just to the side of Arnor was another hotel Armour hotel this looked amazing from the outside, we didnt ask to go in for a tour because from what we could see the reception area was quite busy and the restaurant which was to the side of it was full. This hotel looks very nice. We got to see the pool of this hotel due to visiting a little hotel behind it. Safari Suite Hotel, this hotel is a quaint small one building hotel with a bar at the front/back then a walk way down to the pool area. It looked very clean on first impressions and the pool area had a few tourists around it, there were also a swallow pool for the children. We were shown 2 apartments which varied in size.
The first apartment we looked at was a 3 bedroom apartment which would accommodate a family, one of the bedrooms has an on-suite bathroom and a double bed. The other 2 bedrooms were also a double and 2 single beds. This apartment had a kitchen, Dinning area and a lounge.It also had another bathroom for everyone to use. What we liked about this apartment was the balcony was big and there was a dinning table outside too. (from this balcony we could see Armours pool which looked impressive too). We could sit outside on the balcony and see the children in the pool.
The second apartment we viewed was a one bedroom apartment. This too had a dinning area, kitchen and seating area, along with 2 balconies.The bathroom consisted of a shower, wc and a sink.
My view on all the hotels we browsed around was that here in Side they cater for all types of people with the hotel consept. Whether you want to stay in a 5 star all inclusive or a family run hotel Side caters for these needs.we all fell in love with the this beautiful picturesque town called Side. Therefore on our return we booked again for September in the safari Suite hotel.
This beautiful area of Antalya is definitely worth a visit, just to see the pure history and beautiful scenery surrounding it.
0 Comment