Alanya
Alanya View on the Kızıl Kule
- Red Tower
When I first visited Alanya back in
1982, it was a sleepy coastal town with only a handful of hotels. Now it has become one of the major resorts
of the Mediterranean coast and is a booming and popular place for
package-holiday tourists. For independent travelers like us, we would
rather skip
it entirely if it weren't for the great views. However, the dizzying
scenery from the İç Kale fortress, the old district with the Kızılkule
and Tersane were just enough to hold us here for one day.
Little is kwown about Alanya's early
history. It is thought that Greek colonists founded the town. In the
second century BC Alanya was known as Coracesium and Cilician
pirates used it as a basis to strike the Pamphylian coast. The pirate
chieftain Diototus Tryphon had his castle built on the top of the
mountain. Eventually the pirates were defeated by the Romans in 67 BC.
During the Byzantine period the town was named Kalonoros
meaning "beautiful mountain". In 1221 the Seljuk sultan Alaeddin (Alaaddin)
Keykubad I conquered Kalonoros and renamed it to Alaiye,
which means "City of Ala" , after himself (Ala Eddin). After the
declaration of the Turkish republic the name of the city changed finally
in Alanya.
We stayed one night in Hotel Temiz,
Iskele Caddesi 12,
(Tel. +90-(0)242
- 513 10 16). conveniently
located in the old town on walking distance from the Kızılkule.
The hotel was indeed very clean (Temiz means clean) and had comfortable
nicely decorated rooms with air-con, television, and breakfast at about
$20 for a single. The hotel's staff was very friendly and helpful. Hotel
Marina Beach was also a friendly place where we had a cool beer and
brandy. These being the nice places we discovered, we had one pretty bad
experience in a place called Pandarosa. It called itself a restaurant but
turned out to be more like an amusement park for package-holiday tourists.
If you don't enjoy the staff throwing ice at you, while having your dinner
then stay away from this place.
Click on the thumbnails to get a greater picture
