Visiting Antalya

I hate to admit this, but I always try to be honest about my trips. I visited Antalya at the end of a long journey and found myself being incredibly lazy. It’s a beautiful city with plenty to do, but after spending weeks traveling through Iran and other places, I was perfectly happy doing almost nothing for a while. Most of my time was spent outside enjoying the weather, and during one evening walk I took the photo above of Antalya’s coastline and mountains.

I didn’t do many tourist activities here, with one major exception. Mostly I just enjoyed being outside, wandering around the city, and taking advantage of the perfect weather. Of course I still had to eat, and Antalya had no shortage of restaurants. I didn’t dine at the one above, but it looked like a good example of the many attractive places to eat around the city.

Old Antalya

One of the most interesting parts of Antalya is its old quarter, known as Kaleiçi. This is where you’ll find narrow streets, historic buildings, and some of the city’s most important ancient remains. Much of the area reflects centuries of Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, and Ottoman history.

Below the old city is Antalya’s historic harbor, which has been used for centuries. The setting is especially impressive, with boats filling the small bay while old buildings rise along the cliffs behind it. There was clearly much more history here than I managed to see on this trip, so Antalya is definitely somewhere I’d like to return and explore properly.

Antalya Aquarium

Other than its history and natural scenery, one of Antalya’s most memorable attractions for me was the aquarium. Nearly every section seemed to have its own theme, with elaborate decorations surrounding the tanks. Some areas were designed around shipwrecks and pirate treasure, while the display above included a World War II-era aircraft.

Another section used an Egyptian theme, with elaborate decorations surrounding the aquariums. The effort put into the different environments made the aquarium feel more like a themed attraction than a simple collection of fish tanks.

The aquarium is especially known for its enormous underwater tunnel. Walking through it gives you views of the fish from above and both sides, which was a completely different experience from looking through a normal aquarium window.

Maintaining a place this elaborate obviously isn’t cheap, so the admission price was closer to what you’d expect in Western Europe or the United States. I still thought it was well worth visiting. The aquarium has multiple levels and a huge variety of marine life. Above is one of the larger eels I saw during the visit.

Smaller tropical fish were displayed in cylindrical tanks like the one above. Looking back, it’s funny that the aquarium ended up being the one attraction I explored thoroughly during a trip when I otherwise spent so much time doing very little.

Antalya is one of those places where I clearly left a lot unfinished. Between the beaches, old city, historic harbor, nearby ruins, restaurants, and surrounding mountains, there was far more to see than I gave myself time for. The upside is that I now have plenty of reasons to return.