This post is about our short exploration road trip across a little part of Turkey. We did sleep well thus not starting early. It was 10am when we hit the road. When I asked car rental office guy about the driving culture in Turkey before, he answered “it is crazy”. I will follow up on Turkish driving style later.

Parking adventures

Apollo’s temple was the second pin point on our day trip, we visited Manavgat waterfall for the start. While Manavgat waterfall was a quick place to visit and take some pictures, arriving to Side town ruins was a bit of adventure. Things started in car park, when the guys did not speak a word of any languages I knew, cars were parked by blocking other cars, and they were just picking up car keys and 10TL banknotes without issuing any receipt, nor taking a note which car is yours, nothing. I was cautious and hesitated, while an old man said something that sounded like “If you don’t like – you can go” – I guess that was old man’s suggestion in Turkish, however the car was already blocked by few other cars, which left no other option.

Apollo’s temple

As we were approaching a little port near the Apollos temple, there were few men were insisting to go on a boat trip for everyone passing by. 5€ per person they said and that was for 1h trip with a small ship. Why not? We went for it and did not regret. We saw the beaches around as well as remains of Apollo’s temple. Then after we continued exploring by foot and driven by some kind of senses ended up in a really good restaurant. I promised to myself to leave a five stars review on the Google Maps for that place called “Liman Restoran”, just checked it – it is literally rated 5.0 stars already! Professional staff and amazing food there so that we did not even take a picture!

Driving in Turkey

We were travelling further to Alanya passing by a number of spectacular hotels on the way. And it is worth mentioning the wonders of traffic and Turkish driving culture. We did rent a small car, but that is not the case here. At first you try to follow speed limits, but then get confused when sign limit says 50kmh and everyone is passing by as if you were standing… then you start thinking maybe they meant 50mph? Yes, speed limits are ignored in this country, as well as lanes and road marking is just unnecessary distraction – most of people drive where they want to go and no lanes, sometimes even nor traffic lights nor other traffic participants matter. Turn signal – what is that? 🙂 You get what I mean… And one of the wonders of traffic that got stuck in my mind: roundabouts with 4 traffic lights while around it. Seems easy to mess up and exit while the red light!

Alanya beach walk

The sun was slowly sliding down the horizon thus bringing some nice golden light to the pictures. There we had a nice walk in Alanya beach while trying to keep un-dragged into the sea by the rolling waves. It seemed a perfect location before turning around and heading back to our hotel town.

I let my blog post be followed by photos below.