Antalya Airport to Alanya Shipyard transfer
The Tersane is the Seljuk dockyard cut into the rock at the foot of Alanya's castle hill: five stone bays opening side by side onto the water, deep enough for a galley to be laid up under cover, built for Alaeddin Keykubad I two years after the Red Tower that guards them. Inside, the vaults run back into the cliff and the sea washes up the slipways; the arsenal tower stands at the far end. It is the only Seljuk shipyard still standing anywhere, and it is a hundred metres or so along the shore from the tower.
The drive is the standard Alanya run — 128 km and about 105 minutes from the airport on the D400 — and nobody makes it for the shipyard alone; it comes attached to the tower, to the castle, or to a day in the town. The detail worth knowing is the finish. No road reaches the bays. The car stops on the harbour front and the last few hundred metres are a walkway along the base of the castle rock, at sea level, with water on one side and stone on the other. That short walk is the whole difference between this arrival and every other one in Alanya.
Visiting Alanya Shipyard
Twenty to thirty minutes is the visit, and most of that is spent inside the bays. You walk along the front of them and then into them: the vaults go back into the rock, the temperature drops as soon as you are under the arch, the light behind you is glaring and everything ahead is shadow and green water. The floor slopes towards the sea and is wet and slippery where the swell reaches. From the mouth of a bay you look out at the harbour with the tower at the end of it, which is either where you have just come from or where you are going next.
Because it is at sea level and mostly under stone, this is the one thing on the Alanya headland that is comfortable in the middle of the day: the bays stay cool when the quay is unbearable. What is not comfortable is the walkway there and back, open and treeless, so morning or late afternoon still makes the whole trip easier. In rough weather or a winter swell the sea comes further into the bays and the wet part of the floor is bigger than usual. It is quieter than the tower as well — the coach parties climb, photograph and move on.
This is a short stop and it should be booked like one. Twenty minutes here, forty at the Red Tower and the walk between them add up to just over an hour, so a driver who waits about two hours on the harbour front, agreed at the time of booking, leaves time for a table on the quay too. What turns it into a day is the castle on the hill above, a separate drive up the rock, and then a fixed pickup hour makes more sense than waiting. If you are choosing between the two neighbours rather than doing both: the tower is a climb with a view at the top, the shipyard is level ground, cool stone and the sea at your feet.
- Twenty to thirty minutes covers it and there is nothing to climb — this is the level half of the harbour visit.
- The floor in the bays slopes to the water and is slick where the sea reaches, so keep children away from the open end.
- Take the walkway early or late: it is the exposed part, while the bays themselves are the coolest place on the headland.
- The Red Tower is a hundred metres back along the shore, and the two are normally seen on the same visit, in whichever order the heat allows.