Antalya Airport to Hadrian's Gate transfer
Hadrian's Gate is a triple arch of white marble set into the old city wall of Antalya, raised for the emperor's visit in the second century and later walled up inside the defences, which is largely why so much of it survived. Three barrel vaults stand side by side beneath a coffered ceiling, with a tower of a different age at each end, and a few steps below the modern pavement you can see the Roman road surface with cart ruts worn into it. It is the formal way into Kaleiçi from the boulevard, and walking through it takes a minute.
The airport is 16 km away and the drive takes about 20 minutes, all of it inside the city: out of the terminal, along the airport road and then in through Muratpaşa between apartment blocks and shopping streets. Nothing on the way is scenic and nothing on it is difficult; the variable is the hour, because the same 16 km takes half as long again when the offices open and when they empty. The gate stands where the boulevard meets the line of the wall, and that is as far in as any vehicle goes.
Visiting Hadrian's Gate
Standing under the arches is the whole of it. You look up at the coffers of the vaults and the rosettes cut into them, down through the railing at the ancient street three or four steps lower than where your feet are, and sideways at the two towers, which are visibly not one building with the gate or with each other. Five minutes covers it, fifteen if you photograph it properly, and then you have to decide which way to walk. That is the real question the monument puts to you, because the whole of the old quarter begins on the far side.
The marble threshold has been polished by a great many feet and is genuinely slippery when wet, and the steps down to the level of the ancient road are shallow and uneven. Coaches unload on the boulevard through the middle of the day, so there is a queue in front of the arch from late morning until the afternoon; early and late it is quiet and the marble takes the colour of the low sun. Under the vaults there is shade and on either side of them glare, which makes a summer afternoon more bearable here than at most open-air sights in this city.
Nobody books a car to see an arch, and we would not suggest it. The gate is the start of half a day on foot: through it into the lanes, down to the Roman harbour, back past the clock tower, with Karaalioğlu Park a few minutes south along the same boulevard for the view over the bay. So the sensible arrangement is a drop-off here and a pickup at an agreed hour somewhere else, rather than a driver idling at the kerb. If the weather has broken, the Antalya Museum is a few kilometres west and fills two hours indoors.
- Five minutes for the gate and half a day for what lies behind it is the proportion to plan around.
- The marble underfoot is worn to a shine and slick after rain, and the steps down to the Roman road level are uneven.
- You see the arch without a crowd early in the morning and late in the afternoon; the middle of the day belongs to the groups.
- Karaalioğlu Park is a short walk south along the boulevard and the Roman harbour a short descent through the lanes, so settle the route before you get out of the car.