Belek → Perge Transfer

Belek to Perge private transfer

From a Belek hotel, Perge is the ruin that sits on the way to somewhere else. It lies just north of Aksu, between the resort coast and the city of Antalya, so a visit there never means doubling back: the car can carry on into town afterwards, or turn round and have you at the pool by lunch. The site itself is broad and level, a Roman city laid out on open ground near the river the ancients called the Kestros, with a stadium, a pair of round Hellenistic towers at the inner gate and a long avenue of columns leading towards the acropolis. Very little of it casts shade. The hours just after breakfast are when the stone is still cool enough to enjoy.

Door to gate it is 25 km, roughly 30 minutes. The car leaves the resort strip through the pines and the golf courses, meets the D400 and heads west towards Antalya. Before long the highway crosses the Aksu river on its way to the sea, and the fields on either side fill with greenhouses. At the edge of Aksu town the driver turns off to the north, and within a couple of kilometres the walls and towers appear across the flat ground. A split day works well from here. Perge takes the cool of the morning; a second leg continues into Antalya, for Kaleiçi and a shaded lunch or for the museum where the statues found at Perge are now displayed; a later pickup brings you back to Belek.

• Book the pickup for soon after breakfast and carry water and a hat, since the avenue, the agora and the stadium are almost entirely in the open.
• For a split day, mention all three parts when you book, Belek to Perge, Perge on to Kaleiçi or the museum, and the ride home, so the onward leg and the return pickup are arranged together.
• If Perge is your only plan, a waiting time can be arranged when you book, which has you back at the hotel before the hottest part of the afternoon.
• For the return from Antalya, agree on a pickup point outside the old town walls, because a street just beyond them is far easier for a car to reach than a lane inside Kaleiçi.