Belek → Side Transfer

Belek to Side private transfer

Belek was built as a set of self-contained resorts: the golf, the beach and the buffet are all inside the grounds, and there is little to walk to outside the gate. That is exactly why this leg fills up in the late afternoon. Guests want an evening somewhere with streets — the marble columns at the tip of the peninsula as the light goes, fish in the harbour, the bazaar lanes, a bar that is not the hotel bar. Others go for the market and river boats at Manavgat, and there are always a few who have had enough of the buffet and want a table with a menu and a bill at the end of it.

Your car comes to the resort lobby, out past the barrier and five kilometres north through the pine woods to the D400 at the Belek junction. From there the transfer from Belek to Side runs east across the plain: Boğazkent, the Köprüçay bridge, cotton and citrus as far as the Gündoğdu and Çolaklı hotel strips. The last part is the slow part — the highway narrows into a shop-lined approach and the final kilometre crawls on summer evenings. Allow 45 km and about 45 minutes outside the peak. Coming back late the highway is quick; the unlit resort spur is taken gently.

• Side's old quarter is closed to cars in season, so the drop-off is at the edge of it and the theatre, the temple and the harbour are all a short walk from there.
• Book the return leg at the same time as the outbound — finding a car outside the ruins at eleven at night is the hard part of the evening.
• Resort security will ask which entrance you are at, so agree the main lobby rather than a beach or spa gate.
• If you are heading for the weekly market or the waterfall at Manavgat rather than Side itself, say so when booking: it is a few kilometres further inland.