Çolaklı → Side Transfer

Çolaklı to Side private transfer

Çolaklı is built for staying in. The resorts along its beach are big, mostly all-inclusive properties with restaurants, pools and entertainment inside the walls, and a week can go by without anyone walking out of the gate. That is usually the plan, right up to the evening someone wants a dinner that is not a buffet, a stroll with something old underfoot, or a view of the sea from somewhere other than a sun lounger. Side old town covers all three on one small peninsula: harbour restaurants, a colonnaded street running through the ruins, the Temple of Apollo at the tip. It is close enough for a night out and just far enough that nobody sensible walks there.

The drive is 10 km and takes about 20 minutes. From Çolaklı the car heads east on the road that runs parallel to the shore, behind the hotel fronts, so for most of the way the sea stays out of sight. It goes through Kumköy, where the resorts give way to shops, bars and apartment blocks, and Kumköy runs without a break into the northern edge of Side. The last stretch follows Side's entrance road to the car park beside the bus station, where vehicles have to stop, because the old town is closed to them. From there you walk in past the agora and the Roman theatre. Around sunset the queue on that entrance road is the one slow part of the trip.

• Settle the return time when you book the ride out, because an evening in Side is easy to start and hard to end, and a pickup agreed in advance beats hunting for a car at the edge of the old town late at night.
• If you would rather the driver stayed for you than came back later, ask for waiting time when you book; it is arranged with the booking, not on the night.
• Pick a meeting point you can find in the dark, such as the car park by the bus station where you were set down, since once the shutters come down the old town's lanes are hard to tell apart.
• The Temple of Apollo is at the opposite end of the peninsula from the drop-off, so if the sunset is the reason for going, leave Çolaklı early enough to walk the whole old town first.