Fethiye → Side Transfer

Fethiye to Side private transfer

This is the leg where the cases have already been unpacked twice. Some passengers have just stepped off a gulet at the harbour and have a week on the Side strip before the flight home. Others landed at Dalaman, spent the first half of the holiday over the ridge at Ölüdeniz or walking around Kayaköy, and want a longer beach and an all-inclusive for the second. The third group is flying out of Antalya rather than Dalaman, which turns the distance into an early start in the dark. In every case it is a single crossing rather than an outing, and it takes up a travelling day.

Leaving Fethiye, the whole climb is still to come. The road follows the Eşen valley up to Seydikemer, then works through pine forest into the Elmalı basin, where the plateau is a different country — hay fields, apple orchards, cedar along the ridges — and the pass at about 1,100 metres arrives sooner than you expect. From Korkuteli the D350 drops towards the Antalya bowl and the sea reappears all at once. Then it is the D400 eastbound: the Aksu junctions, Belek, the Manavgat plain and the turning for Side. Reckon on 3 hours 50 for the 295 km, with morning mist up top and Antalya's afternoon traffic as the two brakes.

• For a flight from Antalya rather than Dalaman, plan backwards from the plateau and not from the map — this drive is calm when it starts early and tight when it starts late.
• A pickup in Ölüdeniz, Ovacık or Hisarönü begins with the hairpins up to the ridge, so allow about twenty minutes more than a departure from Fethiye itself.
• In January the Elmalı plateau can be foggy or under snow while Fethiye stays mild and green, which matters more for the departure time than for the clothes.
• Leave late in the morning and you cross the Manavgat plain in the heat of the day; set off early and you are at the Side reception around lunchtime instead.