Side → Köprülü Canyon Transfer

Side to Köprülü Canyon private transfer

A rafting day on the Köprüçay is why most people book this car. The river comes down out of the Taurus through Köprülü Canyon National Park, cold and clear even in August; the rafting camps line its banks around Beşkonak, and a little further upstream the single Roman arch of Oluk Köprüsü spans the gorge. The coach version of the day starts at dawn with a slow collection round of one hotel gate after another, and after that the whole group lives on one timetable. Going independently from a Side hotel, you leave when the family is ready, you choose the camp yourself, and the bag of dry clothes rides in the boot rather than under a seat on the bus.

Sixty kilometres, roughly 55 minutes, and the coast is only the start of it. The car takes the Side access road up to the D400 and turns west across the plain, past the turnings for Evrenseki, Çolaklı and Gündoğdu, which lie on the sea side of the highway. Short of Serik it leaves the D400 at the Taşağıl junction and heads north, inland, and from there the scenery changes: the farmland of the plain gives way to pine-covered hills, the valley narrows, and the road follows the Köprüçay upstream to Beşkonak, the bends tightening towards the end. From the hotels in Sorgun or Titreyengöl, on the coast just east of Side, the pickup adds only a few minutes before the car is on the same road.

• Pack a complete change of clothes, a towel and a bag for the wet kit: changing at the camp before the drive back to Side beats sitting in a car in soaked shorts.
• Rafting is booked directly with the camp, so tell us which one you chose; they are strung out along the river and the driver needs a name, not just "Beşkonak".
• The booking covers the drive up; if the car should wait through the day or come back for you at an agreed hour, arrange it when you book, as almost nothing passes through the valley to pick you up.
• If someone in the group is not rafting, the Roman bridge and the platforms over the water are a better place to spend those hours than a camp car park; mention it beforehand and the drop-off can be planned around both.