Side → Pamukkale Transfer

Side to Pamukkale private transfer

The bookings for this one come almost entirely out of the hotel belt around Side — Kumköy, Evrenseki, Çolaklı, Titreyengöl — from people who spend the fortnight inside an all-inclusive and pick one day to leave it. The excursion sold at the hotel desk runs to a timetable somebody else set, works round the other resorts first and gives part of the day to stops the itinerary includes rather than ones you picked; a private car starts when your family is actually awake and stops nowhere you did not choose. The other bookings are one-way: on to Denizli, or the reverse leg for people who sleep up there.

At 305 km and about four hours, this is the middle distance of the three, and the first 45 minutes are still the sea: the D400 west through Serik and Aksu, past greenhouse plastic and the airport turn-offs, then round the back of Antalya. Only there does the car turn north onto the D650, and from that junction the coast is finished for the day. The climb takes you through Bucak into real farming country, with Burdur's lake below the road and then the flat white glare of Acıgöl, before Denizli hands over the last 20 km up to the village. The resort junctions and the city ring road cost more time than the mountain does.

• Four hours each way is eight hours of driving in one day, which is why many families split the trip and sleep in the village or at Karahayıt — say so when you book if that is the plan.
• One of the four hours goes on getting past Antalya alone: a seven o'clock pickup from Çolaklı is not the same day as a nine o'clock one.
• Shoes come off at the edge of the travertines and stay off, so sandals you can carry in one hand beat trainers with laces.
• The theatre and the necropolis of Hierapolis are up on the plateau above the terraces, and most of the walking on this trip is that climb rather than the pools.