Side → Selge Transfer

Side to Selge private transfer

Selge is the outing for people who have already seen Aspendos and want something well away from the coach circuit. The ancient city sits high in the Taurus above Köprülü Canyon, and what is left of it is woven into the village of Altınkaya: a large theatre cut into the slope, field walls and vegetable plots running between Roman blocks, houses standing on the old stadium and built partly from its stone, and scattered remains of temples and an agora on the hill behind. There is no row of buses at the gate and no crowd to move with. It is quiet, it fills a whole day, and most visitors pair it with the canyon and the old Roman bridge that the road passes on the way up.

On paper it is 80 km and about 70 minutes of driving, and the second half of that clock is the slow half. From Side the car heads west on the D400 towards Antalya, then turns north at the Köprülü Canyon junction into farmland and pine-covered hills. The road follows the river up past Beşkonak and the rafting bases on its banks, reaches the single-arched Roman bridge at Oluk, and from there narrows and climbs in tight bends between strange towers of eroded rock. The theatre only comes into view near the top. Nobody rushes this stretch, and nobody should; a pause at the canyon on the way up simply moves lunch a little later.

• Leave Side early in the morning: the climb is slow, the ruins have little shade, and a day with a canyon stop in it fills up faster than the map suggests.
• Altınkaya is not a place to go looking for a ride back, so settle the return before you set off; waiting time or a pickup at a fixed hour can be arranged when you book.
• Say at booking whether you want to stop at the canyon and the bridge at Oluk, so the plan for the day leaves room for both.
• Wear proper shoes and bring water and a light extra layer, because the ground among the ruins is rough and the mountain air is noticeably cooler than the beach.