Antalya Airport to Konyaaltı Beach transfer
Konyaaltı is Antalya's city beach: kilometres of pale pebble under the Beydağları, with the mountains dropping into the bay at the western end and the cliffs below the old town closing it at the east. Pebble means clear water and no sand in your bag, but it also means water shoes help and a mat beats a towel. A wide landscaped promenade with cafés, showers and playgrounds runs behind the shore, and the aquarium stands at the eastern end. It is as much a place to spend an evening as a place to swim.
From Kemer, Beldibi or Göynük this is the nearest city beach: 25 to 35 km around the bay and 30 to 40 minutes, and the outing is usually a city day with a swim in it rather than a beach day. From Kaleiçi it is ten minutes or so; from Lara 15 km across town, 20 to 30 minutes, for clear water and a mountain view instead of sand. From Belek allow an hour, from Side a good hour and a quarter, and only as part of a day in Antalya. A car can stay for the sun going down behind the Beydağları, which a coach never does.
From the airport it is 22 km and about 25 minutes, but the road crosses the whole city, so the same run can double at six in the evening. As a first stop it makes sense only if you are staying in Antalya itself: there is nowhere to leave cases by the promenade, and every other resort on this coast lies the other way. Hotel first, beach after.
Visiting Konyaaltı Beach
This is a beach with two characters and no real middle. The western end, under the mountains, is wider and quieter and is where people come to swim; the eastern end, below the old town cliffs, is where the promenade, the crowd and everything else happens. Most visits are a half day or an evening rather than a day in the sun, and the best of it is the last two hours of light, when the sun drops behind the Beydağları and the whole shore turns to face it. In high summer the middle of the day belongs to the city rather than to the stones.
The pebble is graded: coarse and rounded at the back where people sit, smaller towards the water, and comfortable underfoot at no point. Two or three metres out the bottom pitches down more sharply than on the sand beaches east of the city, so swimming starts almost at once and there is none of the long shallow wading small children get at Lara. What you gain is water you can see your feet through. The promenade behind is level and planted, so unlike the open beaches there is shade a few steps up, on grass and under trees rather than anywhere on the shore.
Inside a city the question is not whether the car waits but where it meets you, since a driver can come at any hour and the difference between a five-minute and a twenty-five-minute pickup is simply which end you are at. The aquarium stands at the eastern end and the old town on the cliff above it, so the beach can be the swim in the middle of a city day rather than the day itself. The western end gives you the mountains and the clearest water and very little else within walking distance, which is fine if that is what you came for.
- The bottom pitches down quickly a couple of metres out, so this is a beach for swimmers rather than for paddling.
- The shade is up on the planted promenade and not down on the stones, which is where the middle of the day goes.
- The sunset drops straight down the bay from here, so the last two hours of light are the ones to plan the visit around.
- The two ends are effectively different beaches: mountains and swimming in the west, the aquarium and the old town in the east.