Antalya Airport to Phaselis Beach transfer
Phaselis is not a single beach but three small bays belonging to an ancient harbour city between Kemer and Tekirova, all within a few minutes of each other along the site's paved main street. Pine forest grows to the edge of the water, so there is genuine shade at the back of every bay, and you swim with walls, column bases and the arches of the aqueduct in view. The shore is coarse sand and fine shingle, the water shallow and calm inside the headlands. For anyone staying on the Kemer coast, a swim and a ruined city come here in a single stop.
From a Kemer hotel the parking by the bays is about fourteen kilometres away, fifteen to twenty minutes: the D400 for most of it, then two kilometres of lane down through the pines. Tekirova and Çamyuva are ten to fifteen minutes, Kiriş fifteen to twenty, Göynük around twenty-five, Beldibi half an hour, Antalya and Lara close to an hour. From Belek allow an hour and a half, from Side close to two hours: a morning rather than an afternoon. Alanya, two and a half hours each way, is too far for a swim. The usual pairing is Tekirova and the Tahtalı cable car station. A coach arrives with the middle of the day; a car gets you to the north bay before it.
From the terminal it is 73 km, about an hour and five minutes, and the gate closes in the evening, so an afternoon landing leaves very little of it. A morning flight is different: with the cases in the boot, the bays are two minutes from the parking, and few places on this coast let you swim before you have even checked in. Then on to the Kemer hotel, fifteen to twenty minutes back up the road.
Visiting Phaselis Beach
Three bays, ten minutes of walking between the outer two, and most of the visit is deciding which one to stay in. The northern bay is the largest and the shallowest, the harbour bay in the middle sits at the end of the main street with the ruins immediately behind the sand, and the southern one is the smallest and usually the quietest. Most people swim in one, walk to the others and come back to the first. Three hours covers that comfortably, along with the main street, the theatre up the slope and the aqueduct arches at the northern end.
Underfoot it is coarse sand mixed with fine shingle, firm going in and gentle enough that the water stays at chest height a long way out inside the headlands. What is different here is what you swim among: column bases and harbour walls stand in the shallows at the middle bay, and stone that has been in the sea for two thousand years is smooth and slippery where you put a foot on it. The northern bay has the cleanest bottom for children, while the southern one shelves faster and picks up whatever swell there is.
The gate is what makes the planning easy. It closes in the evening, so the visit has an end that is not yours to choose, and that makes the pickup hour the simplest to name anywhere on this coast — although the hour itself moves through the year and should be checked before the car is booked rather than at the barrier. The car waits by the bays, a couple of minutes from where you swim. Tekirova makes the natural second half, or the cable-car station above it on a clear day, so Phaselis does not have to be the whole outing.
- The middle bay is the one with the ruins standing in the water; the northern one is the easiest with small children.
- Stone in the shallows is smooth and slippery, which is worth knowing before you walk in where the harbour used to be.
- Three hours takes in a swim in one bay, the walk to the other two and the theatre, which is most of what there is.
- The aqueduct arches at the northern end are a five-minute detour from the sand and the part of the site most people miss.