Antalya
10/08/2025 - 10/13/2025
We had an early flight from Tbilisi Georgia to Antalya Turkey which meant we had to get up at about 5:30 to catch our 6:15 Bolt ride to the airport. Getting up early is NOT my thing as anyone who works out with me can tell you. Particularly Colleen and Emma! The day I retired I literally abandoned them for our early morning workouts from that moment forward! The nice thing about leaving so early was we arrived at about 10am and had the full day in Antalya (except the part where I needed a little nap! 😊)
Antalya is on the Mediterranean on the southern coast of Turkey. We left fall like weather in Georgia and were greeted with glorious cloud free summer weather in Antalya. It was beautiful every day we were there!
The town has a great old town area right on the water with mountains in the distance, cool winding cobble stone streets, lots of vendors, and some really good restaurants. We loved just wandering the old town and eating in restaurants on the water!
Being on the coast, Antalya boasts great seafood, which, theoretically should make me very happy. But I gotta be honest, these seafood cases at the door of every restaurant made me want to go full on vegetarian! Get ready Emma… I have a feeling we will see a lot of the same when you visit us in Vietnam!!
The main entrance to the old town is Hadrian's Gate which was built in honor of the Roman emperor Hadrian, who visited the city in 130 AD – yes, this thing is from the 2nd century and much of it is original!
We visited two mosques during a walking tour and learned just enough to demonstrate how ignorant we are! We had to take off our shoes and I had to cover my hair, which I am getting pretty used to that after the Orthodox Christian churches in Georgia (Emma – find yourself a decent scarf, it will be the same in Vietnam!). There were washing facilities outside for Muslims to wash prior to entering for prayer. They must follow specific steps: wash hands, rinse the mouth and nose, wash face, then forearms, then wipe the head, the ears, then wash or wipe the feet. It must be done in order without any big breaks.
Most of the Mosques had previously been Christian churches, so they were emptied and a false wall was constructed in the front angled to face Mecca. Carpet is installed with stripes to align with Mecca for prayer, and a separate space is blocked off and designated for women since they can’t pray with the men. They pray a minimum of five times a day, starting before dawn. The times shift slightly each day based on sunrise/sunset. Throughout town, you can hear “call to prayer” broadcast through loudspeakers from the minarets as a public announcement that it is time to pray. It is a chant that sort of sounds like eerie music. The chanting is called ezan and the man who makes the call to prayer is called muezzin.
Anyone who knows me, knows I am not very religious (at all), so the whole thing was kind of weird to me in a bit of a fascinating way. Except being woken up every morning before sunrise to the sound of the call to prayer… that part was straight up irritating. I seriously thought that all the locals took this serious and would stop what they were doing out in the community to pray (or at least be silent or something). Not so… as we were walking around town and call to prayer started, I was immediately looking around like a fool to see what everyone was doing. They were doing exactly the same thing they had been doing prior to call for prayer – smoking cigarettes, playing on their phones, talking, eating, goofing off, etc. No praying, no silence, no turning to face Mecca. Nothing. I guess they only worry about call to prayer if they are at home or in the Mosque – or when it’s convenient.
We visited a waterfall on the outskirts of town that all the travel sites and YouTube videos raved about. We were kind of unimpressed. But we snapped a few photos and walked a little ways and found an oceanside hotel restaurant that we were very impressed with! Stunning views, great food and wine, and a beautiful setting! We had a bite to eat and some wine and relaxed in the sun. It was much better than the waterfall! We are returning to Antalya in March with Erin and Colleen… hopefully we can make a stop here. Colleen will love it! We will show them the waterfall also since it is so close! 😊
We spent our final full day in Antalya at the beach. It was fabulous! We haven’t had a beach day since May with Kelly and Andrew down at Ocean Isle, so we were really happy to plunk our ever expanding butts on the sand and chill for the day! We bought a couple cheap, thin (but cute and packable) beach towels in town and took a taxi about 20 minutes to a really nice public beach. The sand was more like super tiny pebbles which I admittedly liked because it didn’t stick to me. We paid a few dollars to rent lounge chairs for the day, and we were super close to a public bathroom with real toilets and a beach bar/restaurant that had really good food and served wine in real wine glasses. What more could we ask for!!
We sat on the beach until early evening, then walked down the coast a bit and found a beach restaurant for sunset and dinner. It was a perfect final day!
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