Konyaalti Holidays

No holiday to Turkey’s complete without a long strip of beach for you to flake out on. And the district of Konyaalti – on the outskirts of Antalya – doesn’t hold back. It’s perched by a four-mile-long, sand-and-shingle belt, so there's heaps of room to sunbathe. The water here’s cooler than at a lot of the other nearby beaches, thanks to an underground creek that flows into the sea – perfect for cool-down dips in the summer months, when the temperature hits over 25^oC.

Getting to Antalya’s history-and-shop-filled centre’s a piece of cake, as Konyaalti’s linked to the rest of the city by a tram line. Within 30 minutes’ travel, you can be standing in front of Antalya’s pride and joy, the 40-metre-tall Grooved Minaret, or strolling through the old quarter’s Ottoman-era alleyways – they’re stocked with traditional eateries and bars.

Point your binoculars behind Konyaalti and you’ll spot a row of jade-green hills, the tallest of which – Tunektepe – peaks at 618 metres tall. There’s a cable car that can take you from sea level to the summit in nine minutes, serving up Instagram-worthy views of the city and the coast throughout the journey. There’s a revolving restaurant at the top, too, where you can admire the scenery while tucking in to some authentic Turkish fare.