Antalya Airport to Side by private taxi

On a hotel voucher the single word “Side” covers a lot of ground. In the strict sense it is the rocky peninsula with the ruins, the harbour and the small town that has grown up among the columns. Around it lie two beaches that run away in opposite directions: the west beach, which carries on without a break into Kumköy, and the east beach, which bends towards the pine woods of Sorgun. Two hotels that both put “Side” in their name can be a twenty-minute drive apart.

• Inside the old town — small pensions and boutique hotels in narrow, car-free lanes, most of them a few minutes on foot from the harbour or the Temple of Apollo.
• West beach — a long line of mid-sized and large hotels on wide sand, with the old town gate close by for those at the eastern end and a proper walk away for the rest.
• East beach — calmer, with bigger gardens; the temple columns stand at one end of the bay and Sorgun’s trees close the view at the other.

All three cost the same from the airport. What helps us is the exact name of the hotel or pension, because it decides which roundabout the driver takes and where the car can pull in.

1. 1Off the main roadAfter the Aspendos junction and the turn-offs for Çolaklı and Evrenseki, the car leaves the D400 at the Side junction, a short way before Manavgat, and turns south towards the sea.
2. 2Through the newer townA few kilometres of shops, apartment blocks and roundabouts follow. Cars heading for the beach hotels peel off to the west or the east here; everyone else keeps straight on.
3. 3Between the ruinsThe last stretch passes remains of the ancient city wall and the monumental gate, and the curved back of the Roman theatre fills the windscreen. It is a strange, rather wonderful way to arrive at a hotel.
4. 4At the car parkOrdinary traffic stops at the car park by the ancient walls; the peninsula beyond is pedestrian. The driver unloads here and points you towards your lane, or towards the little road train that shuttles people down to the harbour.

Sixty minutes is the honest figure for most of the year. The road is the D400 the whole way, a divided highway with traffic lights in the towns, and the slow points are predictable: the junctions around Aksu just after the airport, the Serik stretch, and the approach to the Side and Manavgat turn-offs, where tour coaches and local traffic meet.

From June to October, Saturday is the day most package hotels swap one week’s guests for the next, and the whole coast seems to be on the move at once. Plan on roughly twenty extra minutes on Saturday afternoons. Night arrivals are the opposite story: a plane that lands after midnight usually puts you at the city walls in well under the hour, with the theatre lit up and the car park nearly empty.

None of this touches the fare. It is fixed at €50 for the Economy van when you book, whatever the clock or the traffic does on the night.

For a typical international flight, airlines like you inside the terminal two to three hours before departure, and Antalya adds a security scan at the terminal doors before you even reach check-in. With an hour of driving on top, that means leaving Side about three to three and a half hours before your flight. On a summer Saturday, lean towards the later of those numbers and set off a little earlier.

Send us the flight number and departure time, and we suggest a pickup time back; you can move it if your hotel’s checkout or your own instincts say otherwise. Guests staying inside the old town meet the driver at the same car park where they were dropped, which is easier for everyone than trying to find each other in the lanes.

“The last evening in Side is for the temple at sunset, not for worrying about a taxi at five the next morning.

Many people staying on the beaches spend their evenings on the peninsula: the Temple of Apollo and Athena at the tip, where half the town gathers for the sunset, the harbour restaurants, the shops along the main lane and the 2nd-century theatre. A short local ride brings you from the hotel to the car park at the gate and back again later, at a price agreed before you set off. Message the driver when dinner is over and the car comes back.

Daytime, the museum in the old Roman baths is worth an hour, and the boats in the harbour run trips along the coast. Further away, we drive guests to the theatre at Aspendos, to Manavgat for the Monday market or the waterfall, to Antalya’s old quarter of Kaleiçi and along the coast to Alanya. The driver can wait while you look round or come back for you at a set time.