Luxury hotels in Belek

Belek guide

Belek: golf and the ancient cities of Pamphylia

Turkey's golf capital, a long Mediterranean beach, and the theatre of Aspendos nearby.

Belek, east of Antalya on the Turkish Riviera, is known as Turkey's golf capital, with championship courses among pine forests, and its long sandy beach is a nesting ground for loggerhead turtles. Golf is the most cited reason to go, at its best in spring and autumn.

The Roman theatre of Aspendos, one of the best preserved in the world, and the ancient cities of Perge and Side are close by. Antalya's old town, Kaleiçi, and the waterfalls of Düden are within half an hour, and the beach season runs from May to October.

Aspendos and Perge

The theatre of Aspendos, built in the second century, is one of the best-preserved Roman theatres in the world and the most cited cultural sight near Belek, about twenty minutes away; it still hosts an opera and ballet festival in summer. Remains of a long Roman aqueduct cross the plain nearby.

Perge, closer to Antalya, has a colonnaded street, a stadium and Hellenistic gate towers, and its statues fill the Antalya Museum, one of the best in Turkey. Side, with its Temple of Apollo by the sea, is half an hour east.

Antalya's old town and the Düden Falls

Kaleiçi, the walled old town of Antalya, about forty minutes from Belek, is one of the most cited excursions from the coast: Ottoman houses with wooden balconies, the marble Hadrian's Gate built in 130 and a Roman harbour now filled with boats.

The Lower Düden Falls plunge from a cliff straight into the Mediterranean, best seen from a boat. Inland, the Köprülü Canyon national park offers rafting and a Roman bridge, and the ruins of Termessos lie high in the mountains.