Kale (citadel)

Kale (citadel) Review

Views of the splendid castle or kale, on a mighty crag surrounded on three sides by the sea, dominate all roads into Alanya. The crenellated outer walls are 7 km (4 mi) long and include 146 towers. The road pierces these outer walls through a modern break, and heads up to the summit divided into two, one to the Iç Kale (inner fortress) and one to the Ehmediye; both have places to park. Alternatively there is a regular city bus to the summit, which allows you to walk up or down through the old city's residential area, starting or ending at the Kizil Kule; it's a hot walk in summer, though.

In the center of the castle are the remains of the original bedestan (bazaar), whose old shops are now rooms in a lackluster hotel, with the not very original name, the Bedestan Hotel. Along a road to the top of the promontory, a third wall and a ticket office defends the Iç Kale (Keep). Inside are the ruins of a Byzantine church, with some 6th-century frescoes of the evangelists. Keykubad probably also had a palace here, although discoveries by the McGhee Center of Georgetown University—itself in a beautiful old Ottoman mansion perched on the cliff-face between the first and second ring of walls—indicates that in times of peace the Seljuk elite probably preferred their pleasure gardens and their hunting and equestrian sports on the well-watered plain below. Steps ascend to the battlement on the summit. A viewing platform is built on the spot where condemned prisoners and women convicted of adultery were once cast to their deaths. The ticket is also valid for the Ehmediye area, past the 17th-century Suleymaniye Camii, where a small citadel is built on the foundations of classical walls. Admire the ruined monastery down below but do not attempt to descend toward it—the mountainside is very treacherous.