Until a little over ten years ago, Alanya was a sleepy coastal town but these days it is one of the Mediterranean coast’s major resorts, a booming and popular place which has expanded along its sandy beaches. Careful management has ensured that the town remains relatively unscathed by the tourism development, but nonetheless Alanya relies heavily on the often-fragile support of its foreign visitors.

It is thought that Greek colonists, who named it Kalonoros, or “beautiful mountain”, founded Alanya. In the second century BC Cilician pirates began using the town as a base to terrorize the Pamphylian coast. Eventually the Romans decided to put an end to the activities of the pirates and sent in Pompey, who destroyed the pirate fleet in a sea battle off Alanya in 67 BC. In 44 BC, Mark Anthony gave the city to Cleopatra as a gift. Romantic as this might sound, there was a practical reason for his choice: the area around the city was an important timber-producing centre, and Cleopatra needed its resources to build up her navy. In 1221, the Byzantine city fell to the Selcuk sultan Alaeddin Keykubad, who gave it its present name and made it his summer residence; it is from this period that most buildings of historical importance date.

Most of old Alanya lies on the great rocky promontory that juts out into the sea, dominating the modern town. The Red Tower: - a 35 meter-high defensive tower of red stone which was built by Alaeddin Keykubab in 1225 and restored in 1951, houses an ethnographic museum. Old wooden houses cling to the slopes above the tower, and you can follow the old coastal defensive wall along the water’s edge to the Tersane, an Ottoman shipyard, consisting of five workshops linked by an arched roof. Alanya castle is a huge fortification system, with walls snaking right around the upper reaches of the promontory. The inner fortress is pretty much intact and in the north-western corner there is a platform giving fine views of the western beaches and the mountains. It originally served a point from which prisoners were thrown to their deaths on the rocks below. These days, tour guides assure their wards that it is customary to throw a rock from the platform, attempting to hit the sea rather than the rocks below – an impossible feat supposed to have been set for prisoners as a chance to save their necks.

A visit and climb up the Red Tower built in 1226 by Sultan Alaatin Keykubat (of the original Aladdin’s Lamp fame) reveals splendid views of the old harbor, shipyards dating form the Seljuk and early Ottoman perios and a museum of art and local artefacts. Perhaps you will see a picture of the original Aladdin’s Lamp.

The “Cave of the Dripping Stones” is a stalactite- and stalagmite-filled underground cavern with a moist, warm atmosphere said to benefit asthma sufferers. This large series of caves (about 300 meters long) was discovered by construction workers in 1996.

Lunch will be at a trout farm over the water. Lovely!