Driving the Taurus Mountains from Alanya: Sapadere and Dim Cayi

Behind the beach strip, the Taurus start at once

There is no transition in Alanya. The hotels stop, the D400 runs on, and the mountains are simply there behind the last row of buildings. Two drives take you into them, and almost every visitor with a car does one or both: Dim Cayi, the river valley with restaurant platforms built out over the water, and Sapadere Canyon, further east and a good deal higher, on a road that narrows as it goes.

Neither is difficult driving. Both are different driving from the coast road, and they go in the same order every time.

1

Turn off the D400

Both drives start on the coast road east of the centre. The Dim Cayi turning goes inland at Tosmur, a quarter of an hour from the harbour in normal traffic. For Sapadere you stay on the D400 past Kestel and Mahmutlar and turn up towards Demirtas, roughly 40 km out. The signs are small and brown and they arrive late, so slow down before you expect them.

2

Start climbing

The gradient begins within a minute of leaving the coast. Greenhouses and banana plantations give way to pine, the air cools, and the villages come with unpainted speed bumps that sit right on a crest. Third gear is the working gear on this stretch, and a small engine will want second more often than you expect.

3

Give way on the narrow part

Above the villages the tarmac shrinks to roughly a car and a half wide with blind left handers and no barrier on the drop side. Tour minibuses come down from mid morning. Local practice is simple: the car going down reverses to the last passing place, because the one coming up has the harder restart.

4

Park at the end of the road

At Sapadere the tarmac simply stops at a dusty car park under the pines, and the canyon boardwalk starts on foot from there. At Dim Cayi there is no car park at all: you pull onto the verge by whichever restaurant platform you like the look of, nose in, and walk down to the water.

5

Come down in daylight

The descent is the part that bites. Hold second or third and let the engine do the braking rather than riding the pedal for 20 minutes, and start back with light still in the sky. There is no lighting up here, no kerb, and the same minibuses are coming the other way.

Three drivers on the same two roads

“We took the Clio up to Sapadere with four adults in it and made it fine, but on the steep bit it was second gear and a lot of noise. I would pay the extra for the bigger engine next time.”

Jonas R. , Aarhus

“Dim Cayi was the easy one. Fifteen minutes from the apartment, tarmac the whole way, and we had lunch with our feet almost in the river. We did it three times in a fortnight.”

Natalia S. , Warsaw

“Nobody warned me about the minibus traffic coming down at midday. I reversed about 80 metres to a wide spot. Not difficult, just do not book the smallest car if reversing on a slope worries you.”

Chris B. , Leeds

The valley road and the canyon road

Car hire in Mountain Drives, Alanya, photo 1

Car hire in Mountain Drives, Alanya, photo 2

This is where the car class stops being a detail

For most of a holiday in Alanya the car you booked barely matters. The D400 is flat, wide and straight, the distances are short, and the cheapest thing on the list does the airport run, the supermarket run and the beach run exactly as well as anything else. The mountains are the exception, and it is worth saying plainly: this is the one part of the week where what you reserved makes a felt difference.

It starts with the engine. The climb above Demirtas is sustained rather than steep, which is harder on a small engine than a short sharp hill, because there is no run up to borrow from. A 1.0 or 1.2 litre car with four people and a boot full of towels will do it, but it will do it at high revs in second and third, and the air conditioning will be the first thing you turn down. Alanya is a Fiat and Renault town, with 32 Fiat Egeas and 13 Renault Clios in the hundred cars we last counted, so this is the realistic choice rather than an abstract one. If the mountain day matters to you, look at what is above the very cheapest row before you book.

Then the gearbox. On hairpins an automatic simply removes a job: you steer, you brake, and you are not also choosing a gear while a minibus fills the mirror. Of that same hundred cars, 39 are automatic and 61 are manual, so the second pedal is there but it is not the default and it is never the cheapest line in the list. Filter for it at the booking stage if you want it, because the automatics in the lower price bands are the first cars to disappear from the window.

And then the descent, which is the part nobody thinks about. Twenty minutes of continuous downhill braking in a small hatchback with a full load will cook the pedal and you will feel it go soft and long. The fix is free and it is in your left hand or your gear selector: hold a low gear, let the engine hold the speed, and use the brakes in firm short presses rather than a constant drag. Anyone who has driven in the Alps already does this. On a beach holiday it is easy to forget that the same rules apply twenty minutes inland.

What you cannot book here is a way around it. The live window for Alanya has no premium cars, no convertibles and no electric cars at all, exactly two cars that read as an SUV, and a single seven seater among 99 five seat cars. So a big diesel with a low range box is not on the menu and does not need to be. The real decision is narrower and more useful: a slightly larger engine, ideally an automatic, with brakes and tyres you looked at before leaving the car park.

What to sort before you turn inland

Four things are easy on the coast and awkward in the hills. All four take less than ten minutes if you do them in the right order, which is before the turning rather than after it.

Fill up on the coast, not in the hills

Fuel stations line the D400 and then more or less stop once you turn inland. Fill the tank before the turning, every time. Stations here are attended, so you stay in the car and either ask for a full tank or name an amount in lira, and a card is normally fine. Prices are quoted per litre in lira and they move, so read the pump rather than the last number you remember. A full tank is also what lets you run the air conditioning on the climb without watching the gauge, which is the point of filling up in the first place.

Carry your own water

There are shops in Demirtas and restaurants at Dim Cayi, and almost nothing in between. Village fountains are common but not something to plan a hot afternoon around. Two large bottles in the footwell cost almost nothing at a coast supermarket.

Download the map first

Signal comes and goes in the valleys, usually at the moment you want to confirm a junction. Save the area offline while you still have the hotel wifi, and glance at the route once before you set off so the turnings are already familiar.

Check the brakes and tyres at handover

The two minute walk around the car is worth doing properly if the mountains are on the plan. Press the brake pedal hard while stationary and feel whether it holds or sinks slowly. Look at the tyre tread on the inside shoulder, not just the part facing you, and check the spare is actually in the boot rather than a tin of sealant. These are the things a week of coast driving never tests and a single afternoon above Demirtas does. If something feels wrong, the time to say so is in the car park at pickup, while the car can still be swapped, rather than halfway up a one lane road with a minibus behind you.

Sapadere in a day