ReviewsAlanya
What people say once they have driven the D400 themselves: the run in from Gazipasa, the climb into the Dim valley, and what a week of car hire on this coast actually costs.
We landed at Gazipasa rather than Antalya, so the drive to the apartment was about forty five minutes on the D400 instead of the best part of two hours. The car was waiting when we walked out of the terminal.
Manual cars far outnumber automatics on this coast, so reserve the automatic weeks ahead or you will end up with the gearbox you did not want. Ours was a Fiat Egea and it took the climb to Sapadere Canyon without fuss.
Twenty six euro a day in late September for seven days, which is about what the listings promised. Nothing was blocked on the card, and that was the only reason we booked at all.
The road up the Dim valley is narrow and slow in places, and it was the whole reason we wanted a car. We were back down in Mahmutlar before the evening traffic filled the D400.
We stayed a month in Mahmutlar and the car paid for itself on the weekly shop alone. In August we learned to use the inland streets rather than the seafront, because the strip backs up every evening.
Manavgat and the waterfall one morning, Side the next, both straightforward runs west on the D400. We stopped where we wanted to stop instead of where a coach stops.
Six of us needed a seven seater and there is next to nothing that size on this coast, so we took two small cars instead. It worked out cheaper in the end, but do not assume the bigger car will be there.
We come down from Ankara every summer and now hire for the week here rather than driving our own car the whole way. Picking the car up in Kestel rather than at an airport also saved us the run back along the D400 on the last morning.
Tell the next visitor what you actually paid, where you collected the car and whether the road you drove was worth the morning. Short and specific beats long and polite.