Visitors to Side on Türkiye’s Mediterranean coast usually come for its Roman theatre and the columns of the Temple of Apollo. But a quieter layer of history is drawing growing interest: 115 Ottoman-era houses with projecting bay windows in Selimiye, the village that grew up inside the ancient city.
The houses, about 131 years old, were mostly built by the first generation of Turkish settlers from Crete, according to a report by the Türkiye Turizm news site. Most have now been restored by their third-generation descendants.
A refuge from Crete
Selimiye was founded in 1895, when Muslim Turks were brought from Crete to Antalya by ship after uprisings on the island during the reign of Sultan Abdülhamid II. The newcomers were settled in several villages around Side, including Kadriye, Muradiye, İhsaniye, Ahmediye and Selimiye.
The houses they built, with timber-framed upper floors and the bay windows known in Turkish as cumba, reflect the Ottoman civil architecture of the period. Today they host an apartment hotel, a guesthouse, a restaurant, carpet and jewellery shops and a souvenir store.
Mehmet Ergen, head of the Manavgat Side Craftsmen’s Association, told the site the houses had been restored in stages and now serve the tourism sector, adding architectural variety to a town known mainly for its Roman monuments. He said German tourists and other foreign visitors showed particular interest.
Tourism with a long history
Side’s role as a destination dates back to 1962, when the writer and diplomat Suat Şakir Kabaağaçlı began bringing intellectual visitors from the United States, Canada, Britain, Switzerland, France, Germany and Belgium.
The town, in the Manavgat district of Antalya province, remains one of the busiest resorts on the coast. Antalya’s main airport has already handled more than 30 million passengers in nine months, and autumn is also a good season for walking in the region, as outlined in our Lycian Way hiking guide. Visitors should check forecasts after this week’s storms on the southern coast.
Those considering a longer stay or a holiday home on the Antalya coast can compare locations in our guide to where to buy property in Turkey.
Sources
Photo: HALUK COMERTEL / CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
