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The Antalya Cliffs, Walking on the World's Widest Tufa Plateau

Anyone who sees Antalya for the first time from the sea or from a plane notices the same thing.

Radar TürkiyeRadar Türkiye15 Ekim 2026
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The Antalya Cliffs, Walking on the World's Widest Tufa Plateau

Anyone who sees Antalya for the first time from the sea or from a plane notices the same thing. The city sits on top of a yellowish rock wall that drops straight into the Mediterranean, and that wall runs unbroken for kilometres from the Konyaaltı bypass to Lara. Locals simply call it the falez, the cliffs. On top there are parks, walking paths and viewing terraces; below there are wave-cut caves, small coves and beaches reached by wooden platforms.

This article looks at the cliffs from two angles. First we look at the rock itself: what it is, how it formed, and why it should be called tufa rather than travertine. Then we turn to how to walk along it, which viewpoints look where, which season and hour are best, and why you need to be careful near the edge.

Not Travertine but Tufa

For years the rock Antalya stands on was called travertine. A paper published in 2006 in the journal Carbonates and Evaporites by Nihat Dipova of Akdeniz University and Vedat Doyuran of Middle East Technical University argues that the name is wrong. Travertine is a deposit of hot-water origin; in Dipova's own example, Pamukkale is travertine. The rock in Antalya was precipitated in cool or ambient-temperature fresh water with the help of living organisms, and that kind of rock is called tufa. The difference is not just a matter of naming; the porosity, strength and internal cavities of the rock all follow from that origin.

The mechanism works like this. Groundwater filtering through limestone is loaded with calcium carbonate and carbon dioxide. When the water reaches the surface and the pressure drops, the carbon dioxide escapes and carbonate begins to precipitate. In Antalya there is a second factor: algae, bacteria and mosses in the water take up carbon dioxide during photosynthesis, which triggers precipitation. Dipova and Doyuran write that even today lime crusts grow around the mosses in the Düden River. When the moss rots away, its shape remains in the rock; the porous, sponge-like texture you see on the cliff face comes from this.

The scale is astonishing. According to the same paper, the Antalya tufa plateaus cover an area of more than 630 square kilometres and reach a thickness of 270 metres in places; the authors describe this as the largest known tufa deposit in the world. A 2012 study by Erdal Koşun of Akdeniz University, published in the same journal, gives 630 square kilometres and a thickness of 280 metres. In a statement to the press in January 2026, Dipova said that the most widespread tufa rock in the world is in Antalya, and that the coastal cliffs are unique in the world as tufa sea cliffs.

The Water's Path from Kırkgöz to the Sea

Who carried all that lime? The answer is the Kırkgöz springs north of the city. The Jurassic and Cretaceous limestones of the Beydağları are a typical karst landscape, full of hollows, sinkholes and caves. Rainwater passes through this limestone, re-emerges at Kırkgöz and descends to the Antalya plain saturated with carbonate. According to Dipova and Doyuran, this cluster of springs is the source of the tufa, and precipitation begins around the springs themselves.

The water's present-day route is interesting too. According to the Culture Portal page on the Düden Waterfall, the waters of two large karst springs at Pınarbaşı flow a short distance, then sink underground at the Bıyıklı sinkhole, travel about 14 kilometres below ground, surface at the edge of the Varsak depression, sink again and reappear 2 kilometres later at Düdenbaşı. The Upper Düden Waterfall is at exactly that point. The same page notes that even when no water is visible on the surface, at least 10 cubic metres per second pass beneath the falls.

Four Plateaus, One Stepped City

Antalya is not built on a flat plain but on steps that descend toward the sea. Dipova and Doyuran list these steps as four terrestrial plateaus: Döşemealtı at 150-300 metres, Varsak at 60-150 metres, Düden at 30-60 metres and Arapsuyu at 0-30 metres above sea level. A fifth plateau lies under the sea, reaching down to a depth of 90 metres. The authors note that until the 1980s the city stood on the Varsak plateau, and that today only the Düden plateau is still active, meaning tufa is still being deposited there. The same paper also records that tufa has been used as building stone since the city was founded by Attalos II, king of Pergamon; look closely at the walls of Kaleiçi and you will see the same porous texture.

On the question of age, two studies support each other. Dipova and Doyuran report that significant tufa deposition largely ceased before the Middle Pleistocene and that the rock is more than 600 thousand years old. Koşun's study gives ages of at least 380 thousand years by the thorium-uranium method and ages down to 3,560 years by carbon-14; in other words, the oldest layers of the rock formed hundreds of thousands of years ago, while its youngest crusts formed within human history. The steps themselves, according to the paper, are not a construction but a product of erosion: as sea level rose and fell, the waves gnawed at the plateau and left the present terraces behind.

The cliff itself erodes the same way. Dipova and Doyuran describe the retreat cycle of the coastal cliff step by step: waves cut a notch at the base, rock dissolves and caves form in the zone where fresh water meets salt water, tensile cracks open at the top as the base weakens, a prism-shaped block separates and finally topples. Once the waves break up the fallen block, the cycle starts again on the wall behind it. The caves beneath the cliff and the large boulders scattered along the shore are the visible traces of this process.

Where the Düden Pours off the Cliff

The most photographed point on the cliffs is where the Düden River drops into the sea. According to the Culture Portal, the river divides into two main canals at the Koyunlar regulator and, about 9 kilometres later, east of the city, pours into the Mediterranean over a threshold roughly forty metres high. Known locally as Karpuzkaldıran, this waterfall is eight kilometres from the city centre in the direction of Lara; the cloud of mist the falling water raises over the sea can be seen from far away.

Geologically this is a special spot as well. Dipova and Doyuran write that the cascade deposits on the coastal cliffs of the Düden plateau can be made out from 6 kilometres away. Curtains of moss form at the edge of the fall, the carbonate-rich water leaves inclined crusts over these curtains, and over time tufa curtains grow hanging from the rock; blind caves and stalactite-like forms develop behind them. According to the authors, this is why the Düden plateau is the section most resistant to cliff retreat: the new rock left by the cascade balances or exceeds what the waves carry away. So when you look at the waterfall, you are watching erosion and rebuilding at the same time.

Starting the Walk at Karaalioğlu Park

The best place to begin a walk along the cliffs is Karaalioğlu Park, just south of Kaleiçi. According to a study published in the Journal of Bartın Faculty of Forestry, the park stands on cliffs 35-40 metres above sea level and is one of the first parks of the Republican era; construction began in the mid-1930s, and the project that gave it its present form was commissioned from the architect Necmettin Ateş between 1940 and 1945 under the leadership of Governor Haşim İşcan. The park's dead-straight walking axes end at the cliff edge in viewing terraces known as miradors. In the open space in front of the terraces lie the gulf, the Konyaaltı shore to the west and the Beydağları behind it; in winter you can see the snowy peaks of the mountains and the blue of the sea in the same frame.

At the western end of the park stands the ancient Hıdırlık Tower, overlooking the harbour; from around the tower you can watch the harbour mouth and the line of the cliffs running west. The road down from here to the marina also shows you the steps of Kaleiçi descending to the shore. If you start the walk early in the morning, the park's terraces are still empty and the light brings out the green of the sea rather than the yellow of the rock.

Along the Old Lara Road

From the eastern side of the park, the cliff line continues along the old Lara road. With works announced by Muratpaşa Municipality in 2022, the walking and cycling path along this roughly 5 kilometre stretch from Erdal İnönü City Park to Düden Park was separated from vehicle traffic and the walking surface was covered with rubber. Along the way the numbered Falez parks, benches and viewpoints follow one another; on this part of the coast the sea is always on your right, and every hundred metres you see a different face of the rock.

The best surprise on the route is the beaches at the foot of the cliff. The municipality runs them under the names Erenkuş, İnciraltı and Konserve Koyu; Erenkuş is reached from Aziz Sancar Park on the old Lara road, and İnciraltı can be reached by lift. The beaches are wooden platforms built at the base of the rock; when you enter the water here the cliff face rises directly above you, and you see at close range the notches cut by the waves and the vertical cavities inside the rock. Dipova and Doyuran write that these cavities are common along the sea cliffs and that their width is mostly measured at around one metre. At the end of the walk, Gençlik Park next to Düden Park is, in the Culture Portal's words, the ideal viewing point for the waterfall; for those who want to see the falls from the sea, boat tours are organised nearby.

Season and Hour

The most comfortable months for a cliff walk in Antalya are autumn, winter and spring. At midday in summer the rock reflects the sun, there is little shade and the 5 kilometre stretch feels longer than you expected; in those months choose the first hours of the morning or sunset. In winter, after rain, the Düden carries more water, the waterfall's cloud of mist grows, and when snow falls on the Beydağları the view from the Karaalioğlu terraces is at its best. Our cover photograph was taken on exactly such a February day, looking from the top of the cliffs toward Konyaaltı.

The choice of hour depends on direction. The cliffs face south; morning light falls on the eastern section toward Lara, evening light on the western section facing Konyaaltı. Watching the sunset from the Karaalioğlu terraces or from around Hıdırlık Tower is the most popular moment, which is why the terraces are crowded at that hour. Anyone who wants a quieter sunset should head for the Falez parks on the old Lara road.

Do Not Go Near the Edge

A last word on safety. In his 2026 statement Dipova said that not even a mountain goat could stand on the cliff face; the same researcher's paper explains that the cliff edge splits into blocks along tensile cracks and that those blocks one day topple. The railing, in other words, protects you not from the view but from the rock's natural cycle. Stay on the viewing terraces and marked paths, do not climb over the railing for a photograph, and go down to the beaches only by the stairs and lifts the municipality has opened. On windy days standing at the edge is harder still. The cliffs have been there for hundreds of thousands of years, and they tell their whole story even when you look at them from a distance.

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