Day 4 of our Eastern Med Sea trip in April did not turn out as expected. We wanted to do the Alanya Kalesi (castle), Kızılkule (a red tower), and the Damlatas Caves prior to doing some beach time. However, while on our trip, the kids were put back on hard lockdown and only allowed out a few hours in the afternoon. Tourists are typically exempt, but as we have resident IDs, we were not and did not want to risk it. We try to follow the rules. So the kids had a lazy morning with tablet time.

See Day 1 here, Day 2 here, and Day 3 here.

I went out and took a walk to scope out beach spots as we decided we’d use our few hours in the afternoon of kid freedom for the beach as that would interest the kids the most. Some of the beach was public, but a lot of it was connected to restaurants or hotels. I found one small cafe that had a nice beach area with chairs for rental. As the rental was for all day, I reserved 8 chairs in a cluster for 20tl each, coming out to $20 for a day for all the chairs. This would give us a good buffer if it got crowded.

After lunch, we hauled our beach stuff downhill to the beach (Alanya is on a small hill sloping toward the water). Kids enjoyed playing in the COLD water and on the beach itself. DH and I got beer and read as it was not warm enough for us to want to swim. I did, however, enjoy walking along the beach some. DD also really likes reading in a beach chair and was thrilled that I got them both Fanta, which is a huge treat for them. She declared that she was “living her best life” in her chair with her book and drink!

As our curfew time wound down, we got dinner take out and headed back (UP) to our rental. The next day we packed up and drove the ~8 hours home. Not quite the end of the trip we expected, but at least we got some beach time!