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Visiting Side in December

BySunMed Guide

Visiting Side in December

# Side in December: The Off-Season Gamble

Look, December in Side is a bit of a coin flip, and anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

The weather sits somewhere in that awkward middle ground — not cold enough to feel properly wintery and atmospheric, not warm enough to swim or sit comfortably on a terrace without a jacket after dark. Daytime temperatures hover around 13-16°C, which is fine for walking around, but the evenings drop sharply and the sea is firmly off the agenda. Rain can show up without much warning and stick around for days. You might get bright, crisp sunshine and feel like a genius for avoiding the summer crowds. You might get grey skies and drizzle for your entire trip. There’s genuinely no way to know until you’re there.

What December does deliver, reliably, is quiet. The ruins — and Side has genuinely impressive ones, that Apollo temple sitting right by the water is legitimately beautiful — belong almost entirely to you. You can stand in the ancient theatre without someone’s selfie stick in your peripheral vision. That part is actually wonderful.

The trade-off is that Side essentially goes into hibernation. A significant chunk of restaurants, bars, and shops close completely or operate reduced hours with no predictable pattern. Some weeks it feels like a ghost town. The main strip loses its buzz entirely, which either sounds peaceful or depressing depending on what you came for.

It’s worth visiting in December specifically if you’re a history person who genuinely cares about the ruins and finds summer crowds exhausting, or if you’re combining it with something else on the Turkish coast. It’s not worth it if you want beach time, atmosphere, or reliable restaurant options every night.

The practical thing nobody mentions: check which restaurants are actually open before you go, not on Google Maps but by calling ahead or finding recent traveller posts. Listings are notoriously outdated and you don’t want to walk twenty minutes for a closed door in the dark.

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