Antalya in Winter 2026-27: What Is Open, Christmas and Day Trips

Yes, Antalya is worth visiting in winter, as long as you come for the Roman sites and the old town rather than the beach. Perge and Aspendos are open every day from 08:00 to 17:00, the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM) puts the average December high at 16.7°C, and the sea averages 18.5°C that month. The one big gap is the Antalya Museum, which is closed with no official reopening date. The simplest winter day out is our Perge, Aspendos and Side tour with lunch, from $81 per person with entrance fees included.

Photo: Güney Özdamar, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What is open in Antalya this winter

The open Ministry sites below all open every day. The Ministry lists hours on muze.gov.tr and on its Turkish Museums portal, and on 13 November 2026 the two did not always agree, so both are shown. Prices are for foreign visitors.

To be safe, buy tickets by 16:30. Our group day tours include entrance fees. On your own, MuseumPass The Mediterranean gives one entry to each Ministry site in Antalya, Mersin, Adana and Denizli provinces for 7 days: €90, or €100 from 1 April 2027.

Beyond the Ministry's list, the Olympos cable car to the 2,365 m summit of Tahtalı runs daily from 09:00 to 15:00 from November to March, weather permitting, its operator says. The Land of Legends theme park showed its water areas closed for the season on 13 November.

Is the Antalya Museum open?

No. muze.gov.tr lists the Antalya Museum as closed, and no reopening date had been published on the Ministry's sites when we checked on 13 November 2026. The local paper Akdeniz Gerçek reports that it closed to visitors on 16 July 2025 because its building was judged not to be earthquake-resistant, and that demolition of the old building began on 13 September 2025. On 6 November 2026, the same paper reported, Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy told parliament's Plan and Budget Committee that the museum is planned to open in 2027, without giving a month; his earlier target was 2026. The 2027 tariff lists it at €16 from 1 April 2027, but a price is not an opening date.

What to see instead: Perge itself, which muze.gov.tr calls one of the most important centres of sculpture in the ancient world, and two free Ministry museums in Kaleiçi, the old town. The Ethnography Museum fills two Ottoman mansions and shows Seljuk glazed tiles from the Aspendos theatre; the Mevlevi Lodge Museum is a Seljuk-era building at the Yivli Minare complex, used as a Mevlevi lodge since the 16th century. On our private old town tour, from $90 per person, ask whether your guide can add one.

Antalya weather in winter: the MGM figures

MGM's long-term statistics for Antalya (1930–2025) and its 1970–2025 averages for Mediterranean sea water, with sunrise and sunset on the 15th:

December is the wettest month of the year, so keep a spare day for the open-air sites. Snow in the city is rare: the deepest MGM has measured in Antalya is 5 cm, on 7 January 1993. The sea is far below its August average of 28.1°C. Our Turkey in winter guide covers the rest of the country.

Day trips from Antalya that work in winter

Most of our Antalya tour pages list daily departures with no minimum group size, but none promises specific winter dates, so send us your date and we confirm it in writing. Times are from each tour page.

Prices are per person, with lunch and entrance fees included. Our tour pages call April to October the best time for the Kekova boat, and boat days such as Suluada run only from late spring until autumn. Pamukkale is open daily from 08:00 to 18:00; see our Pamukkale in winter update. For Cappadocia, the 3-day trip by flight, from $613 per person, saves the two nights on the bus.

Christmas and New Year in Antalya

Christmas is not a public holiday in Turkey, so 25 December, a Friday in 2026, is a normal working day. New Year's Day is a public holiday under Law No. 2429 and falls on a Friday in 2027; our 2027 public holidays update lists the rest.

The Christmas link on this coast is St Nicholas, the 4th-century bishop of Myra behind the Santa Claus legend. His church in Demre is a Ministry museum, open daily: €17 now, €19 from 1 April 2027. Our private Demre, Myra and Kekova tour, from $140 per person, lists the church and includes museum tickets. The saint's story is on our Myra and St Nicholas page, and his feast day, 6 December, on our December 2026 packages page.

Photo: Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When we checked on 13 November 2026, we found no Christmas market, New Year's Eve programme or fireworks for 2026 announced by Antalya Metropolitan Municipality. For a planned holiday, see our Christmas in Turkey and New Year 2027 pages.

Tours that cover this

• Perge, Aspendos & Side Day Tour from Antalya with Lunch: group tour, daily, 08:00 to about 18:00, entrance fees and lunch included, from $81 per person.
• Antalya Old City Tour: waterfalls, Kaleiçi and a harbour boat with lunch, from $52 per person; the private old town tour is from $90 per person.
• Demre, Myra & Kekova Sunken City Private Tour: St Nicholas's church at Christmas time, museum tickets included, from $140 per person; the group tour is from $103 per person.
• Pamukkale Day Trip from Antalya: lunch and entrance fees included, from $86 per person; the private Pamukkale day is from $180 per person.

No prepayment needed: pay on the tour day.

Send us your dates and hotel name on WhatsApp, and we will confirm the pickup time and the winter plan for the Perge, Aspendos and Side tour or any other day trip above.

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