Modern Alanya is famous above all for its 13th-century Seljuk architecture. But before Alaeddin Keykubad turned the city into his winter capital, Byzantine Kalonoros — the "Beautiful Mountain" — existed on this spot for more than five hundred years.
Byzantine traces are hard to find in Alanya: the Seljuks and Ottomans painstakingly rebuilt almost everything. Nevertheless, the foundations of the fortress walls in the upper town have preserved Byzantine masonry, and in the Şekerhane district archaeologists still find Roman-Byzantine coins to this day.
Kalonoros itself was an important port on the route from Constantinople to Alexandria. A Byzantine garrison was stationed here, there was a church of St George (the Süleymaniye Mosque now stands on its site), and grain from Anatolia and olive oil from Cyprus were unloaded in the harbour.
The fall of Kalonoros in 1221 was dramatic. The Greek commander Kyr Vardas surrendered the city after a short siege, bargaining for land in the valley of the Dim River in return. Alaeddin Keykubad married his daughter to Kyr Vardas's son — this political marriage is considered one of the first examples of the peaceful merging of the Byzantine and Seljuk populations.