Our next stop was Kızkalesi, where we visited its fortress rising from an island 250m offshore. Kızkalesi Castle (🎫 20 TRY) has mosaics of birds and trees in the central courtyard, where there are the remains of two chapels side by side and a vaulted gallery with 13 arches. The castle was...
Near Narlıkuyu, a road winds north for 2km to several caves (🎫 75 TRY) – sinkholes carved out by a subterranean river and places of great mythological significance. The mammoth underground Chasm of Heaven (Cennet Mağarası) – 250m long, 110m wide, and 70m deep – is reached by 450-odd steps...
We spend an hour at the little village Narlıkuyu, built around a placid cove lined with seafood restaurants. A Roman benefactor, Poimenios, built a bathhouse here in the 300s AD. A small museum on the village square houses its mosaics of the Three Graces Aglaia, Thalia, and Euphrosine...
Again, we arrived in the night at the Anemurium’s sprawling and eerily quiet ruins, the gate was closed, so we parked at the nearby wild pebble beach with crystal clear waters. Founded by the Phoenicians in the 4th century BC, Anemurium suffered several devastating setbacks...
We spent one day in Turkey’s most conservative and religious city, located south of Ankara in the Central Anatolia region at an elevation of 1027 meters. Konya treads a delicate path between its historical significance as the home town of the whirling dervish orders and a bastion of...
Tucked away within the forested hills and mountains of inner Anatolia, the lake region has an escapist, even otherworldly feel. At its heart is Eğirdir, a placid town overlooked by mountains Sivri (1749 m), Davraz (2653 m), and Barla (2800 m). It makes an excellent base for hiking or for...
During our visit, the main road leading to ancient Sagalassos was closed to place new tarmac. So, after some negotiations, we hired a local minibus to the site (60 TRY / one-way). The ancient city (🎫25 TRY) was founded on the south-facing slopes of the Taurus Mountain range and was the...
Antalya, a city, and the Mediterranean Sea port in southwestern Turkey, is situated on the Gulf of Antalya. Ancient Greek Attalia was founded as a seaport in the 2nd century BC by Attalus II Philadelphus, a king of Pergamum. It was bequeathed to the Romans by his successor, Attalus III...
We took a private, well-paved, steep road for 7km to the Mount Olympos cable car’s lower station at 725 m. Tahtalı Dağı, also known as Mount Olympos, is a mountain near Kemer, a seaside resort on the Turkish Riviera in Antalya Province. From it, the start of the Taurus Mountains can...
Mount Chimaera was the name of a place in ancient Lycia, known in Turkish as Yanartaş, or ‘Burning Rock’, where methane and other gases emerge from the rocky slopes of Mt Olympos and burn. Some ancient sources considered it to be the origin of the myth of the monster called...