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If you really want to get a feel for southwestern Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, you have a great option: Hike the 300-mile Lycian Way, which stretches from Ölüdeniz to just shy of Antalya. Opened in 2000 as the country’s first long-distance trail, it’s been ranked one of the “World’s Ten Best Walks” by the Sunday Times. The route has many inland sections but provides plenty of awesome sea views from ridges and mountains high above the water, and also passes through plenty of ruins. It takes its name from Lycia, an ancient kingdom based in the region as far back as the 15th century BC. Budget 20-30 days to walk the entire trail, or explore shorter sections on day hikes out of towns like Demre, Kaş, and Kemer.

The Lycian Way is a coastal walk and mild temperatures mean it can be walked throughout the winter months.

The route is graded medium to hard; it is not level walking, but has many ascents and descents as it approaches and veers away from the sea. It is easier at the start near Fethiye and gets more difficult as it progresses. We recommend walking the route in spring or autumn; February-May or September-November; summer in Lycia is hot, although you could walk short, shady sections. The route is mainly over footpaths and mule trails; it is mostly over limestone and often hard and stony underfoot.

On the first part of the route, and in Patara, Kalkan, Kas, Myra, Finike, Adrasan, Olympos, Cirali and Tekirova, you can stay in pensions or small hotels. On other nights, you may stay in a village house, or camp out. There are plenty of camping places with nearby water mentioned in the book; you do not have to ask permission to camp out.

* Ancient Cities / MAP & LIST

* Lycian way accommodations / MAP & LIST

* Lycian Way all Etaps

Crystal clear diving in the Mediterranean Sea ...

The crystal clear sea offers excellent diving conditions with high amount of underwater life, visibility up to 40 meters and beautiful underwater rocky landscapes. You just won’t find coral reef here. In September/October the water temperature is ideally at 27°C!

There are about 30 dive sites, reachable within 20/30 minutes from the port of Kas. The variety is quite impressive, you can go wreck-diving, cave-diving and you can swim through canyons and tunnels.

If you are lucky, you might see dolphins, a Mediterranean monk seal, octopus or maybe even a seahorse (I did! but the poor thing with a dozen of divers taking pictures of it…). The interesting fact about fauna here is that you can meet migrant species normally indigenous to the Red Sea, with encounters of loggerhead turtles, eagle rays, moray eels, groupers, and trumpet fish! It seems they have found their way from the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean Sea! But unlike tropical areas where fish are everywhere, in Turkey you have to be in the right place at the right time.

* Scuba diving Centers around Lycian Coast / MAP & LIST

There are 3 paragliding centers in Lycia: Oludeniz (near Fethiye), Kaş and Olympos.

Oludeniz is one of the best places in the world for paragliding and in the last ten years has become a mecca for paragliders from all over the world. Incredible thermals and ideal conditions make for amazing flights from Babadag Mountain down to beautiful Oludeniz beach with its long stretch of white sand and turquoise blue water.

The International Oludeniz Air Games Festival is held every year at Oludeniz beach. Lots of fun stuff to do and see.

Kaş and Olympos also offers spectacular paragliding over the mountains and sea.

Tandem paragliding isn't scary and is surprisingly relaxing.

* Paragliding in the Lycian Sky / Map & List

Kas is the last county town located on the south-west cost of Antalya. Antiquity name of Kas was Antiphellos (facing Phellos). As written on ancient sources; Antiphellos means “the extension of Phellos on sea” or the “coast of Phellos (stony place)”. Antiphellos is now a village located on the north of Kas and called Cukurbag.

* Read More: What to know in Kaş

* Restaurants, Cafés, Bars & Mayhanes in Kaş/ MAP & LIST

* Hotels, Pansions, Camping Sites in Kaş / MAP & LIST

A small peaceful Mediterranean resort and fishing town on the beautiful Turquoise Coast of Turkey, Kalkan has not been touched by mass tourism. More sophisticated than the usual resort town, Kalkan appeals to travelers looking for more than a “sun and sea” holiday. According to the Sunday Times, Kalkan attracts the kind of visitor who would also enjoy Tuscany or the Dordogne. The Guardian likens the town to “the Italian Riviera minus the poseurs.”

Because of its great charm, Kalkan has a growing number of perennial visitors who say the town is the only holiday destination they would choose to visit repeatedly. There is simply no other town quite like Kalkan along Turkey’s coast.

"Mouse" and "Snake" Islands in Kalkan Bay

Kalkan curls snuggly around a historic harbour sheltered at the foot of the towering Taurus Mountains. (Read more about the geography of the region at our Lycia website here) The town overlooks a beautiful bay in which islands seem to magically float upon the shimmering sea.

Narrow streets twist down to the harbour, lined with old whitewashed villas with shuttered windows situated alongside small local specialty shops and restaurants in historic buildings. Overhead hang original carved Ottoman Greek timber balconies garlanded with thick masses of brilliantly coloured bougainvillea cascading to the streets below. It is a very special place with a unique atmosphere.

* Read More: What to know in Kalkan

* Restaurants, Cafés, Bars & Mayhanes in Kalkan/ MAP & LIST

* Hotels, Pansions, Camping Sites in Kalkan / MAP & LIST

All pre-Greek peoples of Anatolia excelled in building monumental tombs associated with some form of ancestor worship; the Phrygians, Carians and Cilicians had their distinctive styles. The Lycians, however, developed this tradition to its artistic perfection. The landscape of Lycia is thoroughly marked by their strange, evocative and beautiful funerary monuments. Lycian tombs come in three major types. Visually the most striking are no doubt the rock tombs -more or less elaborate funeral chambers carved directly from the rock, usually into a cliff. The oldest of these are simple pigeon-hole cubicles of the sort best viewed in Pinara. More commonly, the graves are fashioned like the facade of a timber house with one, two or three stories -evidently copying the residential architecture of the time. The most elaborate ones are those carved in the form of Ionic temples. The have two columns, a porch and usually elaborate reliefs. Pillar tombs from the second general type of Lycian tombs, the most prominent specimens of which are in Xanthos. These consist of a massive rectangular block of stone, topped by a grave chamber which is surmounted by a "roof". Sarcophagi (sculpted caskets) constitute the third and most common category. Some of these, eg. one in downtown Kas and another in Pinara, are imposing structures; others stand like so many mysterious treasure boxes in the midst of the wilderness -or in the sea, as at the sunken city of Simena (Kekova). Each tomb was originally put under the custody of a committee called mintis which took care of the safety and comfort of the deceased. Tampering with the tombs was subject to cash fines payable to the mintis, the amount being proportional to a premium paid at the time of death. The mintis gone, there was little left to deter grave robbers, and the thousands of Lycian tombs have all been broken into in the course of the intervening centuries. The obsession with buried treasures still haunts these sites: "unathorized diggers", read tomb strippers, ravaged several ancient cities (particularly Cadyanda and Bubon) very recently. Every other person around Elmali seems to possess a metal detector and other gadgets of the digger's trade. Their time does not seem all wasted: in 1984, a splendid cache of 1900 silver coins belonging to the Delian League was discovered near Elmali by some villagers and smuggled out of the country. The world numismatic market was thrown into turmoil when the coins turned up in American auction houses. The greatest robbery of all, however, was perpetrated in the loftier name of scholarship. Lycia was discovered for the modern world by Sir Charles Fellows, the British orientalist, who visited the region in 1838. The beautifully illustrated account of his travels created an instant sensation in London. In 1842 the British Museum agreed to send out a Lycian expedition abroad the HMS Beacon. The research party led by Fellows and Lieutenant Spratt returned to England with 70 huge crates full of archaeological finds, including practically everything that was worth seeing in Xanthos. Did they by so doing save these artworks from neglect and further destruction, or were they little better than treasure robbers themselves? The controversy rages on. Archaeological interest in Lycia in the 20th century has been limited compared to the more famous sites Aegean Turkey. Many Lycian cities remain virtually untouched since Fellows and Spratt's visits. Serious excavations were done only by a French team in the Letoon and a German team in Limyra. In most other places, there are no tourist crowds, not even guards or markers and signs to disturb the peace of the ruins. What may be lying under the ground is hinted by the case of formerly obscure Arycanda: here, the work of Turkish archeologist Cevdet Bayburtluoglu has begun to reveal what may turn out to be one of the most spectacular ruin sites in all Turkey.
* Ancient Cities on the Map / MAP & LIST
* Lycian way accommodations on the Map / MAP & LIST

* Lycian Way all Etaps

The name Patara stands for a marvellous 12 km white sandy beach which is classed as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and for the ancient ruins of the ancient town still partly buried under the sand. The beach is also a nesting place for turtles and is therefore environmentally protected. The ancientcity of Patara, the birthplace of St.Nicholas and the port where St.Paul changed ships on his way to Tyros is in recent years being carefully excavated by Prof. FahriIşık.

Patara used to be the most important harbour of Lycia and one of the major members of the Lycian League with three votes. During its eventful history the city always had to struggle against foreign invaders and a giant sand dune. The cityharboured an Apollo oracle as important as Delphi and Delos and Alexander the Great as wellas the Roman Emperor Hadrian and his wife (just to name the most famous) had vested interests here. Today the nearby little village of Gelemiş provides simple accommodation during the season.

* Read More: What to know in Patara

* Restaurants, Cafés, Bars & Mayhanes in Patara/ MAP & LIST

* Hotels, Pansions, Camping Sites in Patara/ MAP & LIST