The Lycian Way #2 Fethiye to Kaya Koyu

Another installment from my April trip to southern Turkey.

The walk from Fethiye to Ölüdeniz was the first hike on our trip, and by far my favorite - climbing up above Fethiye with great views of the harbor, then through the woods, winding up and around to the deserted village of Kaya Köyü (UNESCO World Heritage site...and for good reason), and then a slow descent to the beautiful beaches of Ölüdeniz, a rest on the beach and a ride back to Fethiye after sundown.

Kaya Köyü was a largely Greek/Christian populated village until the population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923.  It is worth a visit even if you aren't hiking the Lycian Way - it is reached easily by buses from Fethiye.

It is said that the village was the inspiration for Louis de Bernieres' beautiful novel Birds Without Wings, and in the opening pages of the novel, you can feel the village in his description:

When the town was alive, the walls of the houses were rendered with mortar and painted jauntily in the dark shades of pink.  Its streets were so narrow as to be more like alleyways, but there was no oppressive sense of enclosure, since the buildings were stacked up one slope of a valley, so that every dwelling received light and air.  In truth, the town seemed to have been marvellously designed by some ancient genius whose name was been lost, and there was probably no other place like it in all of Lydia, Caria or Lycia.  

Breathtaking village, breathtaking read.

This following picture is nothing great, but it does document the near-sacred event wherein we consumed perhaps the best gözleme/sac böreği ever, washed down with homemade ayran.  And that is not a claim one should make lightly!  On offer were meat, potato, spinach and cheese varieties, as one would expect, and a desert version with lemon juice and sugar.  It was so good we even entertaining hiking up again the next day just for one more taste of that limonlu şekerli goodness.

Hiking up the valley, through and then away from Kaya Köyü, we came to this ridge with beautiful views of the Mediterranean. 

Now this next part is a bit embarrassing.  David and I are usually such cool travelers.  Seriously.  We don't get all bent out of shape just because we see a blue sky or a picturesque bay.  Irreverent and jaded, and proud!  But standing on the ridge, we just stood there looking at the gorgeous view and repeating...it is so beautiful.  This just hours after we made fun of the Turks for never varying their postitive adjectives when describing amazement.  Everythign is always çok güzel...çok güzel.  But here, seriously.  Başka söyleyecek bir şey yok ki.  Was the Lycian Way ruining us for other travel?  Every hike is filled with amazing views and, I kept joking, "we don't even appreciate it!"  But now sitting here in my Crimean living room thinking about our week in Lycia (with this photo as my desktop image), I know that of course we did.

We made it to Ölüdeniz just in time for a sunset on the beach before a dolmuş back to Fethiye.