Fethiye

Sunday 21 May

After a few days on the road, today was a bit more relaxing. Next to Fethiye, where we are staying, is Calis Beach and we had heard that it was popular with the Brits and quite nice. We headed toward Calis Beach, but saw a large childrens playground and decided to stop.  It turned out to be part of a much larger park containing many scupltures, a Turkish garden, exercise equipment, a 2900metre walking track and many seats and a raised area to watch the sunset.  It was very well done, though some of the scupltures were showing their age.

We continued onto Calis Beach, but were a bit underwhelmed.  The beach itself consisted of small stones rather than sand - as do many European beaches and the water didn't look inviting (wasn't a clear blue colour).  There was also a 'shark net' thing only about 20 metres off shore, so you couldn't swim out very far.  Don't think there are sharks here so not exactly sure what it was trying to keep out.

There was a promenade along the beach with many restaurants and a street nearby with restaurants and clothing stores.  It was a little sad to see every restaurant with English oriented food (English breakfast, fish and chips etc) and a lot of the clothes were English Soccer jerseys.  Many pubs also listed the soccer match broadcast times. I understand wanting a few home comforts but these people are not experiencing Turkey. (rant over)

From Calis Beach we headed for the hills and an abandoned village called Kayakoy.  The village was abandoned in 1923 and is being taken over by the environment.  The reason for the abandonment was a 'population exchange' between Turkey and Greece, whereby the 900,00 Greek Orthodox people in Turkey were sent to Greece in exchange for 400,000 Muslims.  Nowadays you can walk through the remains and up to the 'castle'. 

Next stop was Oludeniz, still in the nearby hills and another town that caters very much to English tourists.  We avoided the pubs etc and found a chicken doner for lunch instead.  We didn't walk around the shops as they didn't hold much interest, instead heading downhill to Oludeniz Beach.  Again we had heard good things and seen some great photos but the reality was a bit different.  I would hate to see this place in the summer peak, because it was pretty crowded today and difficult to drive through.  We headed down a road that looked likely to give Trace a good view of the two bays here and whilst she got photos of the turquoise water it wasn't quite what she was after.  We tried to drive up a hill to give a higher view but couldn't find the right road and eventually decided to take a gondola ride instead.  This took us up 1200metres and though the views were OK, the skies were a bit hazy, so we still didn't get the hoped for views.

We gave up on the idea and went instead to the Fethiye Rock Tombs.  Similar in age (4th century BC) to the Myra Rock tombs, these are incredibly close to the city. There were stairs taking us right up to one of the tombs and we were even able to get inside it.  

It had been a humid day so after coming down we crossed the road to a restaurant and enjoyed a beer.

15245 steps and 76 kms today.  Had to fill up the car again, having done 985kms on the tank.

Monday 22 May

Drove around 30kms North today to more ruins in Tlos. The city has it's origins in the 15th century BC, but the ruins that we could see were built mostly by the Lycians and are from the 4th Century BC.  Unknown to us before arriving was the presence of rock tombs and whilst it seems a bit same old same old, there are differences, maybe not so much in the photos.  One of the biggest differences here was our ability to climb in and out of any of the tombs we could reach.  We read that most of the tombs are family tombs, though earlier bones and offerings were swept out if room was required.  Most tombs have space for three bodies, one each along the side and back walls.  The Romans had taken over by around 140 AD and their rock tombs are quite different to the Lycians, often having bunk type ledges and they used brick in place of rock. 

A local kept calling to us from afar and pointing towards tombs that we hadn't necessarily seen and we were half ignoring him.  A bit later he came back and was quite insistent that we follow him to a family tomb with a pegasus relief.  He said he wasn't a guide, which meant for sure he was the local shop keeper.  Whilst we reluctantly followed him, Trace made sure to say we were unlikely to buy anything from his shop.  In any case he led us along a path we had seen but decided against,  and then showed us how to climb up a rock that we wouldn't have done without him.  He led us to some tombs that had a seahorse carving, the pegasus, a dog and some reliefs depicting a family.  It was worth following him, but no we didn't buy anything from him (He had some stone carvings and beads that we had seen before in a couple of places).  We did feel a little bad but bought some water and an ice cream each from his neighbour and thanked him very much for his kindness.

As well as the tombs, there was an acropolis, a stadium - including pool, and an ampitheatre. We were able to climb to the top of the acropolis - (Acropolis means high city in Greek) , but the Theatre was being excavated and was closed to visitors, so we viewed it from the chain fence. The pool was unique in these types of settlements, and ran down the centre of the stadium.

From here we went to Saklikent Gorge.  We weren't sure about going here because apparently after about 300 metres you need to walk through water and it can get up to around waist deep at times, but we figured we could turn back if we wanted to.  There were shops that sold or rented shoes you could wear in the water, but we still weren't interested.  In the end it didn't matter, as there had been rain over night and the gorge was closed from the end of the boardwalk.  We had seen pictures of stunning blue water running under this walkway, but all we saw was brown, muddy water.  The gorge itself was still pretty stunning and we were pleased we went.

Back to our hotel where I had a swim before we sat back with a drink and wrote this blog and Trace, her diary.

I had read about a restaurant with good food and great sunset views,  so we decided to go to Kings Garden Restaurant  for tea. It actually was across the road from the Fethiye Rock Tombs and we had been here yesterday for a beer. The food (seafood casserole for me and sea bream "Princess" for Trace) was delicious- definitely our best meal so far. The views were very nice but unfortunately the sunset didn't play along, being colourless and nothing special. Still a lovely night out, and actually the first time we had been out after dark since we arrived. 

9250 steps today and 105kms