The Lycian Way, the brainchild of UK native Kate Clow, is Turkey's first long distance walk, borne of a love of the land and a desire to create a sustainable, historical legacy. With a sketch pad, a compass and a handful of barely adequate maps in hand, Kate set out in mid 1990's to establish, clear and mark a continuous trail from Fethiye to Antalya, taking in the region's most interesting and often remote villages and historic sites. The 500 km path, which crosses turquoise coastline, forested peaks and everything in-between, was completed in 1999, and encompasses a mind-boggling overlay of pre-classical, Greek, Roman, Byzantine and even Persian civilizations. The integration is most striking in the trilogy of Xanthos, Letoon and Patara with references found in Homer's Iliad; at Myra (where St. Nicholas was Bishop) and in and around the sunken city of Kekova Bay, with a collective narrative of striking funerary monuments, Greek temples, Roman baths and Byzantine churches. But it's not just the architectural remnants of toppled ancient cities and civilizations that define the Lycian coastline. Lycia occupies a combined coastal and mountainous land mass on Turkey's southern coast "folded" by pressure exerted for millennia between opposing tectonic plates. The result is a stunning display of picturesque sheltered harbors crowned by pine trees, scented with sage brush and lapped by crystalline waters. The area isn't known as the Turquoise Coast for nothing, and it's charisma has spawned an entire leisure industry of cruising in a traditional wooden gulet or in a sleek and streamlined fiberglass yacht. The poster-child for Turkey's Mediterranean good looks is the Blue Lagoon in Olüdeniz, a breathtaking lagoon surrounded by mountains and enclosed by a sizeable sandbar. The western end of the trail begins up in the mountains not far from here, with an optional detour into the village of Kayaköy, with hauntingly beautiful remnants of the Greek ghost town deserted after the population exchanges of 1924.
The trail can be walked in increments of an hour up to a few weeks. Pathways are marked, and Kate's "The Lycian Way" provides a handy how-to on how to best tackle the trail to accommodate your schedule.
|
