Cruising and discovering the treasures of Lycia

Arrival at Bodrum airport. The group will be met by a guide and transferred, within half an hour, to a hotel. Check-in. Then, according to the time of your arrival, you will be able to change money (euros to Turkish Lira or get Turkish Lira from a cash machine or a bank using a card). If the bank has closed we will ensure you can go the next morning. You pay for dinner at the restaurant of your choice.

A 4 hour journey by minibus to the small port of EKINCIK, where our gullet will be waiting. There will be an opportunity for you to go to a bank, or to shop for other necessities (in Milas or Mugla). Once we are on the road in the minibus, the guide will decide whether lunch will be eaten en route, or after arrival on board the gullet. Once on board there will be time for a swim.  Then dinner and the first night on board in a small bay near EKINCIK.

On board :

-  there are no ‘single’ cabins. Please arrange to share with the companion of your choice. In summer you may prefer to sleep on the deck and mattresses will be provided.

-  you are not allowed to wear shoes either on the deck or in the cabins.  Walk barefoot.

-  please do not dispose of toilet paper in the W.C. There is a bin for this purpose in the W.C. of each cabin.

-  the boat does not provide any towels so please remember to bring your own.

Breakfast on board (after a swim!) and then we take a dinghy across the bay to the foot of the hill that marks the start of the day's walk. We will carry a picnic lunch and large bottles of water.

Our 3-hour walk takes us along the coast and up an easy slope to the ancient site of CAUNOS. Over the entire 3 hours we gain a mere 250m in elevation.

We will go into the site (entry fee 8 Turkish Lira), which has been excavated and restored by Turkish archaeologists, and here we will eat our picnic lunch.

We will then rejoin the dinghy below CAUNOS, and go up the Dalyan River to see the famous Lycian tombs carved into the cliff facing the modern village of DALYAN.

Then we head back down the same river, once part of an ancient harbour now long silted up, travelling through extensive reed beds (an ornithologist's paradise) to 'ISTUZU' beach where loggerhead turtles 'caretta caretta' lay their eggs in May (they hatch in August). Finally we cross the bay to EKINCIK where we rejoin our gullet.

Today the timing is a little ‘tight’, because we hope to sail four hours from EKINCIK to the bay of AGA Limani where we will spend the night. Or we may not leave until 04.00 in the morning!

The captain of the gullet will decide, according to the wind and sea conditions, whether or not it is possible to make the journey in the late afternoon, or if weather conditions mean that we will have to wait until the following morning.

If it is possible to make the move today, we will have a swim at AGA Limani on arrival, before dinner and a peaceful night in the bay.

If weather conditions mean we must wait until tomorrow morning to lift the anchor, we will stay another night at EKINCIK : swimming, dinner and night on board.

Then, the next morning, we will start the engine at 04.30 (you can stay in bed!) and make the four hour journey to Aga Limani. Breakfast will be served on arrival and then we will set out on our walk.

It all depends on the wind: which is called the ‘’Meltem’’ and is a thermal wind that blows every day from the north (passing over the Balkans and the Dardanelles) to the south (reaching as far as Cyprus). The South is soon reheated, the air is warm, lighter, and at higher altitudes it creates an impression that the air from the North is pleased to have arrived here in the middle of each day. The Coriolis affect caused by the rotation of the Earth moves the air eastwards.  The Meltem blows every day in summer over the Aegean, from the middle of the day until sunset, from the North West to the South East. Sometimes other meteorological conditions can have an effect on this ‘every day’ wind, and a wind from the South can overcome the Meltem for a day or two, and thus have an effect on navigation!

CAUNOS.

From the 6th century BC, the Lycian town of CAUNOS was a busy port engaged in trade with the Phoenicians, Egypt, Cyprus, Athens and Rome, amongst others. Under the Greek Empire (after the conquests of Alexander the Great, at the end of 334 BC, until the beginning of the Roman Empire in 130 BC) and for a time during that regime, this was a magnificent port well sited at the head of a bay. In fact it was too well sited! The Dalyan River brought gravel and soil down from the mountains and slowly deposited it in the port, thus creating the reed beds and slowly killing all maritime and commercial activity. Today it is difficult to even see the sea from the ancient port!

The silting led to another disaster: proliferation of mosquitoes. In time this led to an outbreak of malaria, as the link between the insect and the disease was only later found by Asclepius and his disciples.  The poor inhabitants of Caunos were emaciated, with a greenish tint to their skin, they resembled the walking dead.

Thus Caunos was condemned to slow extinction, but the manner of its demise also ensured no other people ever settled amongst the ruins. Hence they were well preserved in original condition.

The modern Turkish town of Dalyan is two kilometres away on the other side of the river, and makes its living from agriculture and tourism.

A dynamic team of Turkish archaeologists have been working for several decades to excavate and restore this ancient Lycian city to a sense of its former glory. Amongst its riches we can see: the ancient Greek theatre, embellished by the Romans, a temple with Corinthian influences dedicated to Zeus, a huge nymphaeum (fountain), Roman baths, a gymnasium and even a Byzantine church dated to 5th century AD. There are streets, the sites of small shops, foundations of other buildings, which all give the atmosphere of a living town of white marble, and from occasional restored items (a nymph and a doorway amongst others) you can imagine how dazzlingly white this place was in its youth!

After the visit to CAUNOS and our picnic we will go back to the dinghy. We then go up the river towards DALYAN where we can see above us the imposing Lycian tombs cut into the cliff face around 2,500 years ago.

There will be an opportunity, later in our journey on days 5 and 6, to get closer to such tombs and sarcophagi, to actually visit them properly (notably in the hamlet of KECILER near KAYAKOY).

Today you will have to be satisfied with taking photographs.

We then return to our gullet by dinghy and find out what our captain has decided: will we up anchor and sail for four hours to AGA Limani (which means we can all sleep until 08.00 tomorrow) or shall we stay a second night in EKINCIK bay.

A morning swim, breakfast and then we go ashore. We will follow a path that takes us for 4 hours, along the coast, to the ruins of the ancient city of ICARUS, then on to Cleopatra’s Bath and finally to the Bay of BINLIK where we will rejoin our boat. Archaeologists have yet to consider the majority of the remains of ICARUS which comprise ruined temples, cisterns, mounds and individual dressed stones. This ancient city (founded many centuries BC then altered by the Romans) was laid out along great axes and was very isolated. Ideal for adventurers like us! We pass several shepherd’s huts and farms on our route. We walk through pine forests beneath arid hills. Picnic lunch. Then we descend to the cove called ‘Cleopatra’s Bath’ but we cannot guarantee that she will be there!  (Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, ally and lover of Mark Antony, both of them political rivals of the emperor Julius Caesar; the coalition was defeated by a force loyal to the Romans at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC). We then continue to walk by the sea to the Bay of BINLIK where our gullet will be waiting for us. Our voyage so far has all been within the Gulf of Fethiye, and this bay is in a very sheltered area connected to the port of Göcek. Swim. Dinner and a night on board.

After our morning swim and breakfast we up anchor to cross the bay from west to east and then moor again off the beach of SARSALA where a huge seagull has been painted on the rock. We go ashore to begin our five hour walk. The route takes us through pine forests, over rocky ground and into a traditional southern Mediterranean environment. There are Lycian tombs and sarcophagi visible from the path. Picnic lunch. We again pass Cleopatra’s Bath on our way north. In the afternoon our boat meets us and we have time to recuperate along the coast from where we began our day. Then we sail to FETHIYE (2h30). We tie up in the harbour. Take a walk around the town, visiting remains of the ancient TELMESSOS (a Greco-Roman theatre, Lycian tombs) time for shopping. Dinner and stay the night on board.

After breakfast we start our 3 hour morning walk (Féthiye-Kayaköy) which will be followed in the afternoon by a 2 hour walk (Kayaköy-Oludeniz). From Féthiye we take a very old Lycian road and climb a hill (elevation 250m) from where we see the plain below (BELEN) lying beneath a hillside on which are scattered the remains of around 1500 dwellings, almost an ‘end of the world’ scenario. Before exploring the remains we will visit a Lycian necropolis called GECELER. The ruined houses lie on top of what was once the ancient Lycian city of KARMYLASSOS, during Byzantine times it was the Greek town of LEVISSI, and today it is known as KAYAKOY. In 1923 at the time of the creation of the Republic of Turkey, the League of Nations, a predecessor of the United Nations, organised a population exchange: Turks living in Greece and Greeks living in Turkey were invited to move back to their homelands exchanging dwellings and receiving an indemnity for agreeing to move. The Greeks of Levissi moved near to Thessalonica and Athens creating two ‘New Levissi’ settlements. And Turks from Thessalonica arrived to live in Kayaköy, but chose to occupy houses down on the plain rather than the older dwellings ranged across the hillside. The abandoned houses now form a ghost city, eroded by wind and weather. There are two large churches and numerous small chapels testifying to the cultural activity of this once thriving Greek town. As in Cappadocia and other parts of Anatolia, the inhabitants of certain areas were neither Turks nor Muslims but they were not necessarily of Greek origin or ethnicity.  However, after the invasion of Alexander, and even under the Roman Empire, Greek was the language used by the population (this included ancient Lycians now conquered and assimilated, large groups of Greeks and then Romans, other people settled here from a wide range of backgrounds…..). The introduction of Christianity used firstly the Greek language in its preaching and thus conserved that language for liturgy and the reciting of dogma.  Right up until the beginning of the 20th century, pockets of orthodox Christians within a Muslim country, using Greek for their communication in church and at home, became assimilated into colonies of ‘Greeks’ alongside inhabitants who had actually come from Greece. The confusion was ratified by the League of Nations: the Orthodox (who read and prayed in Greek) were sent to Greece, supposedly the country of their ancestors but, between ourselves that is open to question, save for a tiny number…..! We shall pause for lunch. Then we have a two-hour afternoon walk. From LEVISSI (we will visit the abandoned village) we go up a hill (gaining 250m elevation) on which stands an old Greek Orthodox chapel. Then a beautiful descent through groves of oak and carob trees towards a cove called ‘’Cold Water Bay’’ (where cold water springs from the mountains emerge into the warm waters of the Mediterranean). Here our boat will be waiting at anchor for us! We go on board and have a swim. Then we up anchor, and sail for half an hour, to moor off the ’Island of St Nicholas (locally called Gemiler). We will visit the Island. Here we shall see the remains of hundreds of buildings: churches, chapels, houses, all placed on a small island so that there is barely a square metre of land left empty. The Byzantines of the 4, 5 and 6th centuries built themselves this impregnable retreat. Then the crusaders of St John of Jerusalem, coming from Malta and from Rhodes around the 12th century, added it to their bases, recognising a formidable location from which to keep watch or in which to hide. A curious Mediterranean St Michael’s Mount…….we shall watch the sun go down from the top of the island.  Dinner and night on board.

After our morning swim and breakfast, a short sail and then farewell to our team and the gullet. We go ashore at Cold Water Bay. We have a mere 2 hour walk, but one of exceptional beauty! A route looking down on the sea and ending in OLUDENIZ, the most famous beach in Turkey. A lagoon of turquoise water that played a part in ‘The Silent World’ of Jacques Cousteau. Picnic lunch and swimming. In the early afternoon our minibus awaits us in Oludeniz for the return journey to Milas. 4 hour journey by road. Check in to hotel. Evening free and you pay for dinner at your restaurant of choice.

Transfer to Bodrum airport for the return flight.