Dalyan - Kaunos - İztuzu Beach

Last week I took you to the modest grave of the last Ottaman Sultan in Syria. Today, let me show you some other tombs from Dalyan. I dont know if they are modest or not but they definitely have a good view. They are the tombs of the kings of Kaunos..


Dalyan is a small town in the south west of Turkey, famous with its rock tombs, Kaunos antic city and İztuzu beach which is the breeding ground for Caretta Caretta - loggerhead sea turtles. Best way to reach Kaunos and the only way to reach the İztuzu beach is to rent a boat and sail thru the Dalyan river, and that' s what exactly we did 2 weeks ago.

We have rented a boat and this time my mother and my niece were with us..

We first stopped at the ancient city of Kaunos. It was a city in the ancient Caria. It's location over the river and its ancient theatre where you can sit under the shadows of olive trees were beautiful.

Our last stop was İztuzu beach which was voted the best beach in the world in 1995. After my experience with its luke warm water I can say that turtles and I do not share the same opinion on what a good sea should feel like. As the photo I took that day did not give the necessary credit to one of the best beaches in the world because of the crowds, here I am putting a photo from my friend Ozan Alperden. He took this photo in the spring. I think its a good view of the 6 km long beach..

Oludeniz - Fethiye

I have been away from Datca and internet for the last 2 days. We went to Fethiye and Dalyan. This time my mother and my niece were with us. On day 1, we were at Fethiye a well known tourist center about 3 hours drive from here. Although we spent the night at Fethiye our main target there was Oludeniz.




It is a small resort village famous with its beach about 20 minutes away from Fethiye. It is frequently rated among the top 5 beaches in the world and probably one of the most photographed beach on the Mediterranean.


It is also famous for paragliding and regarded as one of the best places in the world to paraglide due to its unique panoramic views, and the Babadağ Mountain's exceptional height.



While we were there we also drove to nearby Valley of Butterflies to see the magnificent view from the top. The road was so narrow and it was a scary ride but it worth...






Later in the day the weather gets cloudy and it started to rain a bit, but the view was still magnificentHowever as someone coming from the Datca peninsula, I did not like the quality of the sea. First of all water is hot. It's not cool and refreshing. We call it as hamam/ bath water here. Second it does not look very clean. There were lots of sea weeds swimming with me. But dont take me too seriously, Iam sure it was OK but I am a bit fanatic about the waters of my lovely peninsula. I swam on so many seas and oceans but couldnt find a match yet..

We are back!!!

We are finally back to Datca. We came back from Kusadasi last night after making 3 more ancient site tour on a very hot day. We were tired, exhausted but happy.

I couldnt make any more post from Kusadasi because our days were so full of visiting nearby places. Ephesus, Sirince, Miletos, Priene, Didyma...I will soon write about all of them but first I have to organize my photos. There are tons of it. But here are some random ones...

We swam on the bays of the Kusadasi Natural Park. Because of high population and heavy construction, beaches in Kusadasi are not quite nice to enjoy. So try the turquoise waters of the national park.

We watched the busy harbour from the beautiful terrace of the Kismet Hotel when the sun was setting.It was best time of the day to have our drinks..

When the sunsets were not enough there were always full moons and cosy dinners at the beach to celebrate the passing of the day. Lots of laugh, talk and good food were the integral parts..

And of course a BİG thank you to my dear friend Eser whose hospitality was beyond words..

Sunset at Kusadasi

Well, as planned we have reached Kusadasi, right before the sunset after a long and hot day at Aphrodisias. My dear friend Eser was waiting for us and our drinks were ready at the balcony. It was such a dreamy and peaceful moment. All my tiredness passes in a few minutes. It was a wonderful way to celebrate the passing of a wonderful day in my life..

Aphrodisias photos are coming soon.

Bafa Lake

Thru the years I've probably passes from the road near the Bafa Lake countless times, but never stopped. However last week we planned to spend a day there. Our small group consisted of 4 Fins and 3 Turks.

2000 years ago Bafa was a bay of the Aegean Sea. Due to deposits of a nearby river, it was slowly seperated from the sea. Depends on how you look at it, this area could be considered lucky or unlucky. As it is very close to famous beach resorts of the country like Bodrum, Marmaris and Kusadası, it was totally ignored by the gods of tourism. If you ask me that's where its beauty comes from..


When we arrived the small village Kapikiri, near the lake, morning routine of the villagers had already started. I took many photos but my favorite one was the lady on the horse. She was herding her cows.



After finding a place to leave our stuff, we hired two small boats to start our excursion on the lake. Everybody was very happy. Husbands at our boat were very happy because they had plenty of cold beer and our boatman was very happy because they were sharing the beers with him. On the other boat, the two local boys were very happy because they were carrying the three Nordic beauties.

The village of Kapikiri is built on the ruins of the ancient city of Heracleia. There are countless ruins on the shore as well as in the lake. The landscape was just amazing.











After spending some time on the lake, we decided to swim and the boats took us to a lovely small beach. The water of the lake was warm and slightly salty, reminder of the days which it was a sea. Then the local boys proposed to show us some rock paintings. As it requires some climbing, only me , my husband and Juha decided to go along. My willingness and courage to climb rocks with a mini skirt and flip flops was probably coming from the wine I drank on the boat but that was a totally different issue.


With lots of pushing and pulling, I finally climbed the rocks and we entered a small cave. There, I saw the most amazing art on the wall that was painted in the prehistoric times. As I have never seen one before, it was really a breathtaking moment. I felt like I was looking right into the eyes of a caveman. An unforgetable moment. It definitely worth all the bruises and scratches on my arms and legs. Later I learned that archaelogist Annelise Peschlow discovered more than 100 prehistoric paintings in the area.

shopping on the road

Still on the road, driving between Denizli and Mugla. We should see the first glimpses of sea in an hour time. When we stopped to buy gas, I bought this beautiful hand made doll, made by local women. LOve the colors on her skirt. Its 13:45 here..

On the Road

We are finally on our way to the beach house and this post is from my mobile office in the van. We left İstanbul yesterday and spent a night in Eskisehir on my mother's house. Now we are driving thru in Sandıklı, a town famous with its thermal waters. Weather is already hot. It's 10:30 now and we are planning to reach Datca around 17:00. Cant wait to jump to the sea...

Lycian Way Dreams

We are moving to our beach house in 10 days to spend the summer. Our number one item on our to do list for the summer, is to be on this exact location and to look at this beautiful scenery.

This photo taken on the Lycian Way, near Fethiye - Oludeniz, from a fantastic spot on the 509 km long trekking route on the southern coast of Turkey. The walk passes many remote historical sites but as you can imagine we are only planning to cover a very short distance of it.

Phote: from my friend Ozan Alperden