Muğla, Turquoise Coast · Turkey
A working harbour town beneath Lycian rock tombs, with the most photographed lagoon in Turkey twenty minutes down the road.
Ölüdeniz is on the front of more Turkish holiday brochures than anywhere else in the country — a sheltered lagoon of impossibly graded blues behind a curling spit of pebble, pine forest running down to the water, and a mountain wall behind. It is as good as the photographs, which is unusual, and it is also very small, which is the part the photographs leave out.
The town you actually stay in is Fethiye, fifteen kilometres north around the headland. It is a working harbour rather than a resort: a fish market where you buy your dinner and pay a restaurant to cook it, a bazaar quarter of a few streets, and a marina full of the broad-beamed wooden gulets that sail the coast. Above the town, cut into the cliff face and visible from the seafront, are the rock tombs of ancient Telmessos, the grandest of them carved around 350 BC as the facade of an Ionic temple.
What makes this the best base on the Turquoise Coast is everything within an hour of it. A Greek village abandoned in 1923 and never reoccupied. A gorge eighteen kilometres long that you enter by wading a river. Lycian cities on hilltops, a UNESCO site at Xanthos, an eighteen-kilometre beach at Patara where loggerhead turtles nest. And the start of the Lycian Way, a 540-kilometre waymarked path that runs east along the cliffs all the way to Antalya.
Why visit
Fethiye earns its place by being the one point on the Turkish coast where beach, mountain, archaeology and boat travel all overlap within a short drive.
The lagoon is a protected nature park, closed to motorboats and jet skis, which is why the water stays that colour. It is small and it does get busy, but nothing else on this coast has the same combination of sheltered water, pine and mountain.
Babadağ rises to 1,969 metres directly behind the beach, with take-off ramps at several heights and a cable car to reach them. Tandem flights descend for twenty to forty minutes over the lagoon. No experience required, and thousands of people do it every season.
Several hundred roofless stone houses and two large churches on a hillside, emptied of their Greek Orthodox population in the 1923 population exchange and never resettled. It takes an hour or two to walk and is quietly extraordinary.
Wooden broad-beamed boats run day trips around the twelve islands of Fethiye bay and four-day cruises east towards Olympos, anchoring in coves with no road access. It is the classic way to see this coastline.
Tlos on its acropolis, the UNESCO-listed Xanthos and Letoon, and Patara with a restored Lycian League assembly building behind an eighteen-kilometre beach. All quiet, all free of the crowds at Ephesus.
Main attractions
The lagoon and the town take a day between them. Everything else is a drive or a boat ride, and the ruins inland are why you stay a week rather than three days.
The lagoon proper is a nature park with a small entry fee, a footpath through the pines and calm shallow water. Belcekız, the open beach outside the spit, is free, longer and has the paragliders landing on it all day.
Tip Go before 10:00 or after 16:00. The lagoon is small and the middle of the day in July is shoulder to shoulder.
Lycian tombs cut into the cliff above Fethiye, the largest — the Tomb of Amyntas, around 350 BC — carved as a temple facade with columns and a pediment, reached by a long flight of steps from the town.
Tip Climb at sunset. The light hits the cliff face and the view over the bay is the best in town.
The roofless remains of Levissi, a Greek town of several hundred houses and two churches abandoned after the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Now a protected site you walk through freely.
Tip There is a beautiful two-hour walking path over the hill from Kayaköy down to Ölüdeniz. Do it downhill, and take water.
A 1,969-metre mountain rising straight off the beach, with paragliding ramps at 1,200, 1,700 and 1,965 metres, a cable car to the top and a viewing terrace looking down the length of the coast.
Tip You can ride the cable car up without flying. The view over the lagoon from 1,800 m is worth the ticket on its own.
A steep-sided canyon opening onto a beach, reachable only by boat from Ölüdeniz or by a dangerous scramble down from Faralya. Named for the Jersey tiger moths that gather there in summer.
Tip Take the boat. The descent from the top is a rope-assisted climb and people are injured on it every year.
An eighteen-kilometre canyon with walls rising hundreds of metres, entered by wading across a fast, freezing river on a rope and then walking upstream between the rock walls.
Tip The water is snowmelt and shockingly cold whatever the air temperature. Wear shoes you can soak — grip matters more than dryness.
A Lycian hilltop city with rock tombs cut into the cliff below an Ottoman fortress, a theatre, a stadium and baths with a view down the Xanthos valley. The Tomb of Bellerophon carries a relief of the hero on Pegasus.
Tip Combine it with Saklıkent — they are twenty minutes apart and make a natural half-day.
Xanthos was the capital of Lycia and Letoon its religious centre; together they are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Patara nearby has the restored Lycian League assembly building and an eighteen-kilometre beach behind it.
Tip Patara's beach is a protected loggerhead turtle nesting site and closes at dusk in summer. Do the ruins first, then swim.
Things to do
This is an outdoors destination first. The best days here involve a boat, a mountain or a river rather than a museum.
A tandem paraglide from 1,700 or 1,965 metres, spiralling down over the lagoon for twenty to forty minutes before landing on Belcekız beach. No experience needed and it is the single thing people remember from this coast.
Tip Morning flights are smoother; afternoon thermals give you longer in the air. Cancellations for wind are common and refunds are normal.
Day trips around the twelve islands of Fethiye bay, or the classic four-day 'blue cruise' east towards Olympos, sleeping on deck and anchoring in coves that no road reaches.
Tip On a day trip, ask how many stops and how long at each. The cheaper boats spend more time motoring and less time swimming.
Fethiye's covered market has fishmongers in the middle and restaurants around the edge. You choose and buy your fish, then pay a restaurant a small cover to grill it and bring salad, bread and meze.
Tip Prices are per kilo and posted. Agree the cooking charge before you sit down, and one fish between two is usually plenty.
The 540-kilometre waymarked path starts at Ovacık above Ölüdeniz and runs east along the cliffs to near Antalya. The first stages, over the hill to Faralya and Kabak, are among the best.
Tip Red-and-white waymarks. Spring and autumn only — the exposed sections are brutal in summer heat.
Cross the river on the rope at the gorge mouth and walk upstream between walls hundreds of metres high, in water that stays cold all summer. A memorable couple of hours.
Tip Combine with Tlos and a trout lunch at one of the restaurants built on platforms over the river.
Tlos, Pınara, Xanthos, Letoon and Patara are strung along the valley south of Fethiye, mostly unfenced, usually empty, and none of them more than an hour away.
Tip A hire car makes this day. By dolmuş you will manage one site, not four.
Local food
This is Aegean and Mediterranean cooking — olive oil, wild greens, fish and honey — and Muğla province takes all four seriously.
Sea bream, sea bass, and in season bonito and red mullet, bought by the kilo from the fishmongers in Fethiye's covered market and grilled by the restaurant of your choice around the edge.
Where to try it The Fethiye fish market — an institution, and cheaper than any harbourside restaurant.
The Aegean speciality: wild greens such as radika, turp otu and sea samphire, blanched and dressed with olive oil and lemon, served cold alongside stuffed vine leaves and beans.
Where to try it Meyhanes in Fethiye's bazaar quarter and village restaurants around Kayaköy. Ask what otlar are in season.
Courgette flowers stuffed with rice, herbs and pine nuts, served at room temperature in olive oil. A summer dish that appears for only a few weeks and is worth ordering the moment you see it.
Where to try it Traditional restaurants through late spring and early summer.
Muğla province produces the great majority of the world's pine honey — darker and less sweet than flower honey — and it anchors the serpme kahvaltı, a Turkish breakfast of twenty small plates that takes two hours.
Where to try it The breakfast places up at Kayaköy and in the villages above Ölüdeniz. Go hungry and go early.
Thin hand-rolled dough griddled over a sac with cheese, spinach or potato, and the thicker bazlama bread that goes with breakfast. Made in front of you, usually by someone who has done it for decades.
Where to try it Kayaköy, the Saklıkent gorge entrance, and any market day stall.
The anise spirit that turns cloudy with water, drunk slowly across a table of cold meze and grilled fish rather than before or after. The evening is the meal, not the drink.
Where to try it The meyhanes in Fethiye's old bazaar streets, which fill up around 21:00 and stay full.
Accommodation
The choice is between Fethiye — a real town that stays open all year — and the resort villages above Ölüdeniz, which are seasonal and much more package-holiday in feel.
Transport
Dalaman airport is the gateway, and in summer it takes direct charters from across northern Europe.
Dolmuş minibuses cover the local routes cheaply and constantly; a car is what unlocks the Lycian valley.
When to go
The shoulder months give you warm sea, walkable trails and a coast that is busy rather than overwhelmed. July and August deliver perfect swimming and very little else comfortably.
Wildflowers on the Lycian Way, ruins at their greenest, and the sea warm enough to swim from late May. Everything is open by May and the crowds have not arrived. The best walking of the year.
Hot at 33–38°C, the lagoon crowded, prices at their peak and the trails too exposed to walk. The sea is at its best and the boat trips are wonderful — it depends entirely on what you came for.
The pick of the year: the sea is at its warmest in September, the heat eases, the crowds thin after the first week and the walking becomes possible again. October is still swimmable.
Fethiye keeps working — it is a real town — but Ölüdeniz, Ovacık and Hisarönü largely shut. Mild at 15°C, green, wet in places, and very cheap. Not a beach trip.
Worth planning around: If you have come to walk, avoid July and August outright. The Lycian Way's cliff sections have no shade and no water, and people get into serious difficulty on them every summer.
Itinerary
One day for the town, one for the lagoon and the mountain, one on the water and one inland. A car helps from day three.
The town, the tombs and the fish market.
The lagoon early, the mountain after.
A boat day, which is what this coast is for.
Ruins and a gorge, best with a car.
Travel tips
Practicalities for a coast where the good things are spread out and the seasons matter more than usual.
FAQ
Yes — the lagoon is a protected nature park closed to motorboats, which is why the water keeps that colour, and the mountain backdrop is dramatic. What the photographs hide is the scale: the lagoon beach is very small, and in July and August it is extremely busy. Come early or late in the day and it lives up to the pictures.
Fethiye, for almost everyone. It is a real town with a fish market, a bazaar and life outside the season, it has the harbour the boats leave from, and Ölüdeniz is only 25 minutes away by dolmuş. Stay at Ölüdeniz itself only if you want to walk out of your hotel onto the beach, and treat Hisarönü and Ovacık above it as package-holiday strips.
Tandem flights from Babadağ need no experience — you are strapped to a licensed pilot and the take-off is a few running steps off a ramp. It is one of the busiest paragliding sites in the world, with thousands of flights a season. Choose an established operator, check they are licensed, and expect flights to be cancelled outright when the wind is wrong, which is the system working properly.
A Greek Orthodox town of several hundred houses and two large churches, abandoned when its population was moved to Greece in the 1923 exchange between the two countries and never resettled. The stone shells still stand roofless on the hillside. It is a protected site, takes an hour or two to walk, and a footpath runs over the hill from it down to Ölüdeniz.
The four-day trip east towards Olympos is the classic experience on this coast — you sleep on deck and anchor in coves that no road reaches. Day trips around the twelve islands of Fethiye bay are a good taster. On both, ask specifically how many swimming stops there are and how long at each; cheaper boats spend more of the day under engine.
May to June and September to October. The sea is swimmable from late May through late October, the Lycian Way and the ruins are comfortable in spring and autumn, and the crowds are manageable. July and August are hot at 33–38°C, the lagoon is packed and the walking becomes unwise. In winter Fethiye stays open but the beach resorts close.
Not for the beach, the lagoon or the boat trips — dolmuş minibuses cover all of those cheaply and constantly. You do want one for the Lycian valley inland, where Tlos, Saklıkent, Xanthos, Letoon and Patara are scattered over an hour's drive and public transport reaches them slowly if at all. Two or three days of hire is usually enough.
Keep exploring
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