Likya Yolu · 540 km · 12 stages
The Lycian Way
A line that begins at Ovacık above Fethiye and ends at Geyikbayırı, on the doorstep of Antalya. The Lycian Way was waymarked in 1999 — so the path itself is young. The ground it treads is not: goat and mule tracks, short stretches of Roman paving, steps cut into rock, cisterns. The route passes through or below some twenty-five ancient cities. Its worth lies not in its own age but in what it strings together.
The stages
1. Ovacık – Faralya
The mountain of the seers · 17 km
The way begins on the shoulder of Telmessos. This city was famous for its divination: according to Herodotus, Croesus of Lydia sent men here to have an ill omen read, and Alexander too consulted the seers of Telmessos. The first day climbs the mountain behind the city — Anticragus in antiquity — and leaves the lagoon of Ölüdeniz far below.
2. Faralya – Alınca
Lycia stood on end · 24 km
Past Faralya the coast turns into a wall: the sea below, the path on the face of the rock. There is no ancient city here, because there is no flat ground to found one on. This is the vertical face of Lycia, and here you understand why its cities took refuge on hilltops, terraces and cut rock. The track down to Butterfly Valley is the same line goats and mules opened over centuries.
3. Alınca – Sidyma
The shadow of the eagle · 35 km
After Alınca the way turns inland and reaches Sidyma: a small but full member of the League, today a scatter of sarcophagi and tomb monuments inside a village. There is a story here — the soldier Marcian fell asleep on the road and an eagle spread its wing to shade him from the sun; a seer read it as a sign of empire. Marcian did become emperor (450–457); the tale is the one the Byzantine chroniclers tell.
4. Sidyma – Pydnai – Letoon
Walls down to the sea · 38 km
The path drops from the mountain to the shore and Pydnai appears: a Hellenistic fortress with some fifteen towers and walls standing almost intact just behind the beach. A small place, but its walls are among the best preserved in Lycia — emptiness is sometimes the best conservator. From here the way turns into the mouth of the Xanthos valley, to the sanctuary of Letoon.
5. Letoon – Ksanthos – Patara
The hearth of the country · 22 km
Twenty-two kilometres cross the heart of Lycia. Letoon is not a city but the sanctuary of the whole country: three temples, federal festivals, treaties cut into stone. Above it Xanthos, the capital that twice chose mass death over surrender. Then Patara: where the assembly of the League met, and the lighthouse Nero had raised in AD 64 — the oldest lighthouse known to stand.
6. Patara – Phellos – Antiphellos
The mother city and its harbour · 70 km
One of the longest sections, climbing to the ridges by way of Kalkan and Bezirgan. The names of the two cities here declare their relation: above lies **Phellos** — “the stony place” — and below on the coast **Antiphellos**, that is, “opposite Phellos”. In time the harbour outgrew the mother city; the theatre of Antiphellos still looks out to sea, while Phellos is silent on its ridge.
7. Antiphellos – Aperlai – Simena
Four cities, one vote · 44 km
In the bay of Kekova the fine machinery of the Lycian League shows itself: Aperlai, Simena, Apollonia and Isinda voted as a single unit — four cities, one vote. An order that neither ignored the small nor inflated it. On the shore lies the sunken city: the earthquake of the second century AD dropped the ground, and the steps of the houses run down into the water.
8. Simena – Myra – Andriake
Rome’s grain harbour · 56 km
The rock tombs of Myra pierce the slope like a honeycomb; below them the theatre, further on the church of St Nicholas. Its harbour Andriake was imperial business: Hadrian’s granary still stands, inscription and all. Paul, being taken to Rome under guard, changed ships here — Acts 27 — onto an Alexandrian grain vessel.
9. Andriake – Finike – Limyra
A ruler and an heir · 40 km
Limyra fell into the middle of history twice. In the fourth century BC the dynast Pericles gathered most of Lycia into one hand from here and laid siege to Telmessos; his tomb monument on the acropolis is carried by caryatids. Four centuries later Gaius Caesar, grandson and heir of Augustus, died here in AD 4 on his way back wounded from the East; his cenotaph still stands on the plain.
10. Limyra – Rhodiapolis – Gagai
Gifts to twenty-eight cities · 46 km
Rhodiapolis is a small city, but it produced the most generous man in Lycia: Opramoas. When the earthquake of AD 141 wrecked the region he sent money from his own fortune to twenty-eight cities — theatres, baths, walls, grain. The inscription on the wall of his tomb lists those gifts one by one and is the longest known inscription in Anatolia. From there the way descends to Gagai, on the sea.
11. Gagai – Olympos – Yanartaş
Pirates and a fire that will not go out · 60 km
In the first century BC Olympos was a pirate nest: Zeniketes made it his stronghold, cut Rome’s Mediterranean trade and was besieged in 78 BC by Servilius Vatia — he set fire to his own castle and died in it. Above the city lies Yanartaş: gas rising from the rock has burned for thousands of years. In antiquity this was the sanctuary of Hephaestus, and the breath of the Chimaera.
12. Yanartaş – Phaselis – Geyikbayırı
The city bought with dried fish · 88 km
Phaselis was founded by Rhodians around 690 BC and, the story goes, they bought the site from a shepherd for a load of dried fish — the city never shook off the joke. It had three harbours; Alexander wintered here in 334/333 BC and was met with a golden crown. From here the way climbs the skirts of Tahtalı and ends outside Lycia, on the threshold of Antalya.
The ancient cities along the way
Telmessos · Xanthos · Patara · Myra · Olympos · Phaselis · Karmylessos · Sidyma · Pydnai · Letoon · Phellos · Antiphellos · Aperlai · Simena · Apollonia · Isinda · Andriake · Limyra · Rhodiapolis · Gagai