Limanagzi Bay

Limanağzı, a name that translates roughly as "mouth of the harbour," sits directly across the water from Kaş, close enough that the town stays in view the whole time you are there. No road runs down to it. Everything arrives by boat or on foot, and that single fact explains most of what the bay is: quiet, green, barely built on and, by the standards of the Turkish Mediterranean in August, remarkably unhurried.

Crossing over from Kaş

Water taxis leave from a kiosk on Kaş harbour and take fifteen to twenty minutes to cross, running roughly every half hour through the day in season, from mid-morning until early evening. Five small beach clubs are strung around the coves, most of them wooden decks with sun loungers set over rock rather than sand, serving simple food and renting out kayaks and snorkelling gear. Because the shoreline is rocky, swimming is done off platforms and ladders, which is no hardship: the water drops away clear and deep almost immediately.

Rock tombs above the water

What sets Limanağzı apart from the dozens of other pretty coves on this coast is that its history is visible from the sea. Lycian rock tombs cut straight into the cliff face look down on the bay, and the coastal path passes beneath them along a narrow ledge. This form of cliff burial spread through Lycia in the fifth and fourth centuries BC, and Kaş has more of it than most towns because it stands on the ancient city of Antiphellos. Antiphellos began as the harbour of inland Phellos, outgrew its parent through sea trade and became an independent member of the Lycian League. Its theatre still faces the sea at the western edge of town, and the so-called King's Tomb, a monumental Lycian sarcophagus carrying an inscription in the Lycian language, stands among the modern streets.

Walking in on the Lycian Way

The alternative to the boat is the Lycian Way, the 760-kilometre waymarked route from Fethiye to Antalya laid out by Kate Clow in 1999. The stage that reaches Limanağzı begins at Büyük Çakıl beach in Kaş and follows the shoreline through scrub and old olive terraces; walking out to the bay and the viewpoint above it and back comes to around eight kilometres and takes about two and a half hours. Walkers carrying on climb from the bay through pine forest to the hillside village of Üzümlü, and most take a water taxi home rather than retrace the coast.

Protected ground

Limanağzı's undeveloped character is not an accident. The bay is a third-degree natural protected site that also contains three first-degree archaeological sites and a registered historic site, and it lies within the Kaş-Kekova Special Environmental Protection Area. There is no approved development plan for the area, and attempts to introduce one have repeatedly been overturned in court, which is why building here has stayed limited to a handful of small cafés and bungalows rather than resorts. For sailors, it is one of the anchorages you'll visit on a private gulet charter from Kas, usually as a short first- or last-day stop given how close it sits to the harbour.