Lycian Way

The Lycian Way is a waymarked long-distance footpath along Turkey's southwestern coast, running between Fethiye in the west and the hills behind Antalya in the east. It was conceived, researched and marked out by Kate Clow, a British expatriate and amateur historian, and opened in 1999 as Turkey's first long-distance walking route, an attempt to identify and protect a network of old roads and mule tracks that were falling out of use.

From 500 Kilometres to 760

The trail opened at a little over 500 kilometres and was for years commonly described as roughly 540 kilometres long. Continued exploration by Clow and her team has extended it considerably, and current guidebooks and the Culture Routes Society, which she chairs, now put the full network at about 760 kilometres, or some 35 days of walking. The additions include the St Nicholas Ways, a set of paths linking ruined Byzantine monasteries in the hills above Demre, and the Lyra Way around Mount Olympos. The western trailhead is at Ovacık, just inland from Ölüdeniz near Fethiye and about two hours from Dalaman airport; the eastern end is at Geyikbayırı, some 20 to 30 kilometres inland from Antalya and served by local buses.

Waymarking follows the French GR convention that has spread across Europe: a rectangle half white and half red, painted on rocks, walls and poles, with a recommended spacing of around 80 metres between marks. Yellow replaces white on side paths, a red cross means you have taken the wrong line, and an angled mark warns of a turn ahead. The marking was originally done by volunteers organised by Clow with sponsorship from Garanti Bank, and it is still maintained largely by volunteers, which is worth bearing in mind: paint fades, and some sections are better marked than others.

What the Walking Is Actually Like

The route is made up mainly of Roman roads, old village footpaths and mule trails. It is hard and stony underfoot, unsuitable for mountain bikes, and because it runs in the narrow band between the sea and the Taurus range it involves constant steep gradients. From sea level it climbs to a pass of roughly 1,800 metres near Mount Tahtalı, whose summit reaches 2,365 metres. Lower down the path runs through strawberry trees, pines and carobs; higher up it enters cedar and juniper.

Very few people walk the whole thing in one go. It divides into around twenty-five stages, and most walkers take a week or a fortnight on a chosen stretch. Individual legs give a sense of the variation: the opening section from Fethiye to Ovacık covers about 18 kilometres, the hop from Olympos to Çıralı is barely 6, and the crossing from Demre to Finike runs to some 41 kilometres and is normally broken up. Except for three high-level sections there is somewhere to sleep at the end of each day, in village houses, pensions and small hotels generally spaced about 10 kilometres apart, while the remotest stages call for camping gear. There is also an ultramarathon version of the route, covering roughly 220 to 240 kilometres in about six days, and reported figures put the number of people walking some part of the trail at close to 30,000 a year, the majority of them foreign visitors.

Water needs planning. Village fountains are reliable, but wells and rainwater cisterns along the route vary in availability and cleanliness. The other hazards are the ordinary ones of a hot, rocky Mediterranean landscape: scorpions shelter under stones, snakes turn up near water, and dehydration combined with salt loss catches out walkers who carry water but forget to eat. The Babadağ area is known for a strong katabatic wind that gets up around midnight. Shortcuts are a bad idea, because the waymarks exist precisely where the direct line is a cliff. Spring and autumn are the seasons everyone recommends, broadly February to May and September to November, with the coastal sections becoming punishing at the height of summer.

Walking Through Ancient Lycia

The path takes its name from Lycia, the confederation of city-states that controlled this coast in antiquity and that survived as a league even after the emperor Claudius annexed the region as a Roman province in AD 43. The trail passes about 25 remote archaeological sites, most of them unfenced and unstaffed. Among them are the abandoned Greek village of Kayaköy above Fethiye, the hilltop ruins of Sidyma, the tombs and theatre of Xanthos, the sanctuary of Letoon, the long beach and buried city of Patara, the Lycian sites of Phellos, Antiphellos, Apollonia, Aperlae and Trysa, the rock tombs of Myra, the perpetual flames of the Chimaera at Yanartaş, and the harbour city of Phaselis. Xanthos and Letoon were jointly inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1988, and the multilingual inscriptions found at both were central to deciphering the Lycian language.

Several of the eastern stages run close to the shore around Kemer, Olympos and Çıralı, where the mountains drop almost straight into the sea, which is why a stretch of the Lycian Way is a popular stop for gulet charter guests exploring Turkey, who go ashore for a few hours on the path before returning to the boat. Walked end to end or sampled a day at a time, it remains the best way to see this coast from above rather than from the water.