Ölüdeniz was only about half an hour from Fethiye. The park up itself wasn’t the best but Ölüdeniz is a very touristy place.
When we got there our friend’s Steve and Elisa Jones were visiting Elisa’s sister who was staying in a hotel in town.
I went to the beach. It was nice to be on the beach and be able to swim in the sea but it was very touristy .
Ölüdeniz is famous for paragliding. It’s one of the best places in the world to do it . It was good to watch but we didn’t give it a go. I’ve actually done hang gliding about 20 years ago in New Zealand so I wasn’t too fussed about trying it .
Here’s a beach photo.
That evening we walked to see the Blue Lagoon. It was about a 15 minute walk from where we were. It’s an extension of Oludeniz and is just a very beautiful beach resort.
Kayaköy
The following day we said goodbye to our friends Elisa and Steve once again as they headed off on a boat trip with Elisa’s sister.
We headed to Kayaköy, an abandoned village in southwest Turkey, not far from Fethiye
Why is Kayaköy abandoned?
Kayaköy was originally known as Karmylassos in ancient times and dates back to the 4th century.
In the 18th century the Greeks arrived and created a town which they called Livissi. In 1923 there were around 6,000 Greeks in the city and a ‘population exchange’ was started between the Greeks and The Turkish. This forced The Greeks to leave.
The town was renamed Kayaköy and the vacant houses were populated by Muslims that came from Macedonia.
The Macedonians didn’t like Kayaköy and they left.
Kayaköy ghost town is now an open air museum with approximately 500 preserved houses and 3 churches.
It is actually quite a big place and lots of climbing uphill. We spent about 2 hours there but we could easily have spent longer.
Saklikent Gorge
We left Kayaköy and headed for Saklikent Gorge.
Saklikent means ‘hidden city’ in Turkish. It is around 50km away from Fethiyie. It opened to the public in 1996 . It is around 18km long and 300 metres deep making it one of the deepest canyons in the world. It’s the longest and deepest canyon in Turkey.
We arrived just after lunch so we headed straight to a park up that our friend’s ‘The Harris’s had recommended.
It was a restaurant and you could stay in the car park at the back as long as you ate there.
The restaurant was one of many there that had low tables and cushions to sit on . It also had water in the middle and swinging chairs. Here we are below waiting for our dinner .
Before having dinner we went off to explore the Gorge . We weren’t entirely sure why it’s sometimes called a gorge and sometimes called a canyon. We think it may just depend if you are English or American?
It really is quite spectacular and was a really fun thing to do. Here’s a few photos . It was around 10tl to enter the Gorge and National park in May 2023. This at the time was less than 50p or 50 cents!
As you can see I found it hard to choose photos and ended up with quite few on here as I really couldn’t cut it down! It was such a good place to visit.
If you go remember to wear shorts and shoes that you don’t mind getting wet!
After having a nice meal in the restaurant the owner tempted us with a Turkish breakfast the following morning.
Turkish breakfasts are huge, it is best to have them between 10am and 12pm and then you definitely won’t need to eat lunch!
This one was particularly huge! The owner didn’t really speak much English so we assumed all the extras he kept offering us were included! Turned out they weren’t and we ended up with so much food! The pan at the back in the photo is a menemen, which is a Turkish dish with tomato, onion, peppers, spices and scrambled eggs. It’s really nice and this was a particularly good one. At the front you can also see Gözleme which is Turkish pancakes. I think we had one with cheese and one with potato.
The pot right at the front is Turkish tea known as çay. ( pronounce chai) This is very big in Turkey, it’s slightly bitter and usually drunk black and with a little sugar . We tried it, we weren’t keen, neither of us are tea drinkers! We both felt it tasted too much like tea!
We drink it a few times though as the Turks do like to offer it and we don’t like to be rude by declining their hospitality.
As you can see I loved getting in the swinging chair. You could dangle your feet in the water and it was so nice.
After this huge breakfast we decided it was time to get back on the road and head to Kaş.
Our next post will start with Kaş
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Our Life on the Road 
Kakakoy looks very interesting and that gorge is amazing as is your breakfast, think I would have needed a doggie bag to take away what we couldn’t eat. That dish with the capsicum, tomato, onion and egg is something I like to make for lunch occasionally, but I usually break eggs into the mix then bake in the oven, but I’m sure scrambled eggs would be ok also.
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I sometimes make shakashuka . It’s very similar but with poached egged on top. I do it on the hob though not the oven . X
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