The Lycian Way is a collection of dirt roads, disused trails, and goat paths that goes from one end of the Turkey's Teke Peninsula to the other, starting in Fethiye in the west and ending in Antalya in the east. The trails wind up and down between the Mediterranean sea and the mountains and farming valleys just inland. Over every rise is a new panorama of the turquoise, island-dotted sea, or of farmland and small villages nestled between peaks. I'm afraid I'll start to suffer from stunning-vista fatigue. Much of the route is in regions that are still very rural, so I meet many farmers and goatherds as I travel. While most don't speak any English, they're happy to say 'Merhaba' and offer directions, and will often invite me to stop for tea or even lunch.
What makes this trail particularly special, though, is its ruins. Four ancient civilizations had a presence in Lycia over the past 3000-odd years: the Lycians themselves, the Persians, the Romans and the Byzantine Empire. The trail is dotted for most of its length with ancient stone tombs, collapsing castles, and the ruins of cities, in different architectural styles from each civilization. A few of the biggest sites are officially protected and fenced-off, but mostly the ruins are just there in the wilderness, silent and empty, with the trail running right past or even through them.
Wandering daily through the decaying remains of the ancients who inhabited this place, I'm given to wonder how long our own modern constructions will last. Will Vancouver's skyscrapers still be standing three thousand years from now? Will anything built in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries remain by then? Will hikers someday sit eating lunch on the crumbling edges of BC Place or on the fallen concrete and girders of the Shangri-La?
Some of my favorite places and sections:
The ancient city of Phellos might be the most beautiful spot I've ever seen. Certainly it's the best on the Lycian way so far. You rise to the ridge of a saddleback connecting two mountain-tops at about 1000 m above sea leve, and find yourself standing amid worn cut-stone blocks. Turning back, you see the ridge rising toward the peak your trail had been skirting around. This forested mountain bisects the vista: on your left, the pine forests rolling down over lower hills, dotted with bright green fields and red-roofed buildings, to the blue Mediterranean and its little islands; on the right, a vast valley with roads threading down through the woods and huge rocky outcroppings of the slopes to the fields at its floor, and beyond it, the far mountains rising in tiers, the rearmost and highest peaks wreathed in clouds and capped with snow.
These two very different views, each beautiful alone, give a truly sublime impression here, juxtaposed with one another, the green mountain forming the boundary between. To think that this was once a living city! It must have been marvelous waking up to this panorama every day.
In terms of ruins, my favorite site was the city of Olympos. The city is better-preserved than most other sites, but nature is rapidly reclaiming it, hiding the surrounding signs of modernity and complementing the sprawling ruins with a sense of isolation and solitude. Its buildings lie along either side of a river and are built up and over the tops of the steep rocky cliffs and foothills that surround the old center of the city. One can climb up amidst the collapsing tower walls on one such cliff and look down onto the beach ten meters below on the other side, and take in (yet another) spectacular view of the sea.
Wandering daily through the decaying remains of the ancients who inhabited this place, I'm given to wonder how long our own modern constructions will last. Will Vancouver's skyscrapers still be standing three thousand years from now? Will anything built in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries remain by then? Will hikers someday sit eating lunch on the crumbling edges of BC Place or on the fallen concrete and girders of the Shangri-La?
Some of my favorite places and sections:
The ancient city of Phellos might be the most beautiful spot I've ever seen. Certainly it's the best on the Lycian way so far. You rise to the ridge of a saddleback connecting two mountain-tops at about 1000 m above sea leve, and find yourself standing amid worn cut-stone blocks. Turning back, you see the ridge rising toward the peak your trail had been skirting around. This forested mountain bisects the vista: on your left, the pine forests rolling down over lower hills, dotted with bright green fields and red-roofed buildings, to the blue Mediterranean and its little islands; on the right, a vast valley with roads threading down through the woods and huge rocky outcroppings of the slopes to the fields at its floor, and beyond it, the far mountains rising in tiers, the rearmost and highest peaks wreathed in clouds and capped with snow.
These two very different views, each beautiful alone, give a truly sublime impression here, juxtaposed with one another, the green mountain forming the boundary between. To think that this was once a living city! It must have been marvelous waking up to this panorama every day.
In terms of ruins, my favorite site was the city of Olympos. The city is better-preserved than most other sites, but nature is rapidly reclaiming it, hiding the surrounding signs of modernity and complementing the sprawling ruins with a sense of isolation and solitude. Its buildings lie along either side of a river and are built up and over the tops of the steep rocky cliffs and foothills that surround the old center of the city. One can climb up amidst the collapsing tower walls on one such cliff and look down onto the beach ten meters below on the other side, and take in (yet another) spectacular view of the sea.
The hike around the eastern point of the Teke peninsula, from Karaöz to Adrasan, was one of the loveliest sections on the entire walk. It's mostly shaded by forest, and as it winds up and down the side of the costal mountain range it affords almost uninterrupted views of the sea for the entire six-odd hours it takes. After one rounds the point, tall multicoloured islands rise out of the sea, lending variety to the scene. There aren't any considerable ruins, but it's beautiful the whole way, and devoid of signs of development until one reaches the small beach town at the end of the section.
Sadly, after three weeks of hiking and with just three days to go my legs and feet began to rebel. Their aches and cramps no longer subsided after a night's sleep. The guidebook to the route indicated that there was very little in the way of ruins on the remaining sections and as the areas I'd been travelling through had been growing increasingly touristy. I figured that I wouldn't be missing much by skipping these final sections, so I decided not to risk injury by pushing through the last few days, and took a bus back to Antalya.
The Lycian way is magical. That's the best adjective I can find for it. I'd love to do it again some day. With a bit more preparation and with the knowledge I've gained from this first go, I'm sure I could make it all the way, and include the higher mountain sections as well. Maybe in a few years, if I have someone to take along with me.
Photos from the way:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152336503940879.1073741858.514945878&type=1&l=51c33cf9d8
Antalya:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152336323275879.1073741857.514945878&type=1&l=010c30628b
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