Explore The Turquoise Coast
The former Greek Orthodox village of Kalamaki, now KALKAN, tumbles down a steep slope some 13km beyond the Patara turn-off. Tourism and property sales, now the town’s raison d’être, are fairly new phenomena: until the late 1970s both Kalkan and neighbouring Kaş eked out a living from charcoal-burning and olives. In the 1980s it developed a rather bohemian atmosphere, contrasting with often oppressive conditions in Turkish cities after the 1980 coup. Today its population of 4000 includes some 1500 expats, two thirds of which are British, and the small boutique hotels which used to be Kalkan’s lifeblood have mostly been converted into apartments and second homes. The surviving package-holiday trade dominates most of the remaining short-stay accommodation, and ensures that Kalkan remains more exclusive (and considerably more twee) than nearby Kaş.
Once you accept this pervasive social profile and the lack of a sandy beach, Kalkan makes a good base for exploring Patara and the Xanthos valley, while excursions east or inland might occupy another day or so. These can be accomplished either with your own vehicle (several car rental outlets), taxis or short-haul minibuses from near the PTT, or long-haul coaches from the otogar at the very top of town.
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Local beaches
Local beaches
The artificially supplemented pebble beach called Kömürlük at the east edge of town is pleasant enough, the water quite clean and chilled by freshwater seeps, with one spring spilling onto the beach itself from just inland. Although bigger than it looks from afar, it still gets hopelessly full in summer, when you’ll probably want to use the swimming platforms or lidos flanking the bay – reasonably priced shuttle boats take you to them. The only other bona fide beach within walking distance is a coarse-pebble one well southwest on the coast, which the Lycian Way visits on its way to Gelemiş.
The 27km of road east from Kalkan to Kaş follows a harsh karstic coastline, the terrain stained red from traces of metallic ores, with the Greek isles of Kastellórizo and Rhó increasingly visible out to sea. Just under 6km along you cross the Kaputaş Gorge, a deep canyon slashing back into the cliffs. Steps from the roadside parking area – where there’s a jandarma post, and signs warning you not to leave valuables in cars (break-ins are rife when the jandarma aren’t patrolling) – take you down to Kaputaş beach, a 150-metre-long expanse of pebble and blonde sand that is normally pretty packed, given the mediocre quality of beaches closer to Kalkan or Kaş. Kaputaş has served as the backdrop for innumerable TV advert shoots, and unless there’s been a southerly storm the water is crystalline. The closest reliable facility is Ali Taylı’s welcoming Ada Fish Restaurant, 700m east of Kaputaş overlooking the Sidek peninsula and its Byzantine ruins, doing a roaring trade thanks to the fresh and very reasonably priced fish bought in daily at 8am.
Between Kaputaş and Ada yawns the Mavi Mağara, claimed the second largest sea-cave in the Med, with blue-light effects inside. Despite signage on the road overhead, it’s only accessible by sea – a very long swim from Kaputaş, or (more likely) as part of a boat trip – though Kalkan skippers can be reluctant to include it in itineraries.
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Scuba-diving near Kalkan
Scuba-diving near Kalkan
Most of the twenty-odd local dive sites lie a 25 to 40 minute boat ride away, many of them around the islets at the mouth of the bay. Of these, beginners dive the shallows at the north tip of Yılan Adası (Snake Island), and almost entire perimeter of the remoter Heybeli; another excellent novice or second-dive-of-day venue is Frank Wall on the east side of the bay, with spectacular rock pinnacles and plenty of fish. More advanced divers are taken to an even more dramatic wall between 20m and 50m at the south tip of “Snake”, alive with barracuda, grouper and myriad smaller fish, to reefs off Heybeli and Öksüz or to sand-bottom caves on the mainland with their entrances at 25m. The most spectacular calm-weather dive site, for intermediate and advanced divers, is Sakarya Reef, southeast of Kalkan off İnce Burun. Here, in 15m of water, are the mangled remains of the Duchess of York, a North Sea trawler built in Hull in 1893 and apparently scuttled for an insurance payout sometime after 1930. However, more interesting is the newer, larger Turkish-built Sakarya nearby, wrecked in the 1940s, broken into three sections at depths of 35–60m, retaining teak-plank decking, intact winches and a vast cargo of lead ballast. Except in the caves, fed by chilly fresh water, water temperatures are a comfortable 18–30°C; the sea warms up abruptly in late May or early June with a current change, and stays warm into November. Visibility is typically 25–30m.
