The Kekova region

BT Adventure and Dragoman in Kaş remain the principal organizers of sea-kayaking day-tours in the Kekova area, a wonderful, low-impact way of appreciating the eerie seascapes. They have the further advantage of allowing you to approach the shoreline, and the Batık Şehir in particular, much closer than the glass-bottomed cruise boats do, and also of using narrow, shallow channels off-limits to larger craft. As long as your head is covered and you bring enough water, you’ll tolerate all but the hottest summer days, even wrapped inside a life vest. Trips may begin with a motorized tow from Üçağız to the starting point of your choice, for example Tersane; outings can be as long or short as stamina allows. Per-person rates, including a transfer from Kaş to Üçağız and a picnic lunch, are approximately €30.

Ancient Aperlae lies on the far side of a peninsula southwest of Üçağız, astride the Lycian Way. Access most comfortably involves a forty-minute boat ride to a landing stage (2 restaurants), followed by a half-hour walk. Remote Aperlae is practically deserted, though there’s a cluster of modern houses at Sıçak İskelesı, beside the ruins. The city walls are fairly well preserved, enclosing a rectangular area with the sea lapping the southern side; the necropolis, typically, lies almost entirely outside the walls. As at Kekova, subsidence has submerged the harbour quarter, but swimming and snorkelling here are unrestricted. If you follow the line of the old quay, now in 1–2m of water and indented at 15-metre intervals for the mooring of ships, you’ll see heaps of pottery shards, amphora necks, terracotta tiles and shell-middens from the ancient murex-dye industry, all encrusted together. There are also building foundations divided by narrow streets, with some intact pavement near the shore.

If Aperlae is neglected, unexcavated Apollonia is even more so. It can be reached on foot, either from Boğazcık, by a spur from the Lycian Way, or from Aperlae (2hr 15min), or partway by a two-kilometre track from the modern village of Kılınçlı (alias Sıçak) on the Üçağız-bound road. You may share the path from Aperlae with a camel or two – road construction in this archeologically rich area has been forbidden, and working (as opposed to tourist-attraction) camels are the most efficient transport for shepherds on the Sıçak peninsula.

Apollonia is remarkable for its superb necropolis, which spikes the lower northeast slope of the hill on which the city is found, facing Kılınçlı. There is one conventional sarcophagus with extravagant Gothic-type details, but most distinctive are a half-dozen or so pillar tombs, considered the ur-burial method of the ancient Lycians, and proving Apollonia’s antiquity. Isolated from the other tombs, at the west end of the hill facing Boğazcık, stands an unusual carved tomb on two levels. But there is more to see in the acropolis, at its east end effectively double: a much older stockade inside a Byzantine citadel. Particularly on the southwest flank, the city walls – made of unusually large quadrangular and pentagonal blocks – are pierced by windows and a gate. From atop the inner fort, you look west over a well-preserved Byzantine church, possibly of the sixth or seventh century; just west of this, overgrown but in a fair state of preservation, is a lovely little theatre. The views from the hill, whether inland to the Lycian mountains or out to sea, are the icing on the experience.