Turkey Guide
The Turquoise Coast
Kaya Köyü
The deserted settlement of Kaya Köyü, the largest late-medieval ghost town in Asia Minor, is located on the side of a hill southwest of Fethiye, near the site of ancient Karmylassos. It was known as Levissi (or Livissi) after the eighteenth century, when it was settled by Greek Orthodox Christians from the Dodecanese islands just offshore; the present appellation is taken from the rather inappropriately named Kaya Çukuru or "Stone Gulch", the small but fertile adjacent upland (altitude 200m) that partly supported a local population of over 6000 before 1923, and still produces substantial crops of tobacco and grain – and, after autumn or spring rainstorms, spectacular mass migrations of toads.The place has been abandoned since then, when its Christian inhabitants were exiled, along with more than a million others, to a country that had never been their homeland.
All you can see now of Kaya is a hillside (admission 4YTL, when entrance booths staffed) covered with almost a thousand ruined dwellings – all of them with fireplaces and cisterns more or less intact – and the attractive Panayia Pyrgiotissa basilica (or Kato Panayia), the most important of three churches here, to the right of the main path, about 200m up the gentle slope from the road. The church, dated 1888 by a floor mosaic, retains some of its marble altar screen and murals, including faces of Christ and the apostles over the altar, but the general state of dereliction merely serves to highlight the plight of the village. A particularly grisly item in the southwest corner of the church precinct is the charnel house, piled high with human leg bones; the departing Greeks took the exhumed skulls of their ancestors away with them.
The old village remains the focus of Greco– Turkish reconciliation festivals, with its Greek diaspora visiting regularly from Greece; Orthodox Patriarch Vartholomeos himself stayed here at the start of the new millennium.
Practicalities
A paved nine-kilometre road – plus a cobbled path, still two-thirds intact, which significantly shortcuts it – climb up from behind the castle in Fethiye towards Kaya Köyü (about two hours' walk). By dolmuş from the main terminal, however, it's a fifteen-kilometre journey, taking a roundabout route via the twin resorts of Ovacık and Hisarönü, whose tendrils end around 4km east of the village. You can easily continue on foot from Kaya Köyü to Ölüdeniz.
There are a number of accommodation choices at the edge of the village or slightly beyond. Cheapest is the simple Selçuk ( 
0252/618 0075; Price: €14-24), south of the mini-roundabout beside the central teahouse. Some 500m along the road to Kınalı, in lovely grassy grounds, you'll find Villa Rhapsody ( 0252/618 0042 or 618 0049, 
www.villarhapsody.com ; closed Dec– April; Price: €25-31), whose stark rooms of varying sizes are softened by pale carpets. There's also English-speaking management, and a bar-restaurant around the large pool. In Kınalı hamlet, 2km west of Kaya Köyü, the best of several local restoration projects can booked through Tapestry Holidays: accommodation is in six old houses which have been exquisitely refurbished with many original features preserved. Alternatively, on the north slope of the valley in the hamlet of Keçiler stand four high-standard two-bedroom villas arrayed around a figure-eight-shaped pool. Run by Bridget and Tim Ives ( 0252/618 0157, www.turkeyvillas.com ), the villas cost £500–700 a week each, and the Ives provide all assistance necessary in arranging flights and other logistics.
Central Kaya has about a dozen cafés and simple restaurants, many strategically straddling the paths into the ruined town, but few are particularly memorable. Bülent'in Yeri, on the through-road near the colonnaded cistern, is fine for a quick snack of fair-priced saç böreği. For a superlative, not-for-the-squeamish carniverous feed (plus limited mezes), head for 
Cin Bal, well-signposted at the eastern edge of the village, where whole hung sheep form much of the indoor decor; summer seating is in the attractive outdoor garden, while the huge winter hall – often packed with locals – is kept cosy by the fact that each table has its own grill-fireplace. This is a kendinpişinkendin ye place, where you buy superb lamb by the kilo and then cook it yourself at a tableside barbeque. Good mezes, vegetable garnish and reasonably priced drink complete the experience.