I plan trips and take people around the world through my site at “Travel Spirit Meetup” and for the eight night Turkey trip in mid-September, six people joined me for four nights on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey and four nights in Istanbul.  One of the adventures I was really looking forward to was hiking a small portion of the Lycian Way trail along Turkey’s turquoise coast.  Everyone arrived from the States and settled into our accommodations at Villa Rhapsody the first day, and after a delicious poolside breakfast the following morning, we walked 10 minutes from our Villa to the ghost village of Kayakoy and began exploring.

The village was deserted by the Greek Orthodox that inhabited the village during the 1923 forced exchange between Turkey and Greece.  Our goal was to take the trail head that leads from the village and hike seven kilometers to the town of Oludeniz.  During my research at home before the trip I found a great website with information about the hike, and read other information, but we still experienced some difficulty finding the trail head.  Another couple armed with a map were also a bit lost.  The trail is marked with red and yellow paint stripes on rocks along the way.  One of our groups’ members took off ahead of us exploring the ghost village and once we’d found the trail head, we shouted for him to no avail, and another member went off looking for him, which added another 10-15 minutes wait.  We weren’t able to find him and with the knowledge that he would be able to make his way back to the Villa if necessary, decided to begin our hike.

There are a number of ways to enter the ghost village, one of which requires a fee of 5 Lira ($1.65) and of course that’s the entrance we found.

The ghost village was amazing!  The sunlight illuminated the windows of the decaying buildings.

Here we began the uphill portion of the trail from the ghost village to the Lycian Way trail, which by the way is 500 kilometers in length, along Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.

There is a variety of terrain, including sections strewn with pine needles and portions with large rocks and shrub brush.

The trail should take about 3 hours, but our group consisted of people with differing levels of hiking experience, so it took almost 5 hours.  I asked everyone to take 1 1/2 liters of water with them.  After about an 1 1/2 hours we were rewarded with this stunning view of the turquoise coast!

The temperatures were in the 80’s, so we were hot and sweaty, but with scenery like that, it’s worth it!

I had a new outfit on for hiking–a coolmax shirt and hat!

Continuing our hike to Oludeniz…Love this tree!

The trees along the hike were growing at odd angles and were quite beautiful!

We encountered a lot of switchbacks and unless you pay close attention and look for the red and yellow stripes, you may find yourself off-course, although we didn’t take any wrong turns.  How about a little side-ways hiking!

At the end of the trail, this awaited us!  There were some beach resorts and we thought we had reached the town of Oludeniz, but after asking someone, discovered we needed to hike an additional 10 minutes along a road to reach the town.  Come to find out later, our missing member found the trail head and completed the hike…hooray!

Join me tomorrow for a visit to the colorful village of Oludeniz!

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