Backpacking Turkey: 01 Fethiye.
A few years ago, a good friend of mine L and I decided to go backpacking for a couple of months during Summer. Our sailing trip from Greece had us finish in Bodrum, a Turkish tourist hub for British Summer sun seekers. We used this to our advantage in order to make our way from the south of Turkey to its capital Istanbul in about two weeks.
We used buses the whole time which are really easy to catch however just note, most of the time you will need to book the day prior as they can fill up pretty fast. I have broken it down into each place we slept at for ease of reading, numbered so you know the route we took.
Let's begin with Fethiye...
Accommodation: Ideal Hostel Pension.
After our time in Bodrum, we got a bus from Bodrum to Fethiye which took about 4.5 hours. This is a coastal town we used as a base to see the surrounding sites and also to wander through the buzzing streets, look at the many market stalls and smoke shisha.
One of the boat tours you can do is from Oludeniz so to get there we had to cram into an 11 seater mini-van with 17 people. This is one of the key tours from Fethiye with plenty of travel agents trying to sell it. We managed to talk one into giving us a bit of a deal so it always helps to ask.
Yes this tour is touristy and yes it gets busy but it is fun, cheap and allows you to explore more than just the streets of Fethiye. Destinations for our particular boat ride included:
1. Camel Beach where there were no camels but a nice, secluded strip of beach to explore and rocks you can swim out to.
2. Cold Water Bay which, as you may guessed, has a patch of very cold water along the shore due to the cold water streaming into the sea. See how long you can stay in it for. The water in this part of Turkey is such an amazing blue, each time we were able to cool off in it we literally jumped at the chance, right off the boat.
3. St Nicholas Island where apparently the Christmas Saint is buried. From where we docked, you can climb up to see the Christian church remains and have a lovely view of the bay we were exploring.
4. After a tasty BBQ lunch on the boat, we then high-tailed it to Butterfly Valley. There are apparently an abundance of over 100 species of butterflies however we didn't have time nor want to pay to see them. We were happy enough swimming in the unbelievably clear, turquoise water, enjoying the tall cliffs surrounding this horse shoe shaped beach.
The final stop was at the Blue Caves where we jumped off the boat in order to swim into them.
The captain of our boat who also doubled as our bus driver, took us on a scenic drive back to Fethiye in order to see his village, the Lost Village (Kayakoy). We saw a load of old, deserted houses in the hills as we drove through. Unfortunately we didn't have time to wander through or take photos of this eerie place but if you have a chance to get a bus out here, it looks quite interesting.
Another must do activity in Fethiye is walking up to the Lycian ruins which are tombs from this ancient province, carved into the rock face of the mountain. The biggest in Fethiye is the Tomb of Amyntas and it is impressive. There are a few smaller ones to the left of it which are just as incredible to see as they were all carved by hand. It is a decent hike that also offers views over Fethiye and earns you a beer as you descend back into town.
From Fethiye, we had booked a mini-bus tour in order to get to Selcuk with a pit-stop in Pammukale en route. If you are looking to do this also, I recommend booking this sooner rather than later. The tours/buses only run every few days and they can book out.
Fethiye is a really chilled coastal town with enough to explore over two - three days so it is worth visiting if you are around this part of Turkey.
This is the first in a series of posts for my time backpacking through Turkey for two weeks. It was an incredible experience and one I would recommend. The country is beautiful and the people welcoming. It was just myself and another female friend - we did not have any issues at all.
I have labelled them as to where we stayed. The other posts can be found below:
Backpacking Turkey: 2. Selcuk.|
Backpacking Turkey: 3. Cappadocia (Kapadokya)
