The Best Of Kaş

Not only is Kaş an adorable seaside town, its setting on a historic marine trading route means that its coastline is rich in history. We absolutely loved exploring the gorgeous coast and historic sites around this charming town. Here are the best sites near Kaş, Turkey.

Originally settled as a fishing village, Kaş is now a fully fledged tourist destination. Even with its numerous beach-style restaurants and boutique hotels, it is extremely quaint and you will undoubtedly fall in love with Kaş.

Part of its charm is its hilly Old Town. Cobblestone streets climb up and down the hills, taking you between Ottoman heritage buildings that are now quaint cafes or artists shops.

The other component to the town’s charm is its location on the Turquoise Coast. From one of the hills above town, we enjoyed sweeping views of the coast. A few green islands added texture to the brilliant turquoise water. Kaş is picture-perfect.

The town’s port hosts a mix of small fishing boats, dive boats and pleasure crafts. The rugged cliffs behind the small port makes another postcard-worthy scene.

Most of the historical remains are gone from town, but you can still find a couple of 4th century BCE Lycian tombs as well as a restored Roman theatre. The tombs look like little stone boxes and stand out as the more modern town was built around them.

The town is so cute that you may be tempted to spend all of your time there. Doing that however, would mean that you’d miss out on all of the amazing sites located nearby.

In addition to the lovely town, there are a few great things to see on day trips from Kaş. Many can be done from other nearby cities and towns such as Antalya and Fethiye, but we’re glad we based ourselves out of Kaş.


The Lycians ruled this part of the Mediterranean from the 15th  to 1th  centuries BCE. It was called Lycia and extended 500 km from Antalya to Fethiye. In ancient times marine trade was growing in the Mediterranean and the Lycians built commercial spaces for trading all along this coast. As a result, the shores around Kaş are teeming with historical artifacts. Kekova is the name for the region as well as most famous island. One of the best ways to see these sites is on a boat cruise.

We hesitated before booking a cruise because we don’t like to take tours, and especially boat tours since they often turn into party boats. We are so happy that we decided to take this tour because the sites were interesting, and there wasn’t a party; not on our boat anyway.

As soon as our boat pulled out of the rocky bay of Üçağız we were already immersed in stunning scenery. The pretty bay is dotted with small rocky islands.

Out boat stopped at a few picturesque places to swim in the blue waters of Turkey’s Mediterranean. At a few of these spots we were anchored beside an island with ancient ruins. Swimming beside an ancient city was the most unique ways to view ruins we’ve ever had. This cruise was already better than we expected.

The most famous island in this area is Kekova. It is home to the sunken city ancient city of Dolichiste. When we reached the edge of the island, our boat slowed down so we had lots of time to see the famous sunken city. At first we passed by the ruins of the seawall. As we travelled further we could see remnants of walls, floors and doorways. The most interesting was seeing staircases that led into the Mediterranean. Some of the city is 1,518 m below sea-level and these stairs looked to be leading down to it.

Archaeologists don’t know the exact dates when the merchant city was built, but they believe it was before the 1st century BCE. At its largest the city had up to 250 homes for 2000 residents. In the 2nd century AD, an earthquake resulted in much of the city being covered by the sea. After the earthquake the Byzantines did rebuild in the area, but battles with Arabs forced them to abandon it in the 7th century.

Today the island of Kekova is uninhabited and since the 1990s no one has been allowed to walk on the island or even swim over the ruins. Even from the boat we could see some of the vandalism that was done before this law came into effect.

After the sunken city we cruised around this beautiful coast passing more picturesque islands.

Another great stop was the boat-access only village of Kaleköy. Established in the 4th century BCE, this Lycian city was once called Simena. Before reaching the village we could see tombs of a Lycian necropolis on top of the hill.

Along the shore are the colourful 19th century homes lived in by Greeks until 1923. Today some of the homes are lived in by Turks, but a lot are used as restaurants and small shops. Sitting in the water in front of the homes is another Lycian tomb. Its location in the water is another reminder of the 1st century earthquake.

On the top of the hill are the remains of a castle built by Rhodes knights. There’s not much to see inside Simena Castle, but the coastal views you get from its ramparts are unmatched.

Forty kilometers from Kaş are the ruins of an important Lycian city. The present-day town of Patara sits near the ancient Lycian city of Termilae. In the 13th century BCE, the town was a part of the prosperous ancient maritime trade route. For a relatively unknown civilization, the Lycians had some incredible accomplishments. Not only did they give us attractive architecture, but they are also considered the world’s first democratic federation. The Lycian League was a group of elected representatives from 23 Lycian states who would meet to discuss the running of their collective society. Termilae was the major meeting point of the Lycian League of representatives and you can visit their restored Assembly Hall. This federation was so revolutionary, it was even used as a reference when writing the US constitution.

The largest building remaining in Termilae is the theatre. Its similar to most of the Greco-Roman theatres we’ve seen except that some of the seats even have carved backs.

There area a few more ruins scattered about the large area including columns that line Harbour Street, the pretty Triple Vaulted City Gate and a replica of an ancient Egyptian boat. It is said to be the type of boat that would have used the harbour.

As we wandered through the ruins we learned that one of the most famous people in Christian folklore was born in Termilae. In 270 AD, the inspiration for today’s Santa Claus, St. Nicholas, was born here. Wait a minute, what? Santa Claus is from Turkey? He was and we learned more about him when we visited Myra next.

A kilometer from the ancient site is Patara Beach. It’s a long beach with a few sand dunes on the side where turtles hatch. It is touted as being one of the nicest beaches in Turkey. It is the first beach in this region that we saw with sand but it’s very grainy and the colour is a drab brown. Maybe we’re a little spoiled from Brazil, but the beach was not enough to entice us to stay.

Entrance Fee – 340 TRY ($11 USD); Opening Hours – 8am-8pm The entrance fee for the archeological site includes entrance to the beach.

Minibuses (dolmaş) run every 30 minutes from Kaş to Patara. (60 TRY/$2 USD).  You have to change minibuses after about 35 minutes. The fee for the second minibus is included in the fee for the first one, but we didn’t know and got scammed 20 TRY. That’s only 60 cents, so we weren’t too upset.


Only a few kilometers north of Kaş are the ruins of the ancient city Myra. Built on the fertile alluvial plain, the 5th century BCE town was an important center for Lycians. Today all that’s left are the remains of the necropolis and theatre.

The necropolis is fascinating and makes the trip to Myra more than worth it. We stood in awe as we looked up at dozens of 5th century BCE rock-cut tombs, built halfway up the side of the mountain wall. On the front of some tombs you can still see delicate carvings on the exterior walls.

Myra began as a Lycian town. Then it was used by Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and finally the Ottoman. Between the two walls of the necropolis is a Roman theatre which is still in quite good condition. The strange sight here are the funny faces carved into the stones that are scattered around the theatre. They are called theatre masks, but aren’t masks that can be worn. Their open mouths give you an eerie feeling, as if they are screaming.

Entrance Fee – 300 TRY ($10 USD); Opening Hours – 8am – 7pm

Myra is located above the present-day town of Demre. From Myra Theatre you can see the reason that the ancient city was located where it was. The plains below are very fertile and the Lycians used the lands to grow crops, vegetables and fruit. Today the views are not particularly nice though. All you can see are the white plastic roofs of Demre’s greenhouses.

When we walked back to the city we walked between the greenhouses and were surprised to see a lot of small orchards. Growing in open spaces were olives trees, loaded with fruit. We tried a couple and unfortunately they were not quite ripe. In some places the sidewalk was littered with squashed black olives. It was a sad sight, so many wasted olives. There were also yards filled with orange, lime, apple and pomegranate trees, but we didn’t try to pick any of those.

There’s really only one thing to see in Demre and that is the church of Santa Claus. In the 4th century AD, St. Nicholas was a Greek Bishop at the church in Myra. He had grown up as an orphan from a wealthy family. After becoming a priest he began giving away his money to the needy. At that time his reputation was widely known as being a caring, compassionate and generous bishop. Two hundred years after his death the Basilica of Saint Nicholas was built over his tomb.

The Ottoman Empire didn’t care about Christian legacies and so the church fell into obscurity. That is however, until in 1083 when Italians arrived and stole St. Nicholas’ bones. They took them to their church in Bari, Italy. Bringing the bones to Italy rekindled the legends about St. Nicholas. Of course, the legend morphed significantly over the centuries to become the Santa Claus of today. Demre is now taking full advantage of their former citizen with statues and knickknacks of the adored legend.

So yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, or at least there was.  

The drive to reach Kaş is one that you won’t want to miss. The road follows the gorgeous Turquoise coast covered in rocky hills and steep cliffs with small inlets and coves. There are frequent minibuses (dolmaş), that run roughly every half hour from Antalya. They make stops in Olympos and Dumre on their way to Kaş (180 TRY/$6USD). Other buses travel between towns on the other side of Kas such as Fethiye (160 TRY/$5.25 USD) and Patara (60 TRY/$2 USD) also every half hour. 

There isn’t really a bad part of town in Kaş, so where you stay will depend on what type of vacation you want. For beautiful coastal views, stay in one of the many apartments up on the hills. To be close to restaurants, stay in a hotel or guesthouse downtown or Old Town.

Read from another device.

To read more of our adventure in Turkey, click here.

103 comments

Submit a comment