
After Olympos, Jon and I hopped on a minibus and kept on going west along the Mediterranean coast until we reached Kas, which was my favorite place to stay during our whole trip. Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures there, but I did manage to nab one of the view of the bay from our hotel room window (left). We really liked Kas because it was very relaxing and uncrowded, and it had beautiful weather. Near Kas is a wonderful island called Kekirova, which was once home to a flourishing ancient Lycian town. Unfortunately, in the classical period an earthquake struck and the town literally slid under the sea. Nowadays, one can go see this underwater site via sea kayaks, and that is just what Jon and I did. Our started from the mouth of a bay, and we kayaked about two kilometers over to the island, where we alit in this small cove for swimming and looking at some of the Byzantine and Roman ruins still above water. As I was swimming, I could see ruins of some kind of building, its columns and massive ashlar blocks, 20 feet below me through the clear, turquoise water. It was pretty amazing. Then we kayaked by the sunken city itself, coming within a meter or two of top of the ancient entrance to the harbor. This was a great way to tour this site because most boats can only get within a hundred yards or so of the site because the ruins are so close to the water's surface, but the kayaks glide right on over. After that, we stopped for a fish lunch across the water. It was a really great day.

After Kas, Jon and I moved on to Fetihye, which is a beautiful town, much bigger than Kas, that has a huge marina and tons of British people. We still liked it though. One of the coolest things we did was get on a minibus for about an hour out to this secluded ghost town called Kayakoy. Greece and Turkey had a lot of population exchanges in the last century, and in this Greek village the whole population moved to a village somewhere in Greece, leaving this city abandoned. (left) It is absolutely massive, with several small chapels and churches, a cathedral (below), a large school, government buildings, and acres upon acres of houses. It was really creepy walking around, and also very sad to reflect upon people leaving their homes behind. This effect was enhanced by the fact that Jon and I pretty much had the whole town to ourselves, since most tourists highly prefer the glittery beaches of Fetihye to depressing ghost towns.
Interior of Greek Orthodox cathedral in Kayakoy.

Jon standing in the now vacated streets.

Jon and I decided to go on a boat cruise around the islands in Fetihye's Bay. To be honest, it wasn't that great; the boat operators didn't do much in the way of giving us interesting information, and they were constantly hustling their snacks and drinks upon us. But, we still made the most of it and enjoyed all of our stops. Here is a view of the bright blue water from one of the islands we stopped at. (right)
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