Kayaköy

Kayaköy was Levissi, a prosperous Greek Orthodox town of some three thousand people who worked as traders and craftsmen, and it was emptied in the compulsory population exchange agreed between Greece and Turkey in 1923, when its inhabitants left for Greece and Muslim families arriving from Greece were settled here. The newcomers, farmers used to different land, largely did not stay, and an earthquake in 1957 finished the process. What remains is around three hundred and fifty roofless stone houses stacked up two hillsides, with lanes, cisterns, chapels and two large churches whose frescoes and pebble-mosaic floors survive in part. It is preserved as a museum village and has never been rebuilt. Louis de Bernières used it as the model for the village in Birds Without Wings. The site is bare and hot in summer, and a footpath crosses the ridge from here down to Ölüdeniz in about an hour and a half.

What you actually see

• The roofless houses - hundreds of stone shells up the slopes.
• The two churches - surviving frescoes and pebble floors.
• The lanes and cisterns - the town's plan still legible.
• The ridge path - the walk over to Ölüdeniz.

When to go

April to June and September to November. Early morning or late afternoon - there is no shade at all and midday in summer is punishing.

Honest expectations

The ruins are unstable in places and paths are rough stone - proper shoes matter. No shade, and facilities only at the entrance. It is a sombre place, and treating it as a photo backdrop misses what it is.

Nearby

Ölüdeniz is over the ridge; Fethiye and the Amyntas tombs are eight kilometres north.