Olympos

Olympos was a Lycian city, one of the six leading cities of the Lycian League, and later a Roman port, and what makes it unlike other ancient sites on this coast is that nobody cleared the vegetation: the ruins lie along a river valley under a canopy of laurel, fig, oleander and wild vine, so you walk a shaded path beside water past a theatre half-swallowed by trees, a temple gateway, a bath complex with mosaic, Byzantine church walls, a bridge abutment and sarcophagi standing in the undergrowth, with the whole thing ending at a pebble beach between two rock walls. The site was a Chimaera cult centre, connected to the flames burning on the mountain above at Yanartaş. The valley behind is lined with the treehouse camps that made Olympos a backpacker fixture from the 1990s - wooden cabins, communal dinners, and a rule that no permanent concrete building may go up in the protected valley, which is why the coast here still looks as it does.

What you'll find

• The overgrown ruins - theatre, baths and tombs under the canopy.
• The river path - the shaded walk down the valley.
• The beach - pebble shore between rock walls at the end.
• The treehouse camps - the wooden lodgings up the valley.

When to go

April to June and September to October. Mornings are quiet; the shade makes it more bearable in summer than most sites, but the beach is crowded then.

Things to know

Paths are rough and cross the stream, which can be knee-deep after rain. Camps are basic - shared bathrooms, intermittent hot water, and lively at night. The beach is pebble, not sand.

Nearby

Çıralı and the Chimaera flames are over the headland; Adrasan is south and Phaselis north.

Key facts