Kalkan

Kalkan, located approximately 26km away from nearby Kas, was once an Ottoman-Greek fishing village, called Kalamaki, but it is now completely devoted to tourism. Discovered by travelers in the 1980s in search of the simple, cheap, quiet life, this perfect Mediterranean village soon boasted a yacht marina, then some modern hotels and finally holiday complexes on the outskirts of town. Kalkan is a grid of streets built on a hillside sloping down to the bay with stone-built houses all along it. Coming in from the highway the road zigzags down to a central parking lot with a taxi bank, bus offices, the PPT and banks. It then enters the main commercial area and descends the hill as Hasan Altan Caddesi.

Kalkan has sophisticated bars and restaurants, mostly serving traditional Turkish food or excellent seafood. The hotels and villas, most of which are quite small and intimate, set higher up on the hillside offer stunning views down over the pretty bay. Lately, Kalkan has expanded rapidly and the buildings have extended beyond the resort town itself to the bays on either side, such as Kalamar bay to the west. Kalkan has its own small pebble town beach, but most beach-lovers head out to Kaputas, approximately 6km away, which offers a nice pebble beach with clear, turquoise water. Other beach-lovers prefer Patara with its long sandy beach. In addition to all of Kalkan’s advantages, the ancient cities of Xanthos and Letoon are within short driving distance of Kalkan.