Dalyan, the river of rock tombs and turtles

The Dalyan river is short, only a few kilometres long, but it is one of the most beautiful stretches of the Turkish coast. It flows out of Lake Köyceğiz, a large lake behind the coastal hills, and winds through a maze of reed beds and channels to the Mediterranean, where it reaches the sea at a long, sandy spit, İztuzu beach. The little town of Dalyan stands on its bank, and the river is its main street: wooden boats, the dolmuş boats, carry visitors up and down it, past cliffs, ruins and fishing weirs.

The tombs of Kaunos

Opposite the town, high on the cliffs above the river, stand the rock tombs of Kaunos. They were carved into the rock face in the fourth century BC, and their facades are cut to look like the fronts of Greek temples, with columns, pediments and doorways, set in tiers one above another. Seen from the river, especially in the late afternoon when the light turns the rock gold, they are an extraordinary sight.

Kaunos itself, a little downstream, was a port city of the region of Caria, on the border with Lycia, with a mixed culture of its own, and in its time it was rich from trade. Today its ruins lie a short walk inland from the river, among olive trees: a well-preserved theatre on a hillside, temples, baths, a basilica and the remains of the harbour, now silted up into a reedy lake. The river has moved the coastline several kilometres since antiquity, leaving the old port high and dry.

İztuzu and the turtles

At the river's mouth, İztuzu beach is a long ribbon of sand between the sea and the lagoon, and it is one of the most important nesting sites in the Mediterranean for loggerhead turtles. From May to September, female turtles come ashore at night to dig nests and lay their eggs in the sand, and the hatchlings emerge some weeks later and make their way to the sea.

In the 1980s, the beach was threatened by a plan to build a large hotel. A campaign by local people and conservationists, among them June Haimoff, a British woman who lived in a hut on the beach and became known as Kaptan June, persuaded the government to stop the development, and the area was protected. Today the beach is closed at night during the nesting season, and its use by day is carefully managed. A turtle rescue centre on the beach looks after injured turtles.

Mud baths and gorges

Up the river, on the shore of Lake Köyceğiz, are mud baths where visitors cover themselves in warm sulphurous mud and wash it off in thermal pools, a tradition said to keep you young. The lake shore is also good for birds, and the river's reeds are home to kingfishers, herons and terrapins. Blue crabs, caught in the river, are a local speciality.

Further east, inland from Fethiye, is Saklıkent, a narrow gorge where a cold river runs between walls of rock hundreds of metres high, which can be waded for a short distance. Nearby, the ruins of Tlos stand on a hill with rock tombs of their own, and Xanthos, the ancient capital of Lycia, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The holidays

Explore Worldwide's Family Turkey Coastal Adventure, seven nights, is a family holiday based on the coast, with Köyceğiz, Dalyan, Kaunos and İztuzu beach, Saklıkent Canyon and Tlos, the mountain villages of Yayla Palamut and Sütlegen, the Oluklar meadows, Mount Bozkaya, the Kuruova valley and Patara. It runs in May, July, August and October.

Explore's Cycle Turkey, seven nights, is a cycling holiday that starts in Dalyan and rides through Sultaniye, Köyceğiz and Fethiye, the villages of Gökben and Minare, Saklıkent National Park, Tlos, Sütlegen, Belmuar, Islamlar and Xanthos. It runs in May, September and October.

The best time to visit Dalyan is from May to June and in September and October, when it is warm but not too hot. The turtles nest through the summer, and the hatchlings appear from July. In high summer the heat is intense, and the river breeze is very welcome.