The unspoilt town of Cirali and the Ruins of Olympos

We spent the last three nights of our Turkey tour in Cirali, one of the most unspoilt places in Turkey. It is a tiny village about two hours East of Kas and an hour and a half South of Antalya.

It has a 3.5 km beach that is never crowded, and every year Caretta Caretta turtles lay their eggs in the sand, and in August and September they hatch and make the slow journey from the beach to the sea. Cirali protects the eggs and the turtles as much as possible and keep locals and tourists away from the turtles during this season.

We caught a bus from Kas to Cirali, where at the Cirali highway junction we then had to transfer to a small minibus that takes you down to the small village.

There aren't any big hotels or resorts in Cirali, mostly pensions or bed and breakfasts, and only one main street that runs through the village.

We thought Kas was relaxing, but Cirali is even more so, with a very slow way of life. There are sun loungers on the beach, but these are all free, and the majority of visitors are families.

Our bed and breakfast

After checking into our bed and breakfast, we wandered along a small path through a grove of fruit trees and a camp ground before coming across a huge pebbly beach, almost completely empty of people.

The water is warm and calm, with a steep drop off a couple of metres off the shore.

After a swim we headed into one of the few cafes that line the beach front and had some Gozleme and homemade Lemonade. We had such good food the whole time we were in Cirali, and everyone is so friendly.

The local dogs wandered the beach in search of pats from people. This one told Bradley off each time he stopped patting him and almost followed us home.

We had an amazing mezze platter for dinner at one of the restaurants in the tiny village. A delicious selection of food, plus a huge pita bread on the side.

The next morning we slept in and had a big breakfast, full of fresh fruit, cheese and olives. We wandered into town to explore some of the shops. For such a small village there are quite a few little shops, selling beach clothes and souvenirs plus three of four markets.

Cirali main street

We decided to wander along the full length of the beach towards the town of Olympos. Olympos is slightly bigger than Cirali, and popular with backpackers, and also much busier. This end of the beach was more crowded, with not many people venturing further down the beach towards Cirali.

Most of the accommodation is in tree houses and wooden bungalows as no permanent structures are allowed to be built in Olympos.

Olympos is most famous because of the 'hidden' ruins of Ancient Olympos. The ruins of the old town lie scattered amongst the trees, walking amongst the trees you almost feel like you are discovering the ruins for the first time.

After exploring the ruins, we headed back to the beach. We stopped for a swim at the Olympos end, but then continued further down to the quieter Cirali beach.

We spent the rest of the day in the sunshine, swimming and enjoying the beautiful view along the beachfront. If you wish to be more active while visiting Cirali or Olympos, there are daily boat trips which take you to several other coves and beaches in the area, but we were content to explore the tiny villages and lie on the hot stones.

That evening we decided to do something a bit more than reading and organised a taxi to take us to the nearby Chimaera. The Chimaera is a burning mountain which is best seen at night time. Just down from the burning mountain there are the ruins of the Temple of Hephaistos, the Greek god who was associated with fire and was the blacksmith of the Gods.

In ancient mythology The Chimera was a terrible fire-breathing monster with three heads, a lion in front, a snake behind and a goat in the middle of its body. Its fiery breath would destroy everything it touched.

The Chimera was killed by Bellerophon, the son of the King of Ephyra, though it is said the monsters fire was so powerful that it could not be stopped even in death, and so the mountain burns on.

The taxi dropped us off at the bottom of the mountain, we then had to walk the remaining 1 km up the mountain. There are steps most of the way, though at times these can be very steep and I was glad I brought my inhaler with me. By the time we got to the top we were boiling hot, and the sun had gone down.

The walk up actually reminded us a lot of the Australian outback

We were lucky when we got to the top, a tour group was just leaving, so there were only a few people on the mountain. The sight was amazing, we were standing in almost pitch blackness and we could see little caves and openings in the mountain where flames were popping out.

We stayed on the mountain for about half an hour, exploring as much of the fires as we could. The flames are burning a kind of methane gas that has been venting from the earth on the mountain for thousands of years.

The walk back down the mountain was pitch black but our bed and breakfast had given us an LED torch which was amazing, it lit up the entire path for us and also people behind us. I couldn't believe that there were people who had gone up without a torch, it was so dark I can't actually imagine how you would get down without one.

Once back into town we had went to the same restaurant as the previous night and had pizza for dinner, with a mezze starter of course! Turkish pizza is so good, the dough was made right in front of us and it was so delicious.

I have to say that out of everywhere we visited in Turkey during our two week trip, Cirali may have been my favourite place. It was so quiet and peaceful, unlike any beach town we've ever been. The owner of our bed and breakfast told us that an Australian couple comes all the way over for two weeks every year, and it's not hard to see why.