Kas

Kas is a sea-swimming town more than a sand town. In the town itself, people swim from wooden decks and concrete platforms bolted to the rocks along the peninsula, or at the two small pebble beaches east of the harbour. The water is very clear and deep blue, and it reaches about 27°C in late summer. The season runs from May well into October.

For sand you take a short drive or a minibus. Kaputas is a bright cove at the foot of a gorge, about twenty minutes west along the coast road. Patara, under an hour away, is one of the longest sand beaches on this coast, with dunes behind it and nesting turtles. Boats from the harbour also stop at swimming coves that have no road access.

Eating in Kas follows the Turkish coast. There are long evening tables of cold mezes, grilled fish, and rakı by the harbour, and slow village breakfasts with olives, local honey and gözleme in the mornings. For a small town the cooking around the old quarter is good, and some kitchens make careful use of herbs and greens from the Lycian hills. The weekly market brings in produce, cheese and olive oil from the villages. Still, the choice is limited. A few streets of restaurants do much the same thing, prices follow the yachts, and a long stay will start to feel repetitive.

Kas was built on top of ancient Antiphellos, and some of it can still be seen as you walk around. A small Hellenistic theatre faces the sea just west of the centre. Lycian rock tombs are cut into the cliff above the town, and a large stone sarcophagus, the Lion Tomb, stands at the top of the main shopping lane. The old quarter has whitewashed Greek-era houses with wooden balconies and bougainvillea, and it is pleasant to walk. That is about all there is, though, and it fills a morning. The great Lycian cities are outside the town.

Evenings in Kas go slowly. Dinner runs late, then people drift to the cocktail and music bars in the lanes behind the harbour and on terraces looking out to sea. In high summer a few places stay busy past midnight with a mixed crowd of divers, yachting people and Turkish visitors from the cities. There are no clubs to speak of, and outside the warm months the town goes quiet early. It suits a drink with a view, not a big night out.

Kas sits where steep limestone mountains fall straight into the sea, and that shapes almost everything you do outdoors. The water is among the clearest in the Mediterranean, and the town is a diving centre, with reefs, walls, caves, amphorae and wrecks a short boat ride from the harbour. The Lycian Way, a long-distance footpath over the old mule tracks, runs past the town. Day sections take you along cliffs and through pine and olive country to empty bays.

Kayaking over the drowned ruins at Kekova is a classic outing, and paragliders launch from the mountain behind the town and land by the marina. Saklikent gorge, about an hour inland, is a narrow canyon you wade up through cold water. Spring and autumn are best for hiking. High summer is too hot for anything but the sea.

As a base, Kas is surrounded by ancient Lycia. Kastellorizo, a small Greek island with a harbour of painted houses, is a short ferry ride across the strait. Boats from Kas and the nearby coast reach Kekova, where a sunken city lies in the shallows and the castle village of Simena can only be reached by water.

About three quarters of an hour east is Demre. It has the cliff tombs and theatre of Myra and the church of Saint Nicholas. To the west, within about an hour, are the ruins of Patara and the UNESCO-listed Lycian centres of Xanthos and Letoon. Kalkan, a hillside harbour town, is closer still, and Tlos and Fethiye are within a longer day.

Kas is a calm, safe little town where children are welcome at every restaurant table and families can stroll the harbour in the evening without worry. There is little made for children, though. In town you swim from rock platforms and ladders into deep water, and the lanes are steep. Families with small children do better at the sandy, shelving beaches of Patara or Kaputas, and on boat trips with swimming stops. Older children who can snorkel or try diving will get the most out of it.

The town itself is small enough to walk, and the harbour, old quarter and swimming decks are all close together, though the lanes climb steeply and the peninsula road is long on foot. Local minibuses run along the coast road to Kalkan, Kaputas, Patara and Demre, and boats leave from the harbour for Kekova and the Greek island across the water. For the inland sites, or to set your own pace, most visitors rent a car or take a tour. The coast road is beautiful and twists all the way.

Shopping in Kas comes down to one or two pretty lanes in the old quarter, shaded by bougainvillea. They hold small boutiques with silver jewellery, linen and cotton clothes, ceramics, carpets and kilims, and a few galleries. The weekly market is better for olive oil, spices and village produce than for anything to take home. It makes a pleasant evening browse, but there is little more to it than that.

Kas is not a budget stop. It is one of the more upmarket small resorts on the Turkish coast, and in summer the boutique hotels, harbourside restaurants, dives and boat trips cost much what they would in southern Europe. Simple lokantas, pide bakeries, the market and the minibuses are still cheap, and pensions in the back streets cost less than the hotels on the peninsula. Prices are noticeably lower in spring and autumn.

There is little formal performance in Kas. On summer evenings some bars bring in musicians playing Turkish folk and pop or acoustic sets. Now and then a concert is held in the small ancient theatre by the sea, and the town holds a summer festival. There is no theatre, concert hall or regular programme, so this is not a place to come for performance.

Kas restores you through its pace more than through any bathing tradition. Mornings start with long breakfasts, afternoons are spent on a sun deck above the sea, and the town has none of the noise of the big resorts. Several hotels on the peninsula have their own hammam and massage rooms, and yoga retreats come to the hills around the town in spring and autumn. There are no historic bathhouses or thermal springs, though, so people who come mainly for spa culture will find only a modest offer.