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Karakoey, ruined village

Oludeniz Beach Resort

These are the ruins of Karakoey, a deserted Greek village an hour from Fethiye, which was abandoned in the 1920’s when Turkey won the war with Greece and there was a huge population exchange. We wandered the ruins for half an hour, visiting the ruins of the church and wandering along steep, narrow streets peeking in at the remains of what were once people's homes. It is such a sad place and yet so lovely. When we tired of wandering, we followed a trail from the village up and over the ridge behind it and towards the beach resort of Oludeniz.

It was a super walk. In particular, once we got up to the top of the ridge, we got spectacular views down to the ocean and the Oludeniz beach below. The weather was perfect and we spent a very pleasant half hour eating a picnic lunch and reading in the shade of a tree.

Oludeniz Beach Resort

At Oludeniz, lots of work was going on to prepare for the coming season, including some training or practice in parasailing. Seeing this we guessed, correctly as it turned out, that this must have been where Jan's brother Don and his wife Sandra did their jump off the mountain to sail down to the beach. Gerry and I agreed that we were not brave enough. When we’d had enough of walking around, we caught the dolmus back to Fethiye.

While waiting for the dolmus from Fethiye to Karakoey we met Sally, a young British woman who had ridden her bicycle from Sudan through Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and now into Turkey. Fabulous trip. A month later we met somebody in Çannakale who said she left town the day before we arrived.