If you want beautiful, panoramic views of Fethiye, a good place to head to is ‘Aşıklar Tepesi’ – roughly translated to ‘hill of lovers’. You can reach it by car, up a very steep winding hill road, or via foot, up 163 steps from a backstreet below.
Whenever we rent a car, we usually drive up and pull over for a while so that we can take in the views, and on our last trip we did that twice.
The view at the top is just stunning. The boat yard, harbour and amphitheatre to the left, the main bay, marina and town in the centre, and Calis in the distance to the right. All the buildings, especially the more traditional houses with white walls and red/orange roofs look good from high above too. You can see various mountain ranges in the far distance and the trees growing on the hillside just frame the view perfectly.
There are wooden seating areas hanging over the edge, some of them are very rustic and wobbly and I’m always a bit afraid of them breaking! There used to be a little cafe up there but it’s been gone for a few years now and it still looks a bit of a mess really. You’ll also find piles and piles of sunflower seed shells on the floor, since it’s a popular place for locals to come and sit with a packet of them, a beer and their friends. You can sit here for ages, watching the boats sail in and out, but it’s equally as spectacular at night with the whole of Fethiye lit up down below.
On the last day of our holiday back in June, Berkay’s family came to visit for the day since it was Bayram/Eid, so we took them up to the look out point and sat at a table with a couple of bottles of coke and some ice creams. His step-mum was too scared to stand too close to the edge so she took this photo of the rest of us instead, Berkay’s dad, brother, his brother’s fiancee and us.
I couldn’t chose between these two photos – so today I’m using both. This is the stunning view from the start of the Lycian Way, a 540km walking trail between Ölüdeniz and Antalya. Quite controversially, I’ve never been a real fan of Ölüdeniz, I have always thought it looks absolutely beautiful from above in people’s paragliding photos, but when you’re standing down on ground level, it’s less impressive, too crowded and I always felt a bit disappointed. These photos though show just how wonderful it really looks from high up in the mountain side. The gorgeous turquoise colour of the sea really stands out, but the boats sailing outside the bay, and the pedalos in the lagoon are also visible, along with a few paragliders if you look carefully! We haven’t been right up to the top of Babadağ mountain yet, but I’m sure that it looks even more stunning from up there on a clear day. Sometimes the hustle and bustle of the resorts make us forget the real beauty we take for granted – but taking a step back (or a few thousand feet up…) makes you appreciate it all a bit more. Nature at it’s finest!
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