where there's a will there's a beach-turquoise coast

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The night bus from Cappadocia to Fethye took 14 hours but Turkey's bus system is impressive, comfortable, clean and on time. Greyhound could make a study tour. They even serve tea and snacks, have fold down tables and movies on Mercedes ·Benz made buses. Southern Turkey as you near the coast is mountainous, major passes and mountains with snow, deep valleys with orchards, vegetales, grennhouse tomatoes, a very rich area resource wise.
Fethye must be a mad house starting in April, with a harbor full of cruise sailboats and working fishing boats, b ut in winter it is refreshing. We climbed to a nearby abandoned Greek village, one of many that were deserted during the exchange of Greek and Turkish folk earlier in the 20th century. WQe then hiked over a ridge and down to the famous blue lagoon. The hike was tough on not enough sleep and I fell twice, twisting and scraping various body parts. And from that angle the blue lagoon does not look too good, with rapid and insensitive tourist development destroying the wetland areas and creating eyesores. The national park beach at Odeniz on the other side of the lagoon is quite nice, and was virtually empty. It is developed tastefully in a Jones Beach style, with walkways and plantings instead of the natural sand bar. But beach it is and sunny it was.

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Photos

Greek ghost town
this entire village and church were abandoned during the Greek-Turkish population exchange

turquoise coast
view from the hike

ready for summer cruising
part of Fatye harbor

it really is turquoise
water in the blue lagoon