Sedir Island (Cleopatra Island)

About this place

The sand here is off limits, literally: a pale, gleaming strip roped off at both ends, on which you may not walk, spread a towel or pocket a handful, and visitors have been fined for trying. The reason is that every grain on Cleopatra Beach is a tiny calcareous sphere the same size as its neighbours, found nowhere else in the Mediterranean except Crete, and it takes thousands of years to replace. Legend says Mark Antony shipped it from Egypt as a gift for Cleopatra; geologists say it is what the island's own rock weathers into. The first story is prettier, the second is almost certainly right, and neither matters much once you are in the water. The water is the real point: a shallow turquoise bay you enter from wooden platforms on either side, swimming in front of the sand without ever touching it, then rinsing off under the showers, as the attendants insist, before you leave so not a single grain goes home with you. The beach is tiny, far smaller than the photos suggest, and in July and August several tour boats land at once, the platforms fill and the sunbeds run out even though they are included in your ticket. The one piece of advice worth repeating: take the first boat of the morning and you get an hour that is nearly yours alone. What most visitors skip is that the whole island is an archaeological site, which is what the entry fee is really for: Kedrai, a Carian city whose history goes back to the 6th century BC and which paid tribute to the Athenian-led Delian League until the Spartan Lysander took it in 405 BC. A short signed path through olive trees brings you in fifteen minutes to a Roman-era theatre whose seating for around 2,500 still stands, ashlar fortification walls with their towers, the agora, and the remains of a temple of Apollo later converted into a church. There are no barriers, no crowds and no shade, so carry water and hats; the ruins are reason enough to stretch an hour's swim into half a day. Access is by boat only. From Marmaris it is road then sea: about 30 km up the Muğla highway to the jetty at Çamlı village on the Gulf of Gökova (40 minutes by car, parking at the jetty), then a shuttle boat that crosses in ten to fifteen minutes and runs frequently through the day in season. The easier option for families is a full-day tour from Marmaris hotels: a bus to the gulf, a wooden boat with lunch and swim stops, about eight hours door to door, with the island fee always charged separately. A pushchair is a burden here: the platforms, wooden steps and stony path do not suit one, so leave it in the car.