Kayaköy Ghost Village

About this place

Some five hundred roofless stone houses climb a hillside, two large churches stand among them, and the cobbled lanes have had no residents since 1923. This is Kayaköy, or Levissi as its Greek Orthodox inhabitants called it before the Greek-Turkish population exchange emptied it in a single stroke; the village stayed exactly as they left it, and the earthquake of 1957 finished what abandonment had begun. The houses were set so that none blocks its neighbour's sun, something you notice as you zigzag up between them, and the view from the top pays for the climb: green valley below, grey stone in every direction. Louis de Bernières borrowed the place for the fictional village of Birds Without Wings, and reading it beforehand changes how you walk here. The site is a protected archaeological zone run as an open-air museum by the Ministry of Culture, and the fee is nominal: 3 euros for a foreign visitor, charged in lira at the day's rate at the booth, free for children under eight, with the tourist Museum Pass Türkiye accepted (the Müze Kart is for residents only). It opens daily, 09:00 to 20:00 in summer with the ticket booth closing at 19:30, and roughly 08:30 to 17:30 in winter. The two churches, Panagia Pyrgiotissa low in the village and Taxiarchis above it, have been closed inside for years on safety grounds pending a restoration that has yet to begin in earnest, though what survives of their painted decoration can sometimes be glimpsed through the gates; the small chapel on the summit is worth an extra fifteen to twenty minutes of climbing on a marked path because the sea appears without warning on the far side. Be honest with yourself about the paths: loose stones, irregular steps, steep pitches in many places and almost no shade. A pushchair is useless here, trainers are a requirement rather than a preference, and in August you should simply not be inside between eleven and four unless you enjoy heat radiating off rock. Children over six treat the place as the maze it is; younger ones end up on someone's shoulders halfway round. There are no toilets or cafes inside the fence, but the restaurants of the modern village in the valley below serve gözleme and village breakfasts under vine canopies, and some will let you use their facilities for a small fee. Getting there from Fethiye: the dolmuş leaves from the central dolmuş stop opposite the big mosque on the main street and from the bus station, every half hour in summer and less often in winter, and takes 20 to 30 minutes. By hire car it is a quarter of an hour over the hill, with parking by the entrance. The sensible plan is to pair it with Ölüdeniz on the same day, either ten more minutes by car or, for walkers, the waymarked trail from the upper church down to the beach in an hour and a half to two hours. Ninety minutes to two hours covers the village comfortably; spring, when wildflowers cover the stones, is its best season.