Çıralı

Çıralı 

Sublime beach backed by verdant gardens and timber cabins

Sandy beaches in Turkey are either out of bounds to developers (Iztuzu, Patara) or lined by ugly villa and apartment complexes (Calış, Gümbet). The exception, with its low-key backing of timbered chalets set in sub-tropical gardens and citrus groves, is the lovely beach at Çıralı. In recent years developers have been looking to change all that. It says a lot for the locals, owners of simple seaside pansiyons and garden restaurants, that they are having none of it. Çıralı made the news in 2010 when the locals blockaded the one access road with their cars to prevent the imminent arrival of the bulldozers; as the police removed the offending cars to the back of a low-loader, more heroically cussed villagers piled in to plug the gaps. To the relief of Çıralı’s Turkish and European devotees, who have always adored the place precisely for its low-built and wonderfully verdant character, the bulldozers did not get through.

Best Hand-Picked Beaches Turkey

The timbered chalets and cabins either front the sand beach or are set back across a broad coastal plain mostly devoted to orange groves. The beach runs west into the distance until the debouching river beyond the headland marks the harbour of ancient OlymposThis overgrown Lycian city is threaded with streams, thickly forested, and abundant in kingfishers, turtles and even snakes; there are some enormous sarcophagae and the recently excavated remains of an extensive bishop’s palace, along with a wonderfully atmospheric theatre. 

Çıralı has a range of low-key cafes, restaurants and tea houses.   Splurge on a stay at the Fellini-esque Olympos Lodge at one end of the beach, or head for the wonderful, mid-priced Arcadia Hotel at the other.    In June loggerhead turtles lay their eggs here which hatch in August; there are restrictions on access to the beach in the hours of darkness.  

Çıralı is also a good base for walkers; the Lykia Yolu (Lycian Way), a waymarked long-distance footpath, passes through here. It leads through pine forests past the Chimaera (Yanartaş), a hillside aflame with vents of natural gas which was the legendary home of a fire-breathing monster, to the trout restaurants at Ulupınar and thence to the lower slopes of the local Mt Olympos, Tahtalı to the Turks.

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