Lycian Turkey

[fatih]

At the southwest corner of the Turkish coast lies one of the most beautiful and unspoiled areas of the Mediterranean. This region, called the Teke Peninsula, was known in the antiquity as Lycia.
Stretching roughly from modern Fethiye (Telmessus) to the Bay of Antalya, the boundries of Lycia were: Caria to the west, Pamphylia to the East, Pisidia and Phrygia to the North and the Mediterranean Sea to the South.
The Taurus Mountains range reaching heights of 3,000 meters (Mt. Akdag), isolates the province in a horseshoe formation and makes the area very rugged. The rivers flowing from sources in these mountains have created fertile valleys with alluvial deltas.
Traveling from East to West, most important of these deltas are:

• Alakir (Limyros) and Baþgöz (Arycandos) -> Fenike Plain (the largest in Lycia)
• Demre (Myros) -> Demre Plain
• Esen (Xanthos) -> Kinik Plain
• Kizildere (Glaucos) -> Fethiye Plain
• Dalaman (Indos) -> Dalaman Plain

Tha mountains, mainly composed of limestone, are covered with the typical Mediterranean "maquis" and dotted with wild olive and carob trees at the lower altitudes. On the high ground, up to an altitude of 2,000 meters, there are mostly oak and pine forests; the most typical species being storax, red and yellow pine and cedar which have provided wood for the shipyards building crafts for thousands of years. Cedars as old as 2,000 years can be seen in the Antalya region.
The coastal plains are covered with lush vegetation consisting mainly of citrus trees and a relative newcomer - Eucalyptus - which was introduced from Australia in the 1940s.