Kemer

Mediterranean, Turkey 1 tours visit here

Kemer is a coastal resort town in Antalya Province, on the Mediterranean shore known as the Turkish Riviera, about 40 kilometres southwest of Antalya. It sits on a narrow strip where the pine-covered Beydağları range of the Taurus Mountains drops almost to the sea, an unusually green backdrop for a Mediterranean resort. Developed as a planned tourism centre from the 1980s, it is laid out around a marina and yacht harbour, with pebble beaches and a seafront promenade. The surrounding coast is protected as Beydağları Coastal National Park and holds several well-known ancient sites. Phaselis, a Lycian harbour city set among three small bays, lies just south of town, and further on are the ruins of Olympos and, above them at Yanartaş, natural gas flames that burn continuously from the hillside and were linked in antiquity to the Chimaera of myth. The Lycian Way footpath passes through the area, and a cable car near Tekirova climbs Tahtalı Dağı, 2,365 metres above the coast. Kemer is normally used as a coastal base, with beach days, boat trips and short drives to the ruins or Göynük Canyon. The season runs from roughly April to October, and the flames at Yanartaş show best after dark.