Lake Bafa and Herakleia

A Former Sea Gulf Cut Off By The Silting Meander And Turned Into A Lake, With The Hellenistic City Of Herakleia Under Latmos On Its Shore And Neolithic Rock Paintings In The Mountains Above · Milas, Mugla

Lake Bafa was the sea. It was the inner end of the Latmian Gulf, with ports on it, until the Meander silted the mouth and turned the whole thing into a lake, which is why there is a Hellenistic harbour city standing on a freshwater shore. Herakleia under Latmos is now the village of Kapikiri, and the arrangement is remarkable: houses and vegetable plots sit among a Temple of Athena on a rock, a council chamber, an agora, Byzantine monasteries on the islands, and a city wall that runs for kilometres up over the mountain behind. Above it rise the Besparmak mountains - ancient Latmos, where Endymion was said to sleep forever - and in caves and overhangs up there are painted figures with raised arms, seven or eight thousand years old, which were only identified in the 1990s and which almost nobody has seen. You need a local guide to find them, and the village pensions will arrange one for a half day on foot.

Kapikiri Koyu, Herakleia Oren Yeri, Milas, Milas, Mugla, Turkiye

The lake and the village are open at all hours; Herakleia's ruins are scattered through and around Kapikiri village and are largely open ground with a site charge at the entrance. The rock paintings in the Latmos mountains above need a local guide and a half day on foot. Pensions in the village run year round with a summer peak. Winter is wet and quiet.

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