Patara
Protected Beach And Archaeological Site; A Loggerhead Turtle Nesting Beach With Seasonal Restrictions, And The Lycian League'S Assembly City · Kas, Antalya
Patara is two things on one ticket. It was the principal harbour of Lycia and the seat of the Lycian League's assembly, whose restored council chamber is sold locally as the world's first parliament building - a claim that is a stretch but not a fantasy, since the League's proportional voting genuinely interested the men who wrote the American constitution. It was also the birthplace of the bishop who became Saint Nicholas. The harbour silted and the dunes moved in, and the ruins now sit half-buried in sand behind one of the longest beaches in the Mediterranean - eighteen kilometres of it, protected as a loggerhead nesting site, which is why there are no hotels, no sunbed rows and no building along it, and why the whole beach closes at sunset in nesting season. That restriction is the best thing about the place. There is one cafe, a handful of pensions in Gelemis village, and nothing else along eighteen kilometres of sand.
Gelemis Mahallesi, Patara Oren Yeri, Kas, Kas, Antalya, Turkiye
One ticket covers the ruins and the beach, and the gate keeps daytime hours with a strictly enforced closing time. THE BEACH CLOSES AT SUNSET from spring through autumn because it is a loggerhead turtle nesting site, and no one is allowed on the sand at night in that period. Winter access is limited and most of Gelemis village shuts down.