Today we leave Kas and travel to the Aegean coast and the city of Fethiye.
We stopped at Kayaköy, an abandoned "ghost village" in Fethiye. In 1923, the governments of Greece and Turkey signed the Treaty of Lausanne, enforcing a mandatory Population Exchange. Roughly 1.2 million Orthodox Christians living in Turkey were forced to relocate to Greece, while around 400,000 Muslims living in Greece were moved to Turkey. Muslim families coming from Greece were allocated the empty houses in Kayaköy. However, because they were accustomed to farming in fertile valleys, they found the steep, rocky hillside houses impractical. Most abandoned the hill and moved to other regions or down into the valley, leaving the hillside village entirely empty.
Lunch stop.
Went swimming in the Blue Lagoon in Ölüdeniz. The calm, wave-free, shallow turquoise water framed by steep, pine-covered mountains is the iconic trademark of the inner lagoon section of Ölüdeniz (which literally translates to "Dead Sea" due to how still the water is).
Dinner at the Fethiye Fish Market.
