Situated on three contiguous bays, Phaselis was a port city of the Roman Empire. Ancient ruins of the aqueduct as well as remains of the city are on view in what is now a national park. Phaselis is my kind of ancient site, because when you get tired of looking at its old rocks you can jump right into the pristine water of its secluded bays.
The beach at Phaselis- empty even in tourist season
My original idea was to take an all-day boat trip from Kemer to Phaselis. This would include a nice lunch on the boat and would eliminate the hike from the entrance of the park to the beaches. So we took a dolmus to Kemer, but when it got to Kemer I had no idea how to get to the harbor. When the dolmus driver asked "Phaselis?" I said yes. I was hoping he'd take us to the harbor to catch a boat, but as it turns out this was the Phaselis dolmus. What the heck, we thought, at least we'll get there.
An ancient arch on the way to the beach at Phaselis
We did get there, but without the boat there was no way of getting lunch. This didn't bother Catherine, who never eats lunch, but I had to stock up on chocolate bars at the snack shop at the entrance. I suppose it's good that I'd done my research and knew there was no food there, but it would have been better if I'd have used that information to pack a lunch. Of course, I'd planned to have lunch on a boat, but by now I should know that things don't always go as planned.
Anyway, armed with water, orange juice and chocolate we began the schlep, ur ,walk to the beach. It was a hot day, so swimming was the first order of business. After we'd cooled off we did some exploring of ruins.
Ancient ruins in Phaselis
Ruins of a theater at Phaselis
We eventually made our way back to the entrance to catch a dolmus back to Antalya. I still think the boat ride from Kemer is the better way to go. In addition to the advantage of food and avoiding sun-stroke (and the boat rides are fun anyway), dolmuses go from Antalya to Kemer and back much more often than to Phaselis, so there's never a danger of having to wait a long time for a ride home. As it happens, we didn't have to wait very long.
Catherine and I have been traveling together for longer than either of us care to admit; we were teenagers on youth orchestra trips around the world. We both know that improvised days can be some of the best travel experiences. This one certainly worked out just fine.
