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Scenery

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DALYAN

Dalyan is a super place and has a lot to offer its visitors; as well as the normal sun, sea and sand, it also has a freshwater lake, a river, mud baths, hot springs, an historic city and beautiful mountain scenery in whichever direction you look. The whole region is a national conservation area, and home to numerous varieties of birds, and three types of turtle, including the protected loggerhead “Caretta Caretta” sea turtle. Tourism is a relatively new venture for the local people who previously earned their livings from agriculture, especially cotton farming. Nowadays, cotton is still grown locally but it is being slowly phased out in favour of orange and lemon farming which is much more profitable. It is not unusual to see fields with orange and lemon trees growing among the cotton plants as it will take about 6 years for a tree to yield any fruit.

click image to view Dalyan Panorama ( opens new window)

In Dalyan you will see rows of 'African Queen' boats along the river bank. After a leisurely breakfast, you choose your 'African Queen' boat for the 30 minute voyage through the reed beds that were said to be used as the venue to film the famous scenes in Houston 's film, “The African Queen”. For half an hour you can pretend to be Humphrey Bogart or Audrey Hepburn, on the way to a spit of golden sand were turtles have laid their eggs for millions of years. In truth in the many times I have enjoyed these trips along the river I have not seen one empty gin bottle nestling in the reeds. Once at Turtle beach you can swim in fresh water on one side of this 5 kilometres of golden sand or in salt water on the other but the beach is best enjoyed in the morning and evening because by midday the day trippers from Marmaris arrive. On your return to Dalyan ask your boatman to drop you off so you can walk through the splendid ruins of the Lycian city of Caunus . (these are some of the oldest ruins in Turkey ). When the day trippers have returned to their various resorts, you have Dalyan for yourself and you can dine al fresco in the restaurants along the riverbank.