Dalaman: the gateway to the turquoise coast

On the southwestern coast of Turkey, Dalaman remains the gateway to the famous Ölüdeniz lagoon and Lycian ruins buried among the mountains.

A rental car is useful to explore the region.

The Lagoon of Ölüdeniz, with its turquoise waters protected by a sandbar tongue, remains one of the most photographed images of Mediterranean Turkey.

Just minutes away, Mount Babadağ, dominating the lagoon, remains one of the world's most celebrated paragliding launch points.

Continuing inland you visit the Lycian rock tombs of Fethiye, carved directly into the rock by the Lycian civilization over two thousand years ago.

Toward evening, the abandoned village of Kayaköy, Greco-Ottoman, tells the story of the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey.

Kayaköy was completely abandoned during the forced population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923, leaving over five hundred empty stone houses that remain today just as they were left a century ago.

Mount Babadağ, standing at nearly nineteen hundred meters above the Ölüdeniz lagoon, offers one of the longest paragliding jumps in the world, with flights lasting up to forty-five minutes.