Along the Turquoise Coast Part 3: Olympos, Çıralı and the Chimaera
With all the Lycian ruins scattered along this beautiful coastline I was looking for something a little different, to avoid the boredom of seeing one ruined city too many, and came across the mystical ‘Chimaera’ (Yanartaş in Turkish or ‘burning rock’). Located on the slopes of Mount Olympos (modern day Tahtalı Dağ) the Chimaera are a natural phenomenon caused by a gas which continuously seeps from the rocks and bursts into flame upon contact with the air. Even if they are extinguished they will reignite.
Çıralı is the nearest place to stay for the Chimaera and is also close by to the Lycian city of Olympos which can be approached from the beach at Çıralı or from the D400 highway. It is also possible to stay at Olympos in tree-house style accommodation or campgrounds although some of these are set quite a long way back from the beach. Accommodation in Çıralı is mostly small and friendly pensions like Porto Ceneviz with a couple of larger hotels too. Food is home-cooked Turkish and mostly great value. Çıralı is approximately a 4 hour drive from Kalkan along the D400, or a 1 and a half hour drive from Antalya.
The ruins of Olympos (3TL entry) are set in a shaded valley that follows a stream down to the beach. The ruins line both banks of the stream and are almost hidden by the surrounding trees and vines. Some are signposted but most you will just stumble across if you follow tracks through the woods.
The beach is part-sand part-pebbles with no facilities since it is a nesting area for loggerhead and green sea turtles. Olympos is one end of the beach and Çıralı is the other end where you will find a selection of restaurants just off the beach at the roadside. This road also offers the quickest route up to the Chimaera. From here it is about a 1 hour stroll, or you can drive to the entrance car park and then walk up to the flames which takes about 20-30 minutes along a rocky, but well-worn path – it’s reasonably tough going but is worth the trip.
The best time to visit is after dark and most pensions suggest going after dinner (this is also the coolest time to attempt the climb) and will offer guided trips. We decided to drive ourselves to the car park, paid our 3.75TL entry fee and then began our ascent armed with a torch each (take your own or rent at the entrance) and some marshmallows for toasting! The path approaches the flames from the bottom, and there are around 20 or so individual flames in the clearing. When we arrived, most people were heading down as they had obviously gone up just before dark, and some had taken food up to cook over the flames for their dinner.
For our trip, we arrived in Çıralı around lunch time and left the next morning and found that this was just enough time for us to see what we wanted in this area. However it is a beautiful place to stay and there are numerous activities offered by the pensions and tree-houses including diving, sea kayaking, and mountain biking among others.
Other articles in this series: