Road Trips From Side

As we continue to enjoy our time in Side, the details surrounding our eventual return home don’t get any clearer, as our flight home has been cancelled again due to the second lockdown back home in England. The latest position is that we now have a flight booked for December 5th, but whether that actually happens is another matter altogether.

Exploring our temporary home we collect a hire car for a few days and get out and about to widen our knowledge. Our first road trip takes us to the so called Green Canyon, up in the mountains closer to the source of the Manavgat river and at the far end of a large lake which has been formed by the building of the Oymapinar Dam.

The dam itself is a spectacular sight, loftily forging a barrier at a point where the canyon is dramatically high and narrow. Viewed from the nearby road bridge the dam and its giant sluices are an impressive feat of engineering.

Past the dam, the road to the Green Canyon steadily deteriorates from a potholed lane to a tight rutted track better suited to 4x4s until eventually reaching a dead end at a lakeside restaurant. Both the restaurant and the attendant boats clearly exist purely for group tourist trips from the resorts, so after the great drive through wonderful landscapes and the splendid views of the dam, it’s a bit of an anti-climax.

But the subsequent drive around villages nestled in the foothills of the mountains, through vast areas of fruit farms and covered banana plantations, punctuated with stops at villages all but untouched by the modern world, soon make up for our disappointment. You cannot help but be a little thrown by what you see here: rustic unchanged villages where farm workers in humble surroundings work the fields with primitive equipment, all just a stone’s throw from the high rise hotels and tourist trade which line the coast a few miles away. The contrast in lifestyles is truly startling. 

Hidden in these foothills are the ruins of another ancient city, on all of the maps as Seleukeia but according to the history books was actually named Lyrbe. We had read a website which described Lyrbe as the area’s great undiscovered relic – though of course it’s hardly “undiscovered” if it’s on the internet! But, as we approach the site the only way you can – up a tiny twisting shale road which works its way slowly up the steep climb – we see exactly what was meant by that description.

Lyrbe is truly stunning, remarkably well preserved buildings scattered over a large area of overgrown hillside, hidden amongst pines and boldly looking towards the coast. In terms of visitor interaction, there is nothing but a few signs (very informative though), thus making it an even more enthralling place. Difficult to get to, hidden in the woods, untouched by tourism, the tag “undiscovered” is not altogether inaccurate. Lyrbe is one haunting place.