Kas and around

Tourism has transformed KAS , until 1923 the Greek-populated timber-shipping port of Andifli, which sprang to prominence after about 1850. It’s still beautifully situated, nestled in a curving bay – the name Kas means “eyebrow” or “something curved” – with a backdrop of vertical 500 metre high cliffs peppered with rock tomms, and startling , head on views of Greek Kastellorizo . But what was a sleepy fishing village until the early 1980s has become a holiday metropolis and ilçe (country seat), whose permanent official population of eight thousand is vastly outnumbered in summer by the vacationers on whom locals depend for a living. Attitudes towards outsiders have inevitably hardened – the otogar is predictably well patrolled by accommodation touts though they’re not yet like those encountered at Selcuk or Pamukkale. Kas is less snooty, more youth-oriented and more hoi polloi cosmopolitan than nearby Kalkan ; aspiring Istanbul and Ankara yuppies come here, and amongst foreigners its still, unlike Kalkan , firmly established on the backpackers trail.

Kas has always been a major halting point on “Blue Cruise” itineraries, and yacht and gulet culture is as important here as Kalkan with day-trips available on the latter craft for the less well-heeled. Plans are afoot to move all pleasure craft to a new marina being prepared at Bucak Limani (formerly Vathy), the long fjord west of town, wedged between Highway 400 ant the Cukurbag peninsula which extends 5 km south-west of Kas.

The beaches
Considering that Kas is a major Turkish resort , local natural beaches are surprisingly poor; a few on the north shore of Bucak Limani are muddy and give onto sumpy water. In town itself Küçükçakil ( small gravel) has in recent years been pretty much taken over by the hotels facing it , who have installed snack-bar and sunbed concessions and concreted over the shore as a lido. Büyükçakil just over a kilometer east of town, is a small , coarse-shingle cove that nevertheless gets crowded out.

There’s no beach to speak of in Kas itself, or anywhere nearby for that matter, which together with a lack of a really convenient airport , and a spotty water supply (finally remedied in 1988 by a pipeline from Saklikent ) has spared the town the worst excesses of modern torism. Indeed , if you are not looking for antiques and carpets , at first glance there seems little to keep you here the town does get lively at night, however mainly because shops stay open until 1am in season - the many bars much later. By day Kas makes a handy base from which to reach Kekova and nearby Patara if you dont have your own transport , and local boosters are working hard to make it a major springboard for various types of adventure and activity tourism. The modern town is built atop the site of ancient Antiphellos , whose remaining ruins still speckle the streets, as well as covering the base of the peninsula to the west.

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