Reading list | Turkey’s western Med

“This is one of the most dramatic of coastlines,” wrote Barnaby Rogers in Cornucopia 10, off in search of the enchantment described in Freya Stark's Lycian Shore, “alternating between sandy beaches and hostile cliffs that have long been the terror of sailors.” Once the domain of the kings of Lydia, the exceptionally beautiful Turquoise Coast between Marmaris and Antalya is best appreciated by boat. To aid sailors, it was mapped two centuries ago in an epic survey that sparked a hunt for its wealth of ancient treasure, as Nicholas Courtney explains in Beaufort's Hunt Cornucopia 27. The 500km Lycian Way, Turkey's first long-distance footpath, follows the spectacular coast from Fethiye to Antalya, while the flora of Caria and Lycia were explored by Andrew Byfield in Cornucopia 55.