Ambling to Çiftlik Via The Scenic Route

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Walking to Çiftlik from Çalış is really easy because you can’t get lost, it’s flat (bonus!) and it’s a good bit of painless exercise after you’ve had cabin fever from rain-gazing through the window.

Similar to last year, it’s been a mild winter but it’s been a wet winter. Last week, there was a lull in the rainfall so we decided to get out of the house and go for a leg stretch.

As you know, we love a good food market and, as it was Thursday, we decided to get the comfortable walking shoes out and stroll on over to Çiftlik market.

We cheated a bit – well, the sky was still looking a bit threatening – so we caught the dolmuş as far as the entrance to Çalış Beach, had a chicken döner half bread at Günışık for lunch and then set off along the beach.

Just before you get to the end of the promenade along the first stretch of Çalış Beach, you’ll see a little pathway that goes past Oben restaurant and towards Güven’s.

Walk down this path and keep following the beach, keeping the sea to your left.

For views back towards Fethiye, as in the photo above, you need to keep turning back. The wall you can see is where all the marquees were set up for the James Bond film set.

We’re stood with our backs to Surf Cafe now and (top left photo) we can see the signs pointing towards the other beach bars and restaurants of Koca Çalış.

Follow the track past these signs and you’ll see a cobbled road to your left. That’s the road we’re taking.

You’ll see a rickety old shed (that we quite like, hence the photo) and the cobbled road stretching out ahead.

Keep following this road past the beach restaurants and you’ll once again hit the beach (bottom right photo).

This section of the beach is where we climbed the hill to take the photos of the alternative views of Çalış from on high.

Koca Çalış is really peaceful but the buildings are sprouting – it’s changed a lot over the years.

Still, this section of beach enjoys relative tranquillity for now and Babdağ and Mendos mountains are the masters of the skyline. But let’s not get bogged down in the ‘what-might-be’ and concentrate on the ‘what is.’

Continue to follow the track – and it is a dusty / muddy track by now – between the hill and the Telmessos holiday village. You can’t miss it.

The houses are painted in varied and vibrant colours and have been like that for as long as we can remember.

We must always walk round here in the closed season because we’ve never seen anyone about, here.

And just look at this.

A series of dark and moody scenes and as we walked along the road, a golden field of sheep, spring lambs, kids and their not-very-frightened-looking parents – rather stern looking goats.

We got a few photos before the equally not-very-frightened-looking dog came bounding over to protect the herd from prying lenses.

We’re grateful for wire fences!

As you continue along the track, you’ll see the village a Çiftlik to your right, snuggled into the hillside. This is where we’re heading, to the market.

When you come to a T-junction in the road with a sign pointing left towards Karataş beach, take the right and then another quick right so that you’re walking along a straight, tarmac road towards the D400 main road.

You’ll be able to hear the traffic whizzing by in the distance and just to the right of your view, the minaret of the central mosque in Çiftlik (photo 3) will be visible.

When you get to the main road cross carefully (the traffic’s fast along this stretch) do a right on the other side of the road and a few metres further down, you’ll see a small junction to your left (bottom right photo above).

This is your road to Çiftlik village centre.

It’s a pleasant road that follows a canal and there’s a newly cobbled footpath to the side that takes you straight into the village centre.

You can still see the white minaret just to the right. That’s where the market is.

And, when you get to the end of the footpath (again, note your landmark minaret) there’s this most interesting hunk of concrete with water forcing itself from the top, through the hole and into the canal.

We’d love to tell you what it’s all about but we have no idea.

The force looked strong enough to be creating some kind of power. No doubt someone else can enlighten us…

This is the end of the road and we’re now in the village centre. Take a right here towards your minaret and it’s a couple of minutes walk to the Perşembe Pazar – the Çiftlik Thursday market.

We’ll tell you about Çiftlik market in our next post.

The walk from Çalış to Çiftlik market took 1 hour 15 minutes, including ample time for trudging across pebbles to take photos and for talking to goats.

View all of our Fethiye walks for more hiking ideas in this part of Turkey.

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