It's a bit odd that all of the major islands in the Aegean Sea belong to Greece, when so many of them are so much closer to Turkey than Greece.
On Wednesday, we walked the Kaş peninsula... an area of land sticking out into the beautifully colored Agean Sea. It is home to many high end hotels and private villas. It also offers up close views of the Greek island of Kastellorizo.
Probably best if we show you a map first...
The island of Kastellorizo is located only 2.5 kms (1.5 miles) from Turkey.
And if you zoom out, you will see that the island is also about 600 kms (372 miles) from mainland Greece.
About 500 people live on the island of Kastellorizo. Although it is so close to Turkey, it is very remote if you are living there as a Greek citizen. There is an airstrip, so I guess they can fly out, but it's probably expensive. There used to be some tourism from Kaş, but due to Covid (and possibly the ongoing disputes between Turkey and Greece), it seems the ferry isn't running. I tried looking into it just for fun, but even if you wanted to go they have some pretty detailed and expensive visa requirements. You can have a look at them here...
It would have been an interesting visit, but we will stick with viewing the island from afar!
We drove the car to the outskirts of Kaş and then walked.
There is a road around the peninsula, and most of the road has a sidewalk along it. Not a busy road anyhow, so it was no problem walking even where the sidewalk didn't exist.
There is the island of Kostellorizo.
A campervan enjoying a nice parking spot.
These types of beach clubs are fairly popular in Turkey.
Nice roadside viewpoint if you had a motorhome!
Looking back at Kaş.
Getting closer to Kastellorizo.
The peninsula has lots of high end boutique hotels and private villas.
Kostellorizo. We could almost swim to Greece!
Almost every place on the peninsula has its own swimming pool.
But it is not all beauty!
There are a lot of public trash bins in Turkey. This is a good thing, but we find that when anything is too big to go in the trash bins, they simply dump it there and it never gets picked up. The truck still comes by regularly, and the bins get emptied, but it seems that the area surrounding the bins never gets cleaned up.
Another villa.
We walked 11.3 kms (7.0 miles) nonstop in just under two hours. I've been forgetting to add up our walking but I'll do that today.
When we got back home, I checked on Airbnb just to see what those villas rent for. Some of the really top end ones are as much as $400 a night, but if you did that with a few friends it would be a nice spot to waste away a week or so. And you can even get some pretty comfortable ones for as little as $100 a night.
We have now walked 324.4 kms (201 miles) since we arrived in Turkey October 13th.
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Great deal on a two pack of Shredded Memory Foam Pillows.
And the big 56 OZ Container of Planters Mixed Nuts is on sale again!
And in Canada...
It really sounds like a complicated Boundaries between Greece and Turkey.
ReplyDeleteLike yourselves I'd be disappointed with the trash pick up.
Be Safe and Enjoy!
It's about time.
I don't think that it is necessarily going into Greece from Turkey but going to this particular island that is complicated.
DeleteI don't think it is so much the trash collector's that are the issue but the people that are dumping it! They should be taking it to a dump site or at least putting it into the trash bins.
When are you inviting me to share a villa?...I can afford $33.30 (US) a day....;+).....
ReplyDeleteTCM movies are having a Laurel & Hardy special on the tube tonight...Good way to block out stuff going on in the world..What Fun!
Lol, don't think we will be renting out a villa anytime soon!
DeleteEnjoy your shows and getting away from all the crap news that is out there.
People think the same thing about Alaska and Maine....they should be part of Canada. Who drew those boundaries anyway :) I really want to go to Turkey because of your trip!
ReplyDeleteWe can totally understand Maine being part of the USA but yeah, it always makes you wonder how come they got Alaska and we didn't!
DeleteWe think that we have opened the eyes to many of our readers about Turkey and have made a number of people think about coming here for a visit. We highly recommend it, we certainly haven't been the least bit disappointed about our decision, we have really loved our time here. :-)