Antalya Airport to Simena Kaleköy transfer
Simena, which everyone here calls Kaleköy, is a village on the Kekova shore that climbs the slope in steps beneath a small castle. Lycian sarcophagi stand in the shallows at the water's edge, tilted and half-submerged, and across the channel in front of the houses lies the long island where the sunken city of Kekova is. No road has ever been built to Simena. The village has no cars in it at all, nothing arrives except by boat, and its lanes, gardens and terraces are stacked between the quay below and the castle wall above.
The page counts 175 km from Antalya Airport and about 140 minutes, but the car does not finish the journey. Past Demre the D400 pulls away from the sea into rough limestone country, bare ridges and low scrub, and at Çevreli a turning heads south onto a narrow side road that works its way down towards the coast. It is single-track in places and steep at the end, and it stops at the quay in Üçağız, where the tarmac simply runs out. From there the last leg is across the water, on a boat arranged locally and separately from the transfer.
Visiting Simena Kaleköy
Everything about a day here is governed by the boat. The road takes about two hours and twenty minutes in each direction, and on top of that come the wait at the quay, the crossing, the hours you actually spend in the village and the crossing back. Realistically that is a half day on the ground at the very least and more often the whole of it, so treat Simena as a day out rather than an afternoon. Decide in advance whether the driver waits at Üçağız or drops you and returns at a fixed hour, and settle it when you book: there is no way to call a car down to the village.
The crossing turns out to be the best part of the visit. The sarcophagi standing in the shallows come into view from the water before you land, and the sunken city along the shore opposite is something seen from a boat rather than walked through. Ashore, the village is stepped lanes and nothing else — no vehicles of any kind, and every crate and suitcase carried up by hand from the quay. From the lower houses an uneven flight of stone steps climbs steadily towards the castle, and inside its walls a small theatre has been cut into the rock.
That climb is the effort of the day and it is open to the sun almost the whole way; the shade down in the village comes from the houses and the trees between them, not from the route up. What people go up for is the view from the walls across the channel, and it is the reason nobody regrets the steps. Back at sea level, swimming off the rocks is part of the day for a great many visitors. Once the return crossing is agreed there is nothing left to hurry for, and the place rewards sitting still far more than it rewards a brisk tour.
- The half-drowned sarcophagi read best from the water, so watch for them on the way in rather than hunting for them on foot.
- The steps up to the castle are uneven and unshaded, and water is worth carrying up with you.
- Nothing in the village rolls: a wheeled bag or a pushchair has no route past the quay.
- Fix the hour of the return crossing before you wander off, because your driver is waiting on the far shore.