Why I keep returning to Kas, Turkey’s unspoilt seaside hideaway
18.08.2023 - 12:31
/ theguardian.com
/ Monte Carlo
If there was ever a tale of two cities it has to be Kaş and Kalkan. Both picturebook pretty, with cobbled streets and bougainvillea-draped old stone houses, the two became hugely popular with holidaying Britons in Antalya when mainstream tourism began to gather pace there in the early 1990s.
When I first visited in 1994, Kalkan was still small, and Kaş – half an hour’s drive away along the vertiginously beautiful coastal road – was the bigger, livelier sibling. In those days, Kaş was where you went for a proper night out – inevitably ending in a knuckle-whitening taxi journey back in the early hours.
In the intervening 30 years, much has changed. Kalkan has grown into a kind of Turkish Monte Carlo, beloved of Britons (Wadebridge-on-Sea, someone said to me recently, having visited for the first time), with hundreds of restaurants, thousands of villas and a well-heeled air that sees £300 handbags fly out of the door before the first cocktails have been drunk. Kaş, on the other hand, remains remarkably unchanged; still a working town, with a tangle of atmospheric old streets and a boat-lined harbour. It also has its fair share of luxury villas and boutique hotels, but these are almost all found on the Çukurbağ peninsula, four miles out of town.
While I still love Kalkan, Kaş is the place I go to for a properly Turkish break. Staying on the peninsula offers a real sense of peace and escape, although the lack of any bus service means relying on taxis – of which there are many – or self-drive. Both Simpson and Vintage offer villas on the peninsula, while the Discerning Collection offers two hotels, the Mandalina Suites and the Deniz Feneri Lighthouse, both ideal for a romantic getaway rather than a family week, with direct access to the sea. If you want to be in the heart of town, Hotel Sonne (doubles from £56 B&B) makes a comfortable, affordable base.
Like Kalkan, Kaş is short on beaches; instead, a series of beach clubs fringe the town’s coastal strip, offering the chance to set up camp for the day, with sunbeds on over-water decks, usually attached to a restaurant or cafe. If I want to be in town, I usually head to Leymona Beach, handily located just a few minutes’ walk from the main harbour, or Kaş Beach, where the frozen margaritas are the perfect way to glide from late afternoon into the warm, sun-drenched evening.
Although it’s possible to spend a week lazing on a variety of sunloungers and doing little else, Kaş has positioned itself in recent years as something of an activities hub. Dive boats glide out from the harbour each morning, offering everything from Padi courses to refresher programmes and advanced open-water dives (subaquadive.com is generally considered the best). Bougainville Travel