Üçağız & Kekova

Declared off-limits to development, Üçağız (ooch-eye-iz) is a quaint fishing and farming village in an absolutely idyllic setting on a bay amid islands and peninsulas. Little has changed here over the years and the teensy squiggle of lanes behind the harbour is a watercolour-worthy scene of rustic cottages and rural life. Üçağız is a regular stop on the gület (Turkish yacht) circuit and the jumping-off point for visiting the sunken city at Kekova and the secluded settlement of Kaleköy. During summer an armada of tour buses pull into the car park, rush groups onto the waiting boats, and then shuffle their sunburnt charges back onto the buses at the end of the day, while Üçağız snaps back into snooze mode for the evening. Staying overnight, with little to do except appreciate the glorious silence, is a delight.

A few words about where you are and what's what: the village you enter from the coastal highway is Üçağız, ancient Teimiussa, with its own Lycian necropolis. Across the water on the peninsula to the southeast is Kaleköy (called Kale locally), a protected village on the site of the ancient city of Simena.

South of the villages and past the channel entrance is the long island of Kekova with its famous underwater ruins; local people generally use this name to refer to the whole area. To the west on the Sıçak Peninsula is Aperlae, an isolated and very evocative ancient Lycian city on the Lycian Way.

You should see the tiny Mediterranean fishing village of Üçağız, 39 km (24 miles) east of Kaş by road (map), before it's spoiled.
The best way is on a boat excursion from nearby Kaş, or from Çayağzı near Demre-Myra.
Okay, Üçağız (EWCH-ah-uhz, "Three Mouths," for the three rivers that debouche here) is no longer the perfectly authentic little Mediterranean seaside hamlet that it was in 1990, but the government is limiting new building so it's still pretty nice.
Old village houses are interspersed with tall stone Lycian tombs over 2000 years old, and the marble ruins of a Roman "sunken city" still glisten beneath the pellucid waters of the Mediterranean just offshore.
In 1990 there wasn't even a decent road into the place. Most people came by boat then--and they still do, because the road, although paved, twists through the hills for 19 km from the coastal highway.
Whether you start from Kaş or Çayağzı, or whether you drive to Üçagiz and join a boat tour there, you'll also be dropped at the pristine village of Kaleköy (Castle Village) to walk its streets, have tea in its cafés, and see its little fortress.
Üçağız has some pretty good restaurants for the yachters who moor here for lunch, and a few small, simple lodging-places, but the beds tend to fill up in summer, so if you want to stay here awhile your best bet is to come on a day-trip, ask around, find a room, make a reservation, and come back with your stuff.