Kekova is a small island off the coast at Simena (Kaleköy), a small village in the Demre district of Turkey’s Antalya Province. The village lies amidst a Lycian necropolis, which is partially sunken underwater and the village is overlooked by a Byzantine castle, built in the Middle Ages to fight pirates who were present throughout this coast.
Tour operators run tours several times a week from Kalkan involving a half hour coach ride to Kas Harbour and from there a boat trip to Kekova. Lunch is usually provided either on the boat or in a restaurant at the village and there are opportunities for swimming. A good day out. Here are some photographs….
Arriving at Kas Harbour
Approaching Kayekoy
There isn’t a huge amount in the village but thats the beauty of the place.There is a pension or two ,a few shops and cafes/restaurants and a few stalls selling tourist goods.
If you take the time to walk to the castle at the top of the hill ( many don’t in the heat of summer) you can take a tour for a small fee but you will find many ancient tombs such as these scattered all over.
We arrived in Rovinj by bus on 3rd July to stay at the very pleasant Apartments Annamarija about 15 minutes walk from the old town and its harbour.
The town is obviously much further north than say Dubrovnik and Split and you could be forgiven for thinking you had arrived in Italy with the many Italian restaurants here.
The town is largely on the flat and fully of small winding streets making it a nice place to wander. By now we are in the peak summer season but although there were plenty of tourists around the numbers were not nearly so great as in other places ,notably Dubrovnik , and without the cruise ships( at least we didn’t see any).
Three nights here would be more than enough for most people – in truth you can easily cover the town in a day – but as usual we had booked a generous week . A week was no hardship however and we passed the days walking and sunbathing in the bays south of the town with several notably long lunches in some very good local ( non Italian!) restaurants.
Here are some photos.
Rovinj was our penultimate stop in Croatia , the last being Pula where we spent 3 nights on the outskirts of town before flying home on 13th July.
Unfortunately , for the moment at least , this is our last post as disaster has struck and we (I) have managed to mis-file our memory card with photographs of Pula. Hopefully it will turn up once we finally return home for an extended period and unpack properly.
In early August we will be back on the road heading for Santorini and then Rhodes in Greece before returning to Turkey for three months.With a brief visit home for Christmas and New Year we will then over-winter on the Costa Del Sol and then travel through Spain , France and Portugal until we return home again in August 2017.
Firstly, here are some photos taken during our bus ride north from Zadar, a lovely coastal ride passing many picture book villages.
Opatija, according to one guide book at least, is often called the “Croatian Monte Carlo” and its easy to see why.
The small town stands sprawling along a rocky coastline with a backdrop of a pine covered mountains. It’s a beautiful green region and the town is very attractive with its lovely town centre set on the waterfront well set up for families.
I read that the town “lost its sheen” during the Yugoslav period but thats hard to imagine as this is now a very smart resort which seems to be a favourite of better off Croatian families and couples and from our experience, Italians.
One of many nice bars and restaurants, often part of a hotel, where a sunbed or daybed can be rented for the day – great for posing
This statue of Madonna has become an icon of Opatija and can be seen on tourist information and postcards everywhere
The architecture of the town is lovely containing many buildings originally built as belle-epoque villas for the wealthy during the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Some of these villas remain as grand residences but many became and are still up-market hotels. Some pictures ..
The coast is gorgeous but there are no beaches as such . The coastline is rocky throughout its length but there are plenty of little bays and places where the water can be accessed usually with the help of railings with ladders into the sea. In a few places, there is a wide expanse of concrete fronting the promenade with access to the sea and with sunbeds and umbrellas for hire and refreshments available.
There is an 11 kilometre long promenade known as the Lungomare which stretches in both directions from Opatija to neighbouring villages and this makes for a really nice walk with some nice villas to ogle at and several places to stop along the way to enjoy a drink or a meal.
The Lungamare
Another nice bar along the waterfront
This one has its own pool and with sunbeds to rent for the day its a great place for the young and beautiful to hang out and pose – we didn’t linger…..
Once you leave the town , the scene becomes like this
If you can’t find your own spot in one of the little bays or on one of the rocky promontories, or if you just want to be near to a shop/bar/restaurant, there are several places like this where you can spend the day.
Lungamare stretches from the villages of Icici to Volosko. Both are worth wander around and a stop for lunch
Back in Opatija itself there are lots of places to sit around and people watch including some very nice manicured gardens. Otherwise there is some nice shopping (but not a great deal – this is a small town) and plenty of nice restaurants to suit every taste in the town. We stayed in an apartment forming part of a family home, superb accommodation with generous hosts. The only issue was that it was situated high above the town and without a car it was a hell of a climb up many many steps to get back to the house. We were told about the hill when we booked but saw the climb as a challenge rather than an problem and only once when we loaded with bags of shopping did we resort to using a taxi .
Our digs in Opatija. A large ground floor apartment beneath a family home.
Its probably true to say that of all the places we have travelled so far, Opitija is the one place where we would consider buying a retirement home (OZ and N Z excepted) if it were not for the fact that buying property in Croatia is fraught with difficulty and potential nightmares – its just too difficult!
Here are some more photos of Opatija and the area…….
Lots of interesting architecture in the town and there is some nice shopping with a few high end shops – but not a huge amount, this is a small town
Croatia’s Walk of Fame is in Opatija for some reason..
We might well be in a minority because Croatia is full of pretty towns with lots of history but Opatija was our favourite. Our only regret was that our digs were booked up and we were unable to extend our stay.
After four nights in Opatija, our next and penultimate stop in Croatia would be Rovinj.
We arrived in Zadar from Trogir by bus on June 24th and stayed for 5 nights in a small but beautifully renovated apartment in a very old building in the Old City in an area full of interesting and historic buildings – not to mention some nice bars and restaurants. Typing this up four months after our visit and keen to get up to date, hopefully the reader (if he’s still with us) will forgive the fact that this and subsequent posts are largely photographic with even fewer words than earlier posts……..
St Donatus Church
St Anastasia”s Cathedral
Roman relics, the remains of columns and the likes can be seen in various places around town.
St Mary’s Church
View over the water from the Old City to the New City
There are plenty of nice restaurants in Zadar as elsewhere. This was a simple mezze starter in a back street Cafe where we stopped to watch the Euro Championships and ended up staying for several hours/bottles of wine…
There is a really good “green ” market here with a fish market on the same site. This wasn’t as big as some we had seen but was probably the best one we saw in Croatia up to this point
We enjoyed Zadar very much. I guess most people travelling through Croatia would spend perhaps only a night or two here and that would be plenty to see everything but as slow travellers we like to take it easy and five days was good for us allowing us a couple of days of pure chilling (usually spent working on itineraries for future travels) before moving on to wonderful Opatija.
A small town only 28km north of Split, this was our favourite town on this coast.
This is another historic town built alongside a harbour. It sits on a small island separated from the mainland by a narrow canal and accessed by a road bridge and a footbridge and with another small island, Ciovo, beyond it. Ciovo is itself accessed by a bridge from the old town.
This is a lovely little town with lots of interesting old buildings, churches and a cathedral to be found in a maze of narrow streets. There are plenty of bars and some very good restaurants and there was a great vibe in the town enhanced no doubt by the fact that the Euros were ongoing at the time of our visit and the Croats were doing well in the competition at that stage.
Some photos….
One of several City Gates, this one from Riva (The Promenade) into the Old CityThis is the only road bridge from Ciovo Island into the Old City. It was always very busy during our visit in June but traffic is apparently almost constantly at a standstill in the peak summer months. A second bridge is being built just a bit further down the shore.
Trogir’s Riva (Promenade)The Riva – another view
Ann made some new friends whilst in Trogir!
There is a square around every corner and each one is jammed with restaurants and coffee shops
Trogir Clock Tower above the church of San Sebastian taken from the bell tower of the Cathedral opposite
The Clocktower seen from the Cathedral opposite
Trogir’s Roman Catholic Cathedral was built over several centuries. It’s regarded as one of the most important historic buildings in Croatia
Outside the old city there is little of attraction to tourists other than beaches both on the coast of the mainland and those on Cliovo Island itself one of which was only a fifteen minute walk over the hill from our apartment. This is a stretch of over 2km of stoney beach which is very popular and was packed with holiday makers each time we walked over. Okrug Gornji beach is lined with cheap restaurants selling cheap beer mostly with their own piece of beach with sunbeds and umbrellas each for hire at around 20p – a far cry from some of those on Hvar which were charging up to £20 a day!
Okra Gornji Beach on Ciovo Island.
We stayed a full week in Trogir and very much enjoyed it. We rented an apartment on Ciovo which was fairly basic but clean and in a great position high on the hillside with a great patio with fab views looking down on the town. Our landlady and landlord were great, super friendly with lots of tips for us and resolving a wifi problem instantly by providing us with a mobile device for use throughout our stay. Happy days!
