When I left the fishing village of Üçagiz, the place was just coming to life. No more loitering, just a quick goodbye to the early risers in front of the tea room. After all, I wanted to have done a few kilometres on the Mediterranean coast before the coolness of this spring morning would have melted away. The next village on the Teke peninsula, this bulge with all its beaches and resorts, framed by olive groves at the foot of the western Taurus Mountains, could only be reached on foot or by boat. Named after the Byzantine kale (castle), the small village of Kaleköy was certainly worth the 4 km hike. Just a small section, but so typical of the landscape, of the Lycian Way, a 29-day, 540km walk that follows the coast of the Teke Peninsula from the tourist strongholds in Fethiye to Antalya, including occasional detours into the rugged interior. I climbed a rocky path through Mediterranean scrubland and suddenly overlooked a bay whose deep blue was broken only by the outlines of a few islands and peninsulas. Passing a shipyard where wooden gület sailboats were repaired for the summer, I climbed a path to the castle and came out on a ridge with Lycian tower tombs. Even more rose from the shallow waters of the bay below me.

Once across the bay was the island of Kekova with the underwater ruins of the Lycian city of Simena, which sank into the sea here after a series of earthquakes 2000 years ago. After a lunch of mezze on the terrace of a guesthouse, a fisherman took me across so I could take a closer look at Batik Sehir (the sunken city). Broken amphorae, foundations of buildings and steps were lost in the deep blue of the sea. This is precisely what makes the Lycian Way so appealing: Captivating detours into antiquity can be made everywhere, in the middle of the wildly romantic Mediterranean landscape. The trail goes back to the British amateur historian Kate Clow, who scouted, planned and signposted the path in the late 1990s. She wanted to locate Turkey's ancient trails, allowing her to travel back in time through the centuries to the Lycian Middle Ages. She spent years exploring this beautiful part of Turkey. She convinced local mountain farmers of her visionary trail and the benefits of tourism. To this day, the Lycian Way is considered Turkey's most original and popular long-distance hiking trail.

The basic idea of the Lycian Way is to explore the region rather than slavishly following a fixed route. Therefore, the trail offers many detours, excursions and variations on the former territory of the mysterious Lycians. Homer was the first to mention the Lycians in his Iliad. They settled in this part of Anatolia at least 3000 years ago and probably belonged to the Lukka Empire, which is mentioned in ancient Hittite texts. Their heyday came with the Lycian League, a loose confederation of 25 city-states that is considered a kind of primordial democratic union in history. The trail makes its way to the most important remnants of the League, which was founded around 165 BC and incorporated into the Roman Empire two centuries later: for example, the moss-covered ruins at Letoön, a sanctuary in honour of Zeus' beloved Leto, patron saint of Lycia, and the ancient theatre and tower tombs of Xanthos, the Lycian capital. It was attacked by Brutus in 42 BC, whereupon the inhabitants committed mass suicide. In Patara, a sprawling meadow awaits, dotted with Lycian ruins, including a 5,000-capacity amphitheatre and a column-lined road to Turkey's longest beach.

The appeal of the trail is its mix of romantic ruins and Mediterranean ambience - with all the amenities of whitewashed port towns like Kas and Kalkan, where hikers enjoy well-earned fish and mezze delicacies. My favourite place to chill out was Kabak, a hard-to-reach village, accessible only on foot or by all-terrain vehicle along steeply sloping forest paths. Traditional farming and beekeeping in its valley have been joined by a handful of new-age resorts in rustic huts where you can greet the day with yoga or enjoy lake views on restaurant terraces: a wonderful place to relax after I had previously bravely struggled up the roped path from the beach of Butterfly Valley. Butterfly Valley with its pretty and colourful "Russian Bears" is just one of the natural wonders along the trail. Legendary is Chimaira, where flames burst out of the rocky mountainside in several places. After sunset, the fire fields make the biggest impression. They are easy to hike from Olympos. The ruins of this 2nd century BC city lead to a beach once inhabited by the followers of the Lycian cult of Hephaistos, who paid homage to the god of fire. Today, Olympos is known for its "tree house" camps where hikers can dangle body and soul in hammocks. Hiking adventures are shared around the campfire before going to sleep in the huts - only a few of them are actually built into the trees. Another surprise was Kayaköy (Gr. Levissi), a village rather marked by the 20th century and its cruel conflicts. Armenians were expelled from here. And after the First World War, the population was completely exchanged, from Turkish Greeks to Greek Turks. Eventually, the ruined and ghost town was completely abandoned and never repopulated. What remained were eerie streets, a lot of dilapidated houses, churches and, above it all, a castle. Other hikers I met on the trail, by the way, were enthusiastic about camping in olive groves, picnicking with a Turkish farmer or enjoying home-cooked food in a village guesthouse - just a few of the other surprises along the way along the Turkish Mediterranean.