2 Best Sights in Kiz Kalesi, The Turquoise Coast

An intriguing attraction that has been drawing visitors since before Roman times, these two natural sinkholes were created by an ancient subsidence. The first, located just beyond a small café and ticket booth, is the one referred to as Heaven (Cennet). A five-minute walk takes you down to the peaceful valley floor and the well-preserved 5th-century AD Byzantine Church of the Virgin Mary. The path then descends into a huge, aircraft-hangar-like natural cavern, which might have been the site of a spring known among the ancients as the fountain of knowledge.

Back up the stairs a short walk leads to the Hell (Cehennem) sinkhole, which is narrower, with walls too steep to enter, and deep enough for little sunlight to reach the bottom. A dark and gloomy place, pagan, Christian, and Muslim sources all identify it as an entrance to hell. The road continues to a third cavern, the Cave of Wishes (Dilek Mağarası), also known as Asthma Cave (Astım Mağarası) for the purported respiratory benefits of its humid air. Romans picked crocuses here, and even today you may be met by villagers selling bunches of the little flowers.

Just off the coast, an island—known to have been settled as early as the 4th century BC—is home to an evocative castle called Kız Kalesi. Several offshore castles in Turkey bear this same name, which is derived from a legend about a king, a princess, and a snake: the beautiful princess, apple of her father's eye, had her fortune read by a wandering soothsayer who declared she would die of a snakebite. The king therefore sent her to a castle on a snake-free island. Destiny, however, can never be avoided, and the offending serpent was accidentally delivered in a basket of grapes sent as a gift from her father's palace.

More prosaically, this particular castle was an important part of the row of defenses built and rebuilt over the centuries to stop invaders from Syria entering Anatolia via the coast route to Antalya. What you see dates mostly from the 11th century and was constructed by Byzantines to keep out Antioch-based Crusaders. Boatmen will offer to take you here, but hiring a paddleboat is the most popular way to explore.