Mountains, ancient ruins, sunken cities and fine beaches charaterise this challenging new long-distance national trail. The route snakes along Mediterranean's most dramatic coastline to the mountain peaks of Olympos, soaring high above the glittering turquoise sea.

15th Greatest Walk in the World, chosen by Country Walking Magazine

What really distinguishes this route is its intimate, almost careless, relationship with history. Lycia, in particular, enjoyed a period of ascendancy and unique culture before falling into the hands of Alexander the Great's successors and then the Romans. Later, Arabs, Crusader and Genoese established themselves.

Traces of all these hands are visible still, and nowhere more so than along this path, their romance and charme enhanced by the old stones lying naturallly among the scrub and goat pastures.

There are castles, harbour and forts, and terraced hillsides and settlements where the herders take their flocks and where the peasants repair for coolness in the summer.

Tim Salmon - Sunday Times World's ten Best Walks

Lycia is the mountainous bump on the South coast of Turkey, where the Taurus range plunges into the glittering Mediterranean. The Lycian Way follows Greek and Roman roads and acqueducts, traditional nomad trails and forest tracks around the coast, rising over ranges and diverting around deltas. Existing tracks have been linked up to form a continuous walking route that stretches over 530 km, soars along cliffs, wind trough forests, pauses at deserted beaches and takes several detours inland. Old fishing villages, now tourist honeypots, offer supplies, accomnodation and a break form the solitude of the trail

Top treks of the world, Setve Razzetti, New Holland Press