Roman aqueduct to Patara

Walk to Patara via the aquaduct ruins at Delikkemer

Roman aqueduct near Patara

This walk takes you along the route of an ancient Roman aqueduct that originally ran from above Kalkan to Patara.  The water channel appears to have traversed around the hillside at ground level except for the section at Delikkemer where an ingenius and massive stone pipe, constructed on top of a huge stone wall, took the water across a dip in the hills.

‘Delikkemer’ means ‘hollow belt’ in Turkish and simply refers to the location of the aqueduct ruins. As can be seen from the photo, the name is appropriate.

As mentioned on the introductory page to these Lycian Way walks, the information given here is simply a series of Latitude and Longitude coordinates which show the route on Google Earth.  To make use of these, all you have to do is save them to a file and then at your leisure copy and paste them one by one in to Google Earth (top left, where it says ‘Fly to’).

(If you’re not familiar with Google Earth, here’s a tip on how to view the terrain in slightly exaggerated 3D.)

The off road part of this walk starts a couple of kilometres outside Kalkan on Fethiye side of town.

Start here:

36 16 20.2 n, 29 23 40.9 e

These coordinates take you to the start of the walk on the new approach road to Kalkan. There is probably a sign saying Lykia Yolu. The trail is marked with red and white paint marks on rocks and trees. These occur every 100 metres or so and you have to keep a sharp eye out for them in places.

The coordinates for the aqueduct ruins at Delikkemer are as follows:

36 15 57.3 n, 29 21 55.7e

This is the point on the road nearest the ruins. If you simply wanted to look at the ruins this is where you would drive to. The aqueduct can be seen in Google Earth on the right, which is where the walk takes you to.

Olive trees grow alongside the ancient Roman aqueduct at Delikkemer which overlooks the sea.

The trail continues from a point on the road nearby, found here:

36 15 52.4 N, 29 21 43.7 E

And ends here:

36 16 10.5 n, 29 19 27. e

From here you just make your way down to the Patara ruins straight ahead or go right to the village.  Sadly, there was a forest fire here a couple of years ago, as can be seen on Google Earth.

The Lycian Way has an alternative coastal route back to Kalkan, the waypoints for which I shall try to provide in a later post. But for those not wanting to walk back, taxis can be found in Gelemis village and there are regular dolmus mini-buses.

Route on Google Maps: (If a map of the USA shows up, click on the link to Google Maps below it. If you still get the US, click on the route titles to the left of the map. You’ll find it eventually. Better still, just copy the coordinates given above and paste them into Google Earth.)

View Aqueduct route to Patara. in a larger map