Kayaköy (Ghost Village)

Village / Town

Hundreds of abandoned stone houses cloaking an entire hillside — a silent witness to a shared past, Turkey’s most haunting ghost village.

On a valley slope southwest of Fethiye, where hundreds of roofless stone houses climb one above another, Kayaköy was once a lively Greek town of thousands known as “Levissi.” Greeks and Turks lived intertwined on this land for centuries; but with the 1923 Greek–Turkish population exchange, the town’s Orthodox Greek residents emigrated to Greece. As the expected new population never fully arrived and the houses were gradually abandoned, the village sank into silence and took on the “ghost village” appearance it has today.

Walking the slope now, the light falling through empty window frames, the still-standing walls of two churches (Panayia and Taxiarchis) and the narrow stone lanes between the houses offer a mood at once melancholic and thought-provoking. Kayaköy is regarded as a monument to a shared past and a culture of coexistence that deserves protection; it also inspired Louis de Bernières’ novel “Birds Without Wings.” The historic path between Ölüdeniz and Kayaköy makes a short but delightful route for those who love to walk.