“For years we have been connected to Datça and the peninsula of the same name which separates the Agean and Mediterranean seas. The wonderful landscape with the undiscovered ancient ruins, the peaceful bays, the bizzare precipitious mountains, the charming valleys and the hidden gorges have never failed to surprise and fascinate us again and again.” Reason enough for Karla Winkler-Mayer und Manfred Winkler, hikers and nature friends, to write a hiking guide to bring us closer to this beautiful part of the earth.

Like both the Wiesbaden authors, we would also like to request the visitors to the peninsula to treat it with the required sensitivity it deserves, which unfortunately far too many holidaymakers don’t do. There are still hardly any regulations here and few areas in which one may not hike. Therefore WE ALL carry the responsibility to see that it remains as it is.

The climate of the peninsula with its low humidity, high iodine air content which is especially recommended for asthmatics, and the reliable, pleasant cooling sea breezes in the summer, was also well known and popular in ancient times. Partially due to this 100.000 people lived here in the Dorian city of Knidos ( see “Knidos”) and the surrounding wine growing and olive areas in the fourth century BC. Today there are approximately 12.000 people living on the peninsula of which 8.100 live in the municipality of Datça itself.

In the summer holiday months however this total increases fourfold. Most of the visitors are turkish families from the bigger cities, the majority of which live in the many “eyesore” settlements which are built along the coast. In addition a few hundred europeans and turks, who got to know the peninsula as backpackers, sailors or through recommendations by friends, have settled here and have decided to spend there last years here. As yet commercial mass tourism has not arrived. “In comparison to Bodrum and Marmaris, Datça is visited and loved mainly by individuals”, writes Hüseyin Tüzün in his travel guide - a german and turkish lecturer who, with his wife Elisabeth, runs a holiday and cultural center in Datça.

The peninsula - between 15 kilometers and 500 meters wide and with the highest point, being the 1.162 meter high Kocabağ mountain, which at times rises steeply up from both the Agean and Mediterranean sea - extends approximately a hundred kilometers from Marmaris in a westerly direction until Knidos. Besides this important excavation site there are further such sites on the eastern side of Datça itself and below the village of Emecik. Those who go hiking and look closely, can discover little known historic settlements and cultural sites from the Carian and Mycenian cultures through to the Knidian and Roman and up until the Byzantine times. “The Turkish settlement of the peninsula probably began from the sea during the time of the Seljuks”, wrote the specialist in Middle Eastern and oriental studies Horst Unbehaun. According to his analysis the Roman name Stadia for the Dorian city of Knidos changed to Dadya in Ottoman times, out of which emerged the name Datça in the 1930’s.

One can swim in the unbelievably beautiful deserted coves of the peninsula all year round: in November, when the heather blossoms obscure the slopes, in January, when the “snow” from the almond blossoms cover large areas of the ground, in February and March, when the farmers harvest a part of the unripe green almonds, best enjoyed with a Rakı, and when the blossoms of the Rock Rose, Lavender and Gorse change the slopes, valleys and the dunes of “Gebekum” (see “Natural Wonder” ) into a multi-coloured landscape. “With the blossoming of the “papatyas”, which are wild daisys”, it’s written in the above mentioned Hiker’s Guide, that “spring signals its arrival”.