Lakes District
The Lakes District (Turkish: Göller Yöresi) is in the northern extension of Mediterranean Turkey.
Cities
- 🌍 Akşehir — the pleasant hometown of Nasrettin Hoca, a Sufi that is the source of an endless number of satires
- 🌍 Beyşehir — Seljuk monuments, a UNESCO-listed mosque, Hittite ruins, and early 20th-century infrastructure projects on the eponymous lake
- 🌍 Burdur — one of the major towns of the region is a short distance inland from Lake Burdur
- 🌍 Eğirdir — a pleasant town on the lake of the same name also serves hikers doing the St Paul Trail
- 🌍 Isparta — the region's largest city is known for its floriculture; every spring hectares of rose fields around the "city of roses" flush in a pink bloom
- 🌍 Yalvaç — a town near the ruins of Antioch of Pisidia
Other destinations
- 🌍 Adada — the ruins of an ancient Pisidian city amidst striking mountain scenery; there is a well-preserved stretch of a Roman road nearby
- 🌍 Lake Salda — with white sandy beaches and azure, crystal clear waters, this lake is knowned as the "Turkish Maldives".
- 🌍 Sagalassos — high over the mountains near the town of Ağlasun was one of the major Roman cities of the region.
- 🌍 Yazılı Kanyon Nature Park (Yazılı Kanyon Tabiat Parkı) — about 20 km southwest of the village of Sütçüler, this national park is centred around a 10-km long, 100- to 400-m deep canyon, surrounded by verdant mountains. Parts of the canyon are dotted by Byzantine-era hermitages (hence the name, which translates "inscripted canyon" in Turkish), and canyoning opportunities galore.
Understand
Scattered by a variety of lakes — large and small, salt- and freshwater — the inland Lakes Districts is north of Pamphylia (Antalya Region) on the Mediterranean, over the Taurus mountain chain. It is substantially different from the neighbouring coastal areas, mass tourism destinations, to the south, and sees only a fraction of the number of visitors to them.
The Lakes District is more or less equivalent to the ancient region of Pisidia. In modern administrative terms, it corresponds to Isparta and Burdur Provinces and the western bits of Konya Province.
Get in
On foot
The Saint Paul Trail, an approximately 500-km marked hiking trail loosely following the first missionary journey of its eponym, starts from Perge east of Antalya and heads via Yazılı Kanyon, Adada, and Eğirdir to cross the lake to Antioch of Pisidia near Yalvaç, its northern trailhead.
Go next
- To the east, many roads lead to Konya, a major city that was the capital of medieval Seljuks.
- To the north, Afyonkarahisar is an old town dominated by a hilltop castle, and has extensive transportation options to the northwest of the country.
- To the west, Denizli is the hub for visiting the thermal pools of Pamukkale and has transportation links onward to the Southern Aegean coast.
- To the south, Antalya is a major resort and is the hub for visiting the rest of the Mediterranean coast.