Turkey
Altınbeşik Cave
An underground river opens into a cathedral-sized cavern holding Turkey's largest underground lake.
The boat glides forward into blackness. Stalactites materialise in the torchlight, their reflections doubling in water so still it looks like glass. Then the cavern opens: a cathedral-sized chamber where an underground river has pooled into one of the longest cave lakes on Earth, and you stop paddling and just stare.
Altınbeşik Cave sits in the western Taurus near Akseki, inside a national park of pine and cedar forest. It holds Turkey's largest underground lake, cited among the three longest subterranean lakes in the world, and the visit is by small boat across water that ends at a 44-metre travertine barrier. Boats run in summer and autumn only; in winter and spring, meltwater raises the lake and the cave closes. The name means Golden Cradle, after a formation near the entrance, and the walk in through the gorge of the Manavgat headwaters is nearly as dramatic as the cave.
Solo
The boat ride into the cave is contemplative, almost meditative: silence, scale and darkness in equal measure. The surrounding mountain trails extend the day.
Couple
Gliding together across an underground lake in near-silence, stalactites lit above and reflected below, is an otherworldly shared moment. The boats hold few passengers.
Friends
Pair the underground lake with the Taurus trails above, then grill trout over pine embers and compare notes on what you saw in the dark.
- The cave holds Turkey's largest underground lake, cited among the three longest cave lakes in the world.
- Entry is by rowing boat in summer and autumn only; meltwater closes the cave in winter and spring.
- The boat route ends at a travertine barrier 44 metres high, one of the tallest known.
- A foot trail through the national park gorge delivers you to the cave mouth; the approach is nearly as dramatic.
Alanya avocado, the Fuerte variety grown where the Taurus blocks the cold wind.
Antalya oranges, sweetened by sea-breeze minerals and celebrated in the city's film festival.
Glaskogen Nature Reserve
Sweden
Eighty lakes threaded by canoe routes through Värmland's silent forest.
Queulat National Park
Chile
Twin streams fall from a hanging glacier into rainforest dense with rain.
Wells Gray Provincial Park
Canada
Waterfalls on a volcanic scale pour through a park most itineraries still miss.
Baviaanskloof
South Africa
A rough road threads folded mountains, river crossings and farms through a hundred-mile valley.
