Turkey
Mount Ida
Homer sat Zeus on this summit to watch the Trojan War, above forests found nowhere else.
Pine resin fills the air as you climb through the forest Homer described, on the mountain where Zeus sat watching the Trojan War unfold on the plain below. The endemic Kazdağı fir grows on these slopes and nowhere else. At the mountain's base, thermal water steams through Güre's bath houses, hot since Roman bathers first found it.
Mount Ida, Kazdağı in Turkish, rises to 1,774 metres between the Aegean and the Gulf of Edremit, some 50 kilometres south of Troy. In the Iliad, Zeus watches the Trojan War from its summit. The national park protects forests of the endemic Kazdağı fir along with dozens of plants that grow nowhere else, and its upper zones are walked in the company of certified local guides. Below, olive villages like Adatepe press some of Turkey's finest oil, and the thermal springs of Güre ease walkers' legs as they have since antiquity.
Solo
Hike Homer's mountain, soak in Roman-era thermal water, and look north toward Troy from the slopes where Zeus supposedly sat. Mount Ida rewards the literary-minded walker.
Couple
Forest walks through endemic firs, thermal pools at the base and the mythological backdrop of the Trojan War pair physical beauty with stories three thousand years old.
Friends
Trails range from gentle forest walks to guided summit days, and the thermal baths at Güre are the ideal post-hike recovery.
- In the Iliad, Zeus watched the Trojan War from Mount Ida's summit; the battlefield of Troy lies 50 kilometres north.
- The national park protects the endemic Kazdağı fir, found on these slopes and nowhere else.
- Natural thermal springs at Güre, at the mountain's base, have been used as baths since Roman times.
- The slopes run rich with wild orchids each spring.
Kaz Dağı olive oil from Adatepe's groves, tasted on warm village bread beside Turkey's first olive-oil museum.
Herb ice cream, the olive villages' oddity, churned with plants gathered on the mountain.
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A turquoise lake behind a landslide dam, whose 48-metre waterfall thunders as the spring melt spills.
Kabak
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A cove reached by steep forest trail, wooden cabins under the pines above an almost-empty beach.
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Two seas collide at a wind-raked cape where almond blossom blankets the hills each February.
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Lycian ruins tangled in wild fig roots where a forested valley opens onto an empty beach.