Excursions

Daily trips from Datça

From Datça there are several excursions which can be made:

• A visit to one of the Greek islands: Kos, Simi or Rhodos. Regular departures from Datça city by boat.
• A day trip to the Turkish bathing resort Bodrum (in the summer you can take the the ferry boat which operates every day).
• A day trip to the Turkish bathing resort Marmaris.
• A visit to Cnidus, where you can find the ruins of an old Roman city.
• A boat excursion to the beautiful coast of the peninsula.
• A visit to "Eski Datça" (old Datça).
• A visit to the antique Kaunos with its rocky burial tombs and the turtle island at Dalyan.
• And there are a lots of water sport possibilities such as sailing, surfing, and kite flying.

Datca Restaurant Guide

If you are strolling in the markets in Datca, you can make a meal out of the free samples of lokkum, dried fruit and nuts that are distributed by the stall owners. Then you can savour the strong smelling, bitter tasting salty old goat cheese. Coming under the category of starters or meze, this cheese is cultured in pots for almost a whole year! But do not miss Mennemen, the ultimate comfort food which is filling, nutritious and tasty. This dish, similar to the omelette or scrambled eggs with chillies and tomatoes, is best eaten with crusty white or pitta bread.

Round it all off with 'dondurma' or Turkish ice cream. They have a texture of their own and are available in some interesting flavours like cinnamon.

The ideal place to find authentic Datca food & cuisine is among the small family run restaurants on the main street of Datca. These restaurants serve a 'sofra' or banquet at very reasonable prices.

In the centre of Datca, starting at Ogretmenevi, is a small beautiful beach where children play in the sand during the day, while some others take a ride in a canoe. During the night, however, this same place turns into a huge restaurant, open to the skies, thanks to some enterprising small restaurateurs and cheerful helpful waiters who set up some makeshift tables and chairs. You can gorge on fresh fish, French fries, salads and beer or raki. It will be a truly unique experience!

Datca is much less involved in tourism than Marmaris, but nightlife in Datca is still happening. So don't expect the same type of disco's and nightclubs we have in Marmaris. Datca is about becoming a new destination for tourists who first of all love quiet and tranquil seashores and crystal clear bays, dreamy villages and a lot of unspoilt nature. You can find all of that in and around Datca. But don't think that it is just a sleepy provincial town. Datca wouldn't be a part of Turkey if you won't be able to find dancings and bars with a variety of music styles, from traditional Turkish dance music and live music to R&B, Jazz, Lounge, Trip- and Hip Hop, R &R, Soul, Electronical Music, Breakbeat, Trance, Dance and so on.....

Above is all about Datca "downtown", ofcourse lots of restaurants you can find outside Datca center. All the little villages on Datca have excellent restaurants. Below you can find all restaurants we recommend on the Island.

Cnidus (or Knidos) was an ancient Greek city in Anatolia, part of the Dorian Hexapolis. It was situated at the extremity of the long Data peninsula, which forms the southern side of the Sinus Ceramicus or Gulf of Gškova. ÊIt was built partly on the mainland and partly on the Island of Triopion or Cape Krio. The debate about it being an island or cape is caused by the fact that in ancient times it was connected to the mainland by a causeway and bridge. Today the connection is formed by a narrow sandy isthmus. By means of the causeway the channel between island and mainland was formed into two harbours, of which the larger, or southern, was further enclosed by two strongly-built moles that are still in good part entire.

The extreme length of the city was little less than a mile, and the whole intramural area is still thickly strewn with architectural remains. The walls, both of the island and on the mainland, can be traced throughout their whole circuit; and in many places, especially round the acropolis, at the northeast corner of the city, they are remarkably perfect. The first Western knowledge of the site was due to the mission of the Dilettante Society in 1812, and the excavations executed byÊ Newton in 1857-1858.

The agora, the theatre, an odeum, a temple of Dionysus, a temple of the Muses, a temple of Aphrodite and a great number of minor buildings have been identified, and the general plan of the city has been very clearly made out. The most famous statue by Praxiteles, the Aphrodite of Knidos, was made for Cnidus. It has perished, but late copies exist, of which the most faithful is in the Vatican Museums. In a temple enclosure Newton discovered a fine seated statue of Demeter, which he sent back to the British Museum, and about three miles south-east of the city he came upon the ruins of a splendid tomb, and a colossal figure of a lion carved out of one block of Pentelic marble, ten feet in length and six in height, which has been supposed to commemorate the great naval victory, the Battle of Cnidus in which Conon defeated the Lacedaemonians in 394 BC. Cnidus was a city of high antiquity and as a Hellenic city probably of Lacedaemonian colonization. Along with Halicarnassus (present day Bodrum, Turkey) and Kos, and the Rhodian cities of Lindos, Kamiros and Ialyssos it formed the Dorian Hexapolis, which held its confederate assemblies on the Triopian headland, and there celebrated games in honour of Apollo, Poseidon and the nymphs.

The city was at first governed by an oligarchic senate, composed of around sixty members, and presided over by a magistrate; but, though it is proved by inscriptions that the old names continued to a very late period, the constitution underwent a popular transformation. The situation of the city was favourable for commerce, and the Knidians acquired considerable wealth, and were able to colonize the island of Lipara, and founded a city on Corcyra Nigra in the Adriatic. They ultimately submitted to Cyrus, and from the battle of Eurymedon to the latter part of the Peloponnesian War they were subject to Athens.

In their expansion into the region, the Romans easily obtained the allegiance of Knidians, and rewarded them for help given against Antiochus by leaving them the freedom of their city. During the Byzantine period there must still have been a considerable population: for the ruins contain a large number of buildings belonging to the Byzantine style, and Christian sepulchres are common in the neighbourhood.

Eudoxus, the astronomer, Ctesias, the writer on Persian history, and Sostratus, the builder of the celebrated Pharos at Alexandria, are the most remarkable of the Knidians mentioned in the history.