Fethiye is a city and district of Muğla Province in the Aegean region of Turkey with about 68,000 inhabitants (2008). Modern day Fethiye is located on the site of the ancient city of Telmessos, the ruins of which can be seen in the city, e.g. the Hellenistic theatre by the main quay. It is one of Turkey's well-known tourist centres and is especially prized during the summer.
In the last ten years Fethiye has become a magnet for British citizens. Apart from its climate and natural beauty, the Britons are attracted by its less expensive lifestyle and the hospitality of the local people. The British population in Turkey is between 34,000 and 38,000. As a result of the large British population and the high numbers of Britons going there for holiday, Fethiye-Öludeniz was chosen as the best tourism centre in the world by The Times and The Guardian newspapers in 2007. Over 7,000 British citizens permanently live in Fethiye, while approximately 600,000 British tourists visit the town every summer.
The Fethiye Museum, which is very rich in ancient and more recent artifacts, displays and testifies to the successive chain of civilizations that existed in the area, starting with the ancient Lycians.
Fethiye was formerly known as Makri (Μάκρη); the Greeks deported from the area under the terms of the 1923 exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey founded the town of Nea Makri (New Makri) in Greece.
Kayaköy (Greek: Λεβισσι, Levissi or Greek: Καρμυλλησός, Karmylassos) is a village 8 km south of Fethiye in southwestern Turkey where Anatolian Greek speaking Christians lived until approximately 1923. The ghost town, now preserved as a museum village, consists of hundreds of rundown but still mostly intact Greek-style houses and churches which cover a small mountainside and serve as a stopping place for tourists visiting Fethiye and nearby Ölüdeniz.
It was built on the site of the ancient city of Carmylessus in the 1700s. It experienced a renewal after nearby Fethiye (known as Makri) was devastated by an earthquake in 1856 and a major fire in 1885. After the Greco-Turkish War, Kayaköy was largely abandoned after a population exchange agreement was signed by the Turkish and Greek governments in 1923.
Its population in 1900 was about 2,000, almost all Greek Christians; however, it is now empty except for tour groups and roadside vendors selling handmade goods and items scavenged from the former village. However, there are a selection of houses which have been restored, and are currently occupied.
Today Kayaköy village serves as a museum and is a historical monument. Around 500 houses remain as ruins and are under the protection of the Turkish government, including two Greek Orthodox Churches, which remain the most important sights of the ghost town. [1][2]. There is a private museum on the history of the town. In the middle of the village stands a fountain source from the 17th century. Kayaköy was adopted by the UNESCO as a World Friendship and Peace Village.[3]