Olympos (LYCIA) &Chimera &Cable Car

 We will pick you up at 9:30 from your hotel and be back at 5 pm.
Price includes transfer,entrancefees and lunch

Olympos
Olympos is an ancient city which is located in a valley at the south coast of Turkey, 90 km southwest of Antalya city near the Town of Kumluca.
The former city of Olympos was founded in the Hellenistic period, presumably taking its name from nearby Mount Olympos (Turkish: Tahtalı Dağı, Timber Mountain), one of over twenty mountains with the name Olympos in the Classical world.

From these mountains of the Solymi, according to Homer, the god Poseidon looked out to sea and saw Odysseus sailing away from Calypso's island, and called up a great storm that wrecked him on the shores of the island of Nausicaa.

The coins of the city of Olympos date back to the 2nd century BC. It was described by Cicero as an ancient city full of riches and works of art.[2] The city became one of the six leading cities of the Lycian League. In the 1st century BC, Olympos was invaded and settled by Cilician pirates. This ended in 78 BC, when the Roman commander Publius Servilius Isauricus, accompanied by the young Julius Caesar, took the city after a victory at sea, and added Olympos to the Roman Empire. The pirate Zenicetes set fire to his own house and perished.[3] The emperor Hadrian visited the city after which it took the name of Hadrianopolis for a period, in his honour.

The chief deity of Olympos was Hephaestus, god of fire and blacksmiths. Near Olympos, located in the neighbouring village of Çıralı and about 200 meters above sea level, the eternal flames called the Chimaera may be seen issuing from the ground. The fuel source for the flames is natural gas, largely methane, seeping through cracks in the earth. The mythical Chimaera - or Chimera - was a monster with the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent, who roamed these woods and sprouted fire from her mouth.

Yanartaş (Chimera)
Yanartas (Chimera) proposed as the ancient Mount Chimaera, is the name of a geographical feature near Olympos valley and national park in Antalya Province in southwestern Turkey, at a distance of about eighty kilometers to the southwest from the city of Antalya, near the town of Çıralı.
It is characterized by a permanent fire caused by methane emissions and the area is located on a track popular with hikers and trekkers on the Lycian Way.

Gas emmission has been active for at least 2500 years.

Called in Turkish Yanartaş (flaming rock), the spot consists of a group of vents on the hillside above the Temple of Hephaistos about 3 km north of the village of Çıralı, near ancient Olympos, in Lycia.

Tens of vents are grouped over an area of 5000 m2. The emission seems to change seasonally: vents and flames are more vigorous in winter months; this is a typical behaviour of many seeps, where gas flux is typically modulated by gas pressure build-up induced by groundwater recharge and changes in atmospheric pressure.

The vents emit mainly methane (87 %). The remaining is made of hydrogen (7.5-11%), nitrogen (2-4.9 %), light alkanes (0.57 %), carbon dioxide (0.01-0.07 %) and helium (80 ppmv). These proportions and the isotopic composition indicates a mix from 2 origins, in equal part:
•    an organic thermogenic gas, related to type III kerogen occurring in Palaeozoic and Mesozoic organic-rich sedimentary rocks,
•    an abiogenic gas produced by low-temperature serpentinization in the Tekirova ophiolitic unit.
The vents represent the biggest emission of abiogenic methane discovered on land so far. Methane is not related to mantle or magma degassing, which excludes the phenomena occurring at Yanartaş be of volcanic cause.

In ancient times sailors could navigate by the flames, but today they are more often used to brew tea, the flames being of little use for navigation nowadays.
The site was identified as the ancient Mount Chimaera by Sir Francis Beaufort in 1811, and described by T.A.B.Spratt in his Travels in Lycia, Milyas, and the Cibyratis, in company with the late Rev. E. T. Daniell. The discussion on the connection between the myth and the exact location of Chimera was started by Forbiger in 1844, and the George E. Bean was of the opinion that the name was allochtonous and could have been transferred here from its original location further west, as cited by Strabo, owing to the presence of the same phenomenon and the fires.

Yanartaş is also the title of a 1970 novel by the Turkish novelist Mehmet Seyda, although not associated with the locality in question.

Tahtali Mountain (Cable Car)
The Tahtali Aerial Cableway uniquely combines two classic holiday destinations - the sea and the mountains. Mount Tahtali, at 2,365m above sea level, is situated in an attractive and rapidly growing tourist area and provides the region with a new dimension.Southern Turkey is on the one hand shaped by the sea, its landscapes and culture, and on the other by the outstanding services and activities it has to offer.

With more than 300 days of sunshine a year, it is undoubtedly an attractive holiday destination for guests from Europe the whole year round. And of course, Mount Tahtali is a major landmark of this booming region that is impossible to overlook!Mount Tahtali lies at the heart of the Antalya tourist region with several hundred-thousand hotel beds conveniently found in close proximity, approximately a third of which are in 5-star hotel establishments. The possibilities and offers open to guests are boundless: swimming, diving, golf, sailing, sunbathing, culture or the extremely popular excursions. Here, Mount Tahtali offers a brand new experience, with a stupendous view over the whole of southern Turkey and, naturally, the sea.Diversity is an important factor for any successful tourist destination. And the contrasting experience the Mount Tahtali Aerial Cableway provides is a masterpiece!

Having enjoyed sunbathing on sandy beaches in the morning, guests are then able to while away the afternoons amid the pleasantly cool temperatures of a snowy mountain summit. The aerial cableway brings the mountains and sea closer togather - the Tahtali cable car provides Europe with a unique combination that is hard to match.

Unique experiences await: approach through a nature conservation area, modern base station, ride in a cabin with a capacity of 80, summit station with panorama terrace, 360° view, restaurant, short walks ...