Cilician Mountains

Understand

Although nowhere near as widely visited as its western neighbour, Pamphylia, Cilician Mountains has a lot to offer to every taste. For history lovers, it offers hundreds of castles, city ruins, temples, inns, and artifacts dating back to Roman, Biblical, Crusade, Seljuq, and Ottoman times. For nature lovers, it may mean mountains, mountains, and again mountains covered with pine forests. For green warriors, it holds the last shelters for endangered Mediterranean monk seals Monachus monachus and Mediterranean sea turtles Caretta caretta. For sea&sun seekers, it has hundreds of miles of beaches, both sandy and pebbled, spared from pollution, lying under perhaps one of the sunniest skies of Turkey and also of Europe.

Despite its close proximity to Turkey’s main touristic areas, still “travelling” i.e., being a “traveller” is the norm in much of the region as opposed to “tourism”, i.e., being a “tourist”. If you want to have a cup of tea, then you should head for local coffeehouse, not a touristical/fancy/European-looking café. If you’ll sleep in somewhere, then it would most likely be a guesthouse where other regional guests are staying at, not an “all-inclusive” holiday resort as a part of a package tour. This situation has its advantages: people are more friendly, and prices are lower.

The region—especially the western and southern parts—is mostly rugged and wooded, and is dominated by Taurus Mountains with very little or no flatland between mountain slopes and the shoreline. Quite surprisingly, this mountainous area—one of the remotest and most beautiful along Turkish Mediterranean coast—has one of the least population densities anywhere in maritime Turkey and distances between towns are huge. From Silifke eastwards, high mountains retreat a little inland, but the coastline still keeps its hilly topography.

In ancient times, this region was called Cilicia Trachea, i.e. "rough Cilicia" or more precisely "mountanious Cilicia", as opposed to Cilicia Pedias, i.e. "flat Cilicia" lying to the east of the region. In modern political terms, Cilician Mountains extend over western and central two-thirds of Mersin Province, as well as the southern panhandle of Karaman Province rest of which is associated with Central Anatolia.

The region is Turkey’s main citrus lemon, orange, grapefruit... and banana growing region. Almost always sunny climate also allows intensive greenhouse operations, which cater Turkey’s central and northern regions and also parts of Europe with fresh vegetables in winter.

Climate

Typical Mediterranean climate: Hot and dry/sunny summers April to early November, mild and rainy winters the rest of the year. In Anamur, on only 1 day out of 365 days a year, the temperature is lower than +5° C +41° F on the average.