The walk begins on the afterdeck. You see the path from the boat, on the hillside above the anchorage, following the contour of the cliff before disappearing into the pine forest above. You think: that goes somewhere. And then you go.
Some of the finest trekking available in the Mediterranean is accessible directly from our anchorages. Not as a day trip arranged from a hotel, not via a transfer to a trailhead, but on foot from the point where the tender drops you on the beach and the path begins immediately above the tideline. I have been doing this walk since I was small enough that my father sometimes carried me back down when my legs gave out. Now I am the one who has to wait at the top for slower members to arrive.
The Lycian Way Above the Turkish Coast
The Lycian Way is a 540-kilometre marked trail along the Turkish coast between Ölüdeniz and Antalya. It passes through ancient Lycian cities, past rock-cut tombs in the cliffs above the sea, through villages where the walking path has been the main road for a thousand years, and along clifftops from which the view of the Mediterranean below is one of those panoramas that makes you stop walking simply to stand in it.
We sail sections of the coast below the Lycian Way and walk the sections above. The boat anchors in the bay at the base of a particular stretch of the path, the tender goes in with the walking group, and the boat moves to meet us at the other end two or three hours later.
We have done this walk in sections across multiple seasons and I find it one of the finest shore excursions on the entire Turkish coast. The combination of the ancient ruins, the coastal views, the stone path itself that has been worn smooth by millions of feet over centuries: it has a quality of accumulated human presence that the anchorage below does not suggest at all.
Hvar: The Ridge Above the Lavender Fields
Hvar is one of the most beautiful islands in the Adriatic and one of the most visited. The town of Hvar, with its Venetian architecture and its yacht quays full of motor superyachts in July and August, is thoroughly covered by tourism. The interior of the island and the ridge paths that follow the spine of the mountain above the lavender fields are not.
We anchor in one of the bays on the southern side of the island, away from the town, and walk up through the lavender terraces to the ridge. From the top, you can see the Adriatic on both sides of the island: the sheltered north coast and the open south. On a clear morning the islands of the Dalmatian chain extend to the horizon in both directions, and the haze makes the furthest ones look like they are floating. We usually time this walk for early morning, back on the boat by eleven and in the water by noon.
The Greek Islands: Walking to the Monasteries
Several of the Greek islands we visit have Byzantine or medieval monasteries on the hills above the coastline, accessible by paths that have been walked since the monasteries were built. These walks have a specific character: not dramatic, not particularly athletic, but layered with the accumulated presence of the centuries of people who walked the same stones for the same reason. The monastery at the top, when you reach it, is typically small and quiet and attended by one or two monks who are entirely unsurprised by visitors arriving on foot from the sea.
We have done this walk on Patmos, on Folegandros, on Amorgos above the Chozoviotissa monastery, which is built into the cliff face above the sea and is one of the most extraordinary places I have been in the Greek islands. The path to it climbs steeply from the village below and arrives at a doorway in the cliff. Inside, there is a church, a library, and a monk who offers raki and Turkish delight to visitors and asks where they are sailing. We are always asked where we are sailing.
