Olympos, Cirali and the Yanartas Flames: A Complete Guide

About 80 kilometres southwest of Antalya, the coast road leaves the resorts behind and drops into a valley where an ancient Lycian city lies half-swallowed by forest, a river runs out onto a long pebble beach, and on the mountainside above, flames burn out of bare rock without anyone lighting them. Olympos, Cirali and Yanartas sit within a few kilometres of each other, and together they make one of the best days you can have on this coast.

I drive this route regularly. Below is what each place actually is, how to get there, when to go, and how to fit all three into a single day without rushing.

The short version

Olympos, Cirali and Yanartas are roughly 80 km from Antalya, about an hour and a half by road. Olympos is the ruined ancient city, Cirali is the quiet village and beach next to it, and Yanartas is the natural flame site on the mountain above. See the ruins and beach by day, then walk up to the flames after dark.

Where these three places are

All three sit inside the Olympos Beydaglari National Park, in the Kumluca district of Antalya province. The turn off the main coast road is signposted, and from there a narrow road winds down through pine forest to the sea.

Olympos and Cirali share the same bay. They are separated by the river and a short stretch of beach, and you can walk between them along the shore in about twenty minutes, water levels permitting. Yanartas is a few kilometres inland and uphill from Cirali, with its own car park and a walking path up the slope.

Because the two settlements are accessed by different roads, most visitors treat them as separate stops. If you are driving or being driven, it is worth deciding in advance which side you want to base your day on.

Olympos: the ancient city

Olympos was a Lycian city, later Roman, built along a river that runs down to the sea. What makes it unusual is not the scale of the ruins but the setting. There is no open archaeological park here with mown lawns and signposted avenues. Instead, walls, tombs, a theatre and a bath complex sit among oleander and fig trees, with the river running through the middle of it all.

You walk a trail that follows the valley floor, and the ruins appear gradually on either side. Some are cleared and explained, others are simply there, wrapped in roots. It feels like finding something rather than visiting something, which is exactly why people remember it.

The path ends at the beach. That combination, ruins and then suddenly the sea, is the reason Olympos is on so many itineraries.

There is an entrance fee to the site, and the ticket also covers your access to the beach through the valley. Opening hours change between summer and winter, so check before you set out.

What to expect on the ground

The valley floor is flat and the walk is easy, but the ground is uneven in places and you cross wooden bridges over the river. Sandals are fine for the main path; if you want to explore the side trails, proper shoes are better.

Shade is generous in the valley, which makes Olympos a rare summer site that is pleasant at midday. The beach at the end is pebble, not sand, so water shoes help.

The treehouse tradition

Olympos has been a backpacker destination for decades, and the wooden cabin and treehouse pensions along the valley road are part of its character. Do not expect a resort strip: this is a low-rise, low-key place, and building restrictions inside the national park are the reason it has stayed that way.

Cirali: the quiet beach village

Over the river, Cirali is a different mood again. A long pebble and coarse-sand beach, a scattering of small family-run pensions set back among orange groves, and almost no large development at all.

Cirali is a protected nesting beach for loggerhead sea turtles, Caretta caretta. That protection is the reason there are no high-rise hotels and no night-time floodlights along the sand. In nesting season, marked areas on the beach are fenced off and you are asked to keep away from them, avoid lights on the beach after dark, and not to dig.

For visitors, the trade-off is excellent. You get a wide, clean, undeveloped beach backed by mountains, with a handful of simple beach restaurants and very little noise. If your idea of a good day is swimming, eating grilled fish under a tree and doing nothing else, Cirali is hard to beat on this coast.

Yanartas: the flames of the Chimaera

Above Cirali, on the slope of the mountain, natural gas seeps through cracks in the rock and burns continuously. The flames have been recorded burning here since antiquity, and they are the origin of the Chimaera legend, the fire-breathing creature of Greek mythology said to live in these mountains.

The site is reached from a car park by a stone path that climbs the hillside. The walk takes roughly twenty to thirty minutes at a normal pace, and it is a genuine uphill with steps, not a stroll. There is no shade to speak of.

At the top you find a field of rocks with flames of varying size coming out of them. Some are small enough to boil a kettle over, which visitors have been doing for a very long time, and some are larger. They move and change over the years as the gas finds new routes.

Go after dark

This is the single most useful piece of advice in this article. In daylight the flames are almost invisible, a faint shimmer in the air. After sunset they are extraordinary.

Plan to start the climb in the last of the daylight so you can see the path, spend time at the top as it gets properly dark, and come down with a torch. Bring a real torch or use your phone light: the path is stone, uneven and unlit.

How to get there from Antalya

The drive is around 80 km and takes roughly an hour and a half, depending on where you start and on traffic along the Kemer coast road.

Private transfer

The simplest option, especially if you want to stay for the flames. Our Olympos transfer is 77 euros one way and our Cirali transfer is 79 euros one way, both around 1 hour 25 minutes. The price is per vehicle, not per person, and seats up to seven.

The reason this matters more here than elsewhere is the evening. Yanartas is best after dark, and getting back from an unlit mountain road to Antalya at nine at night is not something you want to improvise.

Self-drive

Perfectly doable, and it gives you the freedom to move between Olympos, Cirali and Yanartas as you like. The coast road is good but winding, with sustained bends between Kemer and the Olympos turn-off. The descent to the villages is narrow. Driving it in the dark on the way back is manageable but demands attention.

Public transport

Buses run along the main coast road between Antalya and Kumluca or Kas, and will drop you at the Olympos or Cirali junction. From there you still need to cover several kilometres down to the villages, usually by a local minibus that runs on a limited schedule, or by taxi.

It is cheap and it works for people with time and light luggage. It does not work well if you want to be at Yanartas after dark, because getting back up to the main road late in the evening is unreliable.

Planning the day

Here is the plan I suggest to passengers who want all three in one trip.

Late morning. Leave Antalya around ten. You will be at Olympos by half past eleven.

Midday. Walk the ruins. The valley is shaded and this is the right part of the day to be under the trees rather than on an open archaeological site.

Early afternoon. Swim at the beach at the end of the valley, then have a late lunch.

Mid afternoon. Move over to Cirali. Swim again if you want, or walk the beach.

Early evening. Eat at one of the Cirali restaurants, unhurried.

Dusk. Drive to the Yanartas car park and start the climb while there is still light on the path.

After dark. Spend half an hour at the flames, then walk back down and return to Antalya.

That gets you home around ten or eleven at night. It is a long day, but it is not a rushed one, and the sequence works because each stop is at its best at the time you visit it.

When to visit

May, June, September and October are the best months. The sea is warm enough to swim, the Yanartas climb is comfortable, and the valley is not crowded.

July and August work, but the climb to the flames in residual heat is harder than people expect, and Cirali beach fills up. If you come in high summer, do the walking early or late and spend the middle of the day in the water or in the shaded valley.

Winter has its own appeal. The ruins are almost empty, the valley is green, and the flames are just as impressive. Swimming is out for most people, and some pensions and restaurants close for the season.

What to bring

• A torch. Essential for Yanartas after dark. A phone light works but a real torch is better.
• Proper shoes. The Yanartas path is stone and uneven. Flip-flops are a bad idea.
• Water shoes. Both beaches are pebble.
• Swimwear and a towel. You will want to swim at least once.
• Water. There are kiosks, but not on the climb.
• Insect repellent. The valley has a river and trees.
• A light layer. Evenings at the flames are cooler than the coast, especially outside midsummer.
• Cash. Small places, and it is simply easier.

The Lycian Way passes through here

The Lycian Way, Turkey's best known long-distance walking route, runs through Olympos and Cirali. Walking the whole thing takes weeks, but even a day visitor can cover a short waymarked section.

The coastal link between Cirali and Olympos is the easiest piece. For the longer, climbing sections take water, a hat and proper shoes, and in high summer keep the walking to the morning.

The route is marked with red and white paint flashes. If you lose the marks, go back to the last one you saw and restart from there. Looking for shortcuts on a hillside rarely ends well.

Protected area and how to behave

This is a national park and a turtle nesting beach at the same time. A few simple rules preserve exactly what you came for.

Do not drive onto the beach and do not light fires on the sand. In nesting season stay outside the marked areas. Do not use strong lights on the beach after dark: newly hatched turtles navigate by light and will fail to find the sea.

Do not climb on the stones in the ruins and do not take anything as a souvenir. At the flames, take your rubbish with you. Some visitors throw plastic into the fire, which stinks and spoils the place.

These are small things, but they are exactly why all three places are still this good.

Common mistakes

Visiting Yanartas in daylight. The most common and most disappointing error. You climb for half an hour and see almost nothing.

Wearing sandals for the climb. The path is stone steps and loose rock.

Trying to add Olympos and Cirali to a Kemer day. It can be done, but you will be rushing. Give this area its own day.

Expecting a sandy beach. Both are pebble. They are beautiful, but they are not Konyaalti sand and they are not Lara sand.

No plan for the return. You come down off the mountain in the dark, tired, in a place with very few taxis. Sort the ride home before you go up.

How it compares to other trips

Among day trips from Antalya, this one is unusual because it mixes three completely different experiences: archaeology, beach and a natural phenomenon. That variety is exactly why it suits mixed groups where not everybody wants the same thing.

Compared with Aspendos and Perge, this is far less about monumental architecture and far more about atmosphere. Compared with the Tahtali cable car, which is also on this stretch of coast, it is a longer and slower day. And unlike Pamukkale, you are not spending six hours in the car.

If you are staying in Kemer, Goynuk or Tekirova, you are already halfway there, which makes this the obvious excursion from that side of the coast.

Staying overnight

Plenty of people make Olympos or Cirali their base rather than a day trip, and if you want a slower kind of holiday it is a genuinely good decision.

Olympos is the backpacker and treehouse side: cheaper, younger, more social. Cirali is the quiet family and couples side: small pensions, orange trees, early nights. Neither has nightclubs or big hotels, and neither is trying to.

If you are flying into Antalya and heading straight there, a door-to-door transfer makes sense, because public transport to these villages involves changes and the last leg is awkward with luggage.

Getting there with us

We run fixed-price transfers from Antalya Airport to both Olympos and Cirali in air-conditioned Mercedes Vito vehicles, up to seven passengers, with free child seats and up to 60 minutes of free waiting after landing.

For a day trip that includes waiting for you while you see the flames after dark, message us and we will quote it. See all routes and prices on the destinations page, or book a transfer directly.

In summary

Olympos gives you ruins in a river valley that ends at the sea. Cirali gives you a protected, undeveloped beach where turtles nest. Yanartas gives you flames coming out of a mountain, and it gives them to you properly only after dark.

Go in late morning, walk the ruins in the shade, swim in the afternoon, eat early, and climb to the flames at dusk with a torch in your bag. Done in that order, it is one of the best days on the Turkish Mediterranean.