The ancient Lycian city of Phaselis, an hour's drive west of Antalya, is one of the most truly idyllic of Turkey's classical ruins. Surrounded by three picturesque natural harbours and marvellous pine forests seen against the backdrop of the Taurus Mountains, the setting has always been dreamy beyond belief, epitomising everything the 17th-century French landscape painter Claude Lorrain ever conjured up in the hills around Rome; thousands of visitors come to imbibe the beauty of this untrammeled corner of the Mediterrean. In her classic travel book The Lycian Shore, Freya Stark wondered: 'who can weave, to repeat it, the spell of Phaselis in her solitude at dawn?'
Sad to report, even this legendary beauty spot is to fall to the developers. Permission has been granted from on high for a giant hotel complex to be built over parts of the ancient city. The perpetrators of this act appear to be the 'well-connected' Rixos Hotel chain – the guest list of the Bodrum Rixos reveals just how 'well-connected'.
It beggars belief, really. How the 180,009-square-metre project could be contemplated is beyond us. Not only will the new complex stand within the sacrosanct borders of the Beydağları–Olympos National Park, but it will occupy almost 20,000 square metres of the ancient city itself, an area the size of roughly three football pitches.
Phaselis was designated a 'First Degree Archeologic and Historical Preservation Area', to give the most untouchable of protected zones its rather clunky title – in other words it is on a par with the Topkapı Palace itself. Any traces of what may lie below the ground will be destroyed, along with the entire timeless beauty of the place...
Anyone who cares about antiquities or Turkey's Mediterranean coastline should lend their voice to the campaign to halt this project. An online campaign in English, Turkish and German has been mounted.
The name of the project is 'Dream of Phaselis'. The imperative is a piece of nice irony.