The Capitals of Lycia: Xanthos, Letoon & Patara

Kalkan sits at the geographical heart of ancient Lycia, an enlightened federation of city-states that established the world's earliest known model of federal representative democracy—a system that later directly inspired the framers of the United States Constitution.

In a single effortless day trip inland along the fertile Xanthos river valley, you can visit the League’s three most significant cultural capitals. First is Xanthos, the ancient capital and UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1988, celebrated for its heroic history, Roman theatre, Byzantine mosaics, and distinctive Lycian pillar tombs such as the Harpy Monument.

Five minutes down the road lies Letoon, the sacred federal sanctuary dedicated to Leto and her twin children, Apollo and Artemis. It was here that archaeologists unearthed the famed Trilingual Inscription (in Lycian, Greek, and Aramaic) that unlocked the ancient Lycian language. Complete your journey at Patara, visiting the restored Bouleuterion (Parliament Building) and the world’s oldest standing Roman lighthouse dating to 60 AD.