Kaputaş Beach

Beaches & CovesAntalya,Türkiye

A shingle cove at the mouth of a gorge on Türkiye's Lycian coast, reached by 187 steps, its turquoise shallows kept cold by fresh springs.

September·Peaking now

Jul–Sep

High summer: everything is open and the sea is at its warmest, climbing to about 28°C in August, though the karst springs keep this cove startlingly cool for the coast. The car park fills by mid-morning — come before nine or after five.

Year-round The cleft between the two rock walls, the 187 steps, the pale limestone seabed and the cold freshwater springs seeping up through the shingle are here every day of the year.

Kaputaş Beach is a cove of white shingle at the mouth of a gorge on the Lycian coast of Türkiye, between Kaş and Kalkan in Antalya province, reached by 187 steps down from the coast road that crosses the ravine on a bridge above it, and its turquoise shallows are kept cold by springs seeping out of the rock along the shoreline, so that the water sits in bands of warm and cold felt against the legs. The beach is the most photographed on the coast, seen first from the road bridge, a wedge of pale pebbles and blue water between two walls of cliff, and the stair drops from the roadside in long switchbacks with the cove brightening flight by flight until the last steps put the walker onto warm pebbles at the water's edge; nothing is built here because the land is protected and the gorge floods, so the beach has a few loungers, a kiosk and the sea, and the swimming is from June to September, though the karst water keeps it noticeably colder than the open bays on either side. The men who blasted the road out of the cliff in the 1950s are remembered in a folk song still sung on this coast, between Kalkan and Kaputaş. The gorge behind the beach swallows its own stream, since even in a wet week most of the ravine is bone dry, the water sinking into the limestone and coming out again at the shoreline, which is where the cold comes from; after the winter rains the Kaputaş stream runs again down the gorge, feeding waterfall drops up to thirty metres that canyoning teams rope down, and by April it has sunk back into the rock. The cove faces south and loses the sun early behind its cliffs, so the afternoon is the time, and the buses from Kaş and Kalkan stop at the top of the stairs. Kaputaş is a beach at the bottom of a staircase, and the springs in its shingle are the surprise.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The photograph everyone knows is taken from the road, not the beach — pull in at the roadside above the bridge, where the whole cove fits between the two rock walls in one frame.
187 steps down, and 187 back up — there is no other way in and no shade on the stair, so carry water; the only refreshment is a small municipal café on the shingle.
The pebbles shelve steeply into deep water — there is no long shallow wade here; a few steps from the shingle the bottom falls away, so keep children close and expect to be swimming at once.
The car park fills by mid-morning in July and August — arrive before nine or after five, when the tour coaches have gone and the shingle empties out again.

Things to do

1
Take the 187 steps down to the shingle
The stair drops from the roadside in long switchbacks, and the cove brightens flight by flight until the last steps put you onto warm pebbles at the water's edge. Stop once at the halfway turn and look up: the two rock walls close over the stair like a gate.
2
Wade into the cold that comes out of the rock
Walk in off the pebbles and the water is startling: cold groundwater seeps out at the shoreline and sits alongside the warm Mediterranean in bands you can feel against your legs. With a mask, swim towards the eastern wall, where the pale floor shelves gently and then falls into deep blue.
3
Look down on the cove from the road bridge
Before you go down, stop on the road that crosses the mouth of the gorge. From up here the beach is a bright wedge of turquoise clamped between two grey walls — the frame that made Kaputaş famous, and the only place you see the whole thing at once.
4
Rope down the gorge behind the beach
This one runs in winter, when rain has the Kaputaş Stream going again and guided teams work the ravine above the beach on rope. The first drops are wet — a string of falls, the tallest around thirty metres — and then the stream sinks into the limestone and the rest is rappelled down dry rock. The route comes out under the road bridge, a few steps from the sea.

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Nearby

15 km