Elmali
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Elmali

Elmali

Taurus mountain town known for apples, Lycian finds, Ottoman monuments, and old oil-wrestling traditions.

Elmali sits high in the western Taurus Mountains, away from the beach resorts of Mediterranean Turkey. The name means "of apples", and the orchards around town explain it better than any slogan: this is an agricultural upland place, cooler and more workaday than the coast.

The town has enough to justify a detour if you are already travelling through Lycia or the Antalya highlands. The archaeology museum holds the famous Elmali coin hoard, while the old centre keeps Ottoman and Seljuk traces around Omer Pasa Mosque and Kesik Minaret.

Elmali's identity is not polished tourism. It is apples, mountain air, Sufi memory, oil wrestling, and the long rise toward Kizlar Sivrisi, the highest summit in the western Taurus. Come for a grounded inland Turkey rather than a resort break.

Guide

Getting There

Elmali is inland from the Lycian coast and west of Antalya. Buses and minibuses connect it with Antalya through Korkuteli; the ride is slow enough to remind you that you are climbing into the mountains.

The bus station is outside the centre, so check whether your ticket includes a local minibus ride into town.

Guide

Things to Do

Elmali's sights are small but distinctive: a good archaeology museum, a compact old religious quarter, a Sufi hill shrine, and mountain access east of town. It is best treated as an inland detour from Antalya or Lycia, not as a long stay.