It doesn't always pay to stick to the path. The map showed the track leading up a road alongside a steep mountain ridge, but no one was going to make Maho, our guide, follow a 'bloody hot and dusty' road. Instead we set off on a diversion, slipping over a hedge and on to a hidden path. Five minutes later, proving Maho's point, we were walking a parallel but more rewarding route through shimmering golden cornfields and flower-filled meadows, the air laced with dragonflies and smelling of oranges and toasted sesame seeds.
Running for just over 300 miles along Turkey's southern coast, from Fethiye in the west to Antalya in the east, the Lycian Way takes its name from the people who inhabited this region from roughly 2,000BC to 1,000AD. Researched and waymarked by expat Brit Kate Clow in 1999, the trail strings together a network of ancient footpaths to lead hikers through golden beaches, rustic villages and archaeological eye candy.
Sounds idyllic, but there are some glitches. Though the route is authorised by the Turkish government, with waymarking sponsored by a local bank, it suffers a lack of care on the part of the authorities. Landgrabs by developers and chunks of pathway being ploughed up by farmers mean that every year walkers find themselves facing stone walls or locked gates. And, as the area becomes more developed, what were once narrow shepherds' paths become dirt tracks, and dirt tracks become tarmac. The Lycian Way mutates, with the potential to send all but the most local of guides off along the wrong path.
And there's another problem. Clow's guide has sold a lot of copies and it's not unknown for hotels and other businesses to paint their own waymarkings, many of them indistinguishable from the real thing, in order to bring hikers to their doors. A weary-looking Canadian woman we met one night had just walked eight miles out of her way in error. Even the official signposts at major junctions have their knock-off imitators (the way to tell the difference is that the fake ones don't carry the sponsor's logo).
Fortunately, with Maho in charge, there were fewer surprises on my trip, a one-week section of the trail arranged through Turkey specialist Exclusive Escapes. Known for its range of boutique hotels and luxury villas, the company has introduced Lycian Way trekking to its programme for the first time. Most accommodation en route is in rural village houses and simple camping cabins, but in other respects this is a pretty upmarket walking experience. Luggage is transferred for you, there's a driver on hand if you want to skip a section and, with a private guide, you can pick and choose the route's highlights rather than plodding faithfully (if you're lucky) from point to waymarked point.
Much of the landscape along the trail feels strikingly ancient, wild-looking olive groves and rustling wheat fields giving the impression that the terrain hasn't changed much since classical times. In most villages we passed there was hardly a shop.
But the Lycian Way wasn't entirely devoid of human life. Striking out on the first morning, high above Olu Deniz's swirl of butter-gold sand, we looked out through ancient pine trees at a tide of wild cornflowers, buttercups and poppies - before rounding a corner and coming suddenly face to face with nature of an altogether more unexpected kind.
Politely turning to admire the view in the opposite direction, we waited for the man in front to finish taking an alfresco loo break. And waited. Eventually, just as we were mulling over a detour, the offending trousers were pulled up and we continued on our way. 'He could at least have gone off the path a bit,' grumbled Maho.
Later, we picked our way steadily up an exposed rockface, zigzagging hotly beneath a steady flow of paragliders taking off from Babadag mountain. As the sun rose higher we slowed our pace until we came to a halt on a wide grassy ledge, collapsing for lunch beneath a perfectly positioned olive tree.
After a picnic of stuffed vine leaves, marinated beans, fresh bread, goats' cheese, cucumbers, sweet tomatoes and fat oranges - and a much-needed nap - we set off again late in the afternoon, thankful for much cooler temperatures. Scrambling gently downhill to Faralya, through warm breezes heavy with wafts of wild mint and rosemary, we stopped only for Maho to lament the changes in the landscape since he was last there. 'They've cut down so many pine trees,' he complained, gesturing at one ravaged valley. 'It's stupid. They think they can terrace all the land for farming, but it's not good agricultural land so they're cutting down trees for nothing.'
After a short but very pretty second day's walk from Faralya to Kabak beach there was plenty of time to explore our overnight stop, Natural Life, a higgledy-piggledy collection of tented cabins set around a leafy, cushion-scattered garden. Having arrived via such a pastoral landscape it came as a surprise to be surrounded by sun-saluting Germans and guitar-strumming backpackers. While the shared bathrooms were basic, the kitchens were well-equipped. Dinner consisted of a long buffet table with home-made lentil soup, various breads, freshly grilled fish, home-made chips, courgette and yoghurt dips, spicy wheat and onion patties, salads, grilled vegetables, a vast spinach pie and gooey home-made baklava.
The only thing that took the edge off my appetite was Maho's pep talk about the following day's hike. 'It's five hours long and 99 per cent uphill,' he warned, passing me an ominous-looking pair of walking poles. 'Conserve your energy tonight. You'll need it tomorrow.'
Thankfully, the climb to Alinca wasn't as difficult as predicted. The precipitous slopes led through pine forests, and their shade made the going much easier than it would have been in full sun, and snatched views out across glinting turquoise water helped to keep spirits up.
The following day's walk took us on to the village of Bel, with much of a necessary on-road section spent gently nudging slow-moving mountain tortoises off the centre of the tarmac in a bid to prevent them from becoming roadkill.
Detouring back to Muhtar Bayram's house in Gey village, we slept that night on squishy mattresses laid out in a spare room above the family's tractor shed. We felt suspended half-way between new and old: the house had satellite TV and uPVC windows, but sacks of vegetables and grains were stacked up beside the bedrooms and the family's two grown-up daughters returned home in the late afternoon with huge bundles of hay on their backs. As their mother fussed over us, offering limitless cups of tea, she was also jiggling her baby grandson to sleep on her back and trying not to step on the cute patch-eyed puppy that was careering excitedly round the house.
In the early years of the Lycian Way there were reports of some hostility towards hikers from villagers who didn't want their traditions corrupted by Western tourists, but in Gey the benefits it can bring were clear. Opening their houses to paying guests is providing families with a useful source of income in an obviously under-endowed region.
The final two days had a more historical slant, leading down over steep rocks towards the ruins of an ancient fortress at Pydnai and on, skirting Patara's empty 12km beach, to the ruined temples and amphitheatre at Letoon. From here a gentle hike among olive groves and mulberry trees followed a Roman aqueduct to the ruins of Patara. Birthplace of Saint Nicholas, Patara is also reputed to be home to the world's oldest road sign, made on the orders of Emperor Claudius and showing the distances between Lycian cities; true to form, we couldn't find it.
Now covered by shifting sand and water, Patara brings home the way major civilisations can crumble. Look around the ruined amphitheatre, where ancient carvings mark the gladiator fights that once entertained crowds here, and you realise that this was once an impressive city. Impressive enough for an aqueduct to have been built all the way from Islamlar, in the Taurus mountains, to water its 20,000-strong population.
Now the landscape is dominated by the remnants of a colonnaded avenue, a triumphal arch, a semi-circular parliament building, an amphitheatre and the odd tomb. Even what seem the most solid structures decline if left untended. For Turkey's tourist industry that holds a lesson. If steps aren't taken to protect the Way from developers and those who wish to confuse its course for personal benefit, the Turquoise Coast risks losing one of its most promising assets. In the meantime, it pays to have a good guide.
Essentials
Rhiannon Batten travelled with Exclusive Escapes (020 8605 3500; www.exclusiveescapes.co.uk), which offers trekking holidays along the Lycian Way from £940pp, based on travelling in a private party of two.
This price includes return flights from the UK (Heathrow, Gatwick or Manchester) to Dalaman, transfers, a private guide, luggage transfers and seven nights' full-board accommodation.
Group trips cost from £760pp, on a similar basis, and the next one leaves on 18 October.
