Datça

The spindly, 50-mile-long Datça peninsula in Turkey’s Muğla province is a dagger of pure green at the meeting point of the Aegean and the Mediterranean, and is as unsullied as south-west Turkey gets. The ancient Greeks believed Datça to have been created personally by Zeus, so gorgeous are its rocky outcrops and aquamarine waters. The geographer Strabo apparently said: “God sent his beloved creatures to Datça for them to live longer.” So what’s all the fuss about? It’s about craggy, pine-crested hills, endless olive groves, empty ravines, cornflower-blue coves, vast sweeping bays and deserted beaches, air scented with thyme, rosemary and sage, and sleepy villages. It’s about goats on the road and old men tinkering with their worry beads in vine-covered cafes.