49 Abandoned Landmarks That Are More Beautiful Than Ever
17. Kayaköy – Fethiye, Turkey
Clinging to a hillside overlooking the Turkish coast lies Kayaköy, a hauntingly beautiful ghost village. Once a thriving community of Anatolian Greeks known as Levissi, its thousands of residents were forced to leave during the 1923 population exchange with Greece. What remains are hundreds of stone houses, churches, and chapels, now roofless and weathered, tumbling down the slope in poetic decay. Walking the overgrown paths feels like wandering through a memory, the silence broken only by the wind. The sheer scale and preserved emptiness under the Mediterranean sun make Kayaköy an incredibly moving, picturesque monument to displacement and lost community.
