Each leg of our round trip was around three to four hours driving, generally on very good quality roads with relatively little traffic; most major cities have by-passes. We took the opportunity for a bit of ad-hoc exploring with our lunch breaks.
Inland we stopped at the industrial but modern city of Denizli, eating at a traditional Turkish restaurant on a square by one of the major mosques in a shopping district. Our other inland stop was at the much smaller industrial town of Köşk, just off the main road from Pamukkale to Izmir. While this is a well travelled road for tourists, eating other than at the roadside is not the norm. We ate a delicious homemade toasted sandwich in what was no more than someone’s front room. As we ate, there were quite a number of people dropping in – not for food or drink but because our arrival had caused ripples along the local grapevine.
Our stops on the coast were more conventional – the small town of Akyaka, Palamut Bükü on the Datca peninsula and the yachting centre of Göcek – but extremely picturesque.
Shilli-Fully Travels 