Narlıkuyu ("pomegranate well") is a village 4.4 km (2.75 miles) west of Kızkalesi (), built around a placid cove lined with seafood restaurants.
The eponymous well, in the form of an old hand pump, is still there, shaded by an ancient plane tree.
Water has always been the point in Narlıkuyu. An underground stream, which can be seen deep in the Cennet cave in the hills above Narlıkuyu, flows into the Mediterranean at Narlıkuyu, providing abundant fresh water to the village.
A Roman benefactor named Poimenios built a bathhouse here in the 300s AD. A small museum on the village square houses its mosaics of the Three Grances Aglaia, Thalia and Euphrosine, the daughters of Zeus and Eurynome.
The restaurants surrounding the cove are great for seafood lunches or dinners, with open-air waterside tables for most times, and inside tables for inclement weather.
I've dined at the İnci Restaurant with good results. Dinner for two included meze of a large mixed salad, local green olives, baby cloves of garlic both fresh and sautéed, scallions (green onions), pickled vegetables, hot peppers, fried kalamar (squid) and a large portion of grilled levrek (sea bass), washed down with a kadeh(glass) of rakı. The bill, with tip, was TL80.
Whichever restaurant you choose, be sure to determine the price of the fish you'll be eating before it is prepared. Fish can sometimes be quite expensive, and you don't want a nasty surprise when your bill arrives.
—by Tom Brosnahan
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