Caretta Pension

Caretta Caretta Pension offers clean, spacious air-conditioned rooms, has a large area for relaxing, breakfast and offers free pick up from the Patara bus station as well as a free service to the Patara beach or the ruin...

St. Nicholas Pension

St. Nicholas Pension has been a meeting point of travelers because of affordable price and good service....

Flower Pension

Our pension has been open since 1986 and we have lots of experience looking after guests and also lots of knowledge about the area and the many places to see....

Akay Pension Apart

Akay pension best choice for your holiday in Patara....

Golden Pension

Comfortable rooms and a delightful rooftop restaurant. Set in the heart of the village. All rooms have air conditioning, balcony, en-suite facilities and ceiling fans. The "Golden" restaurant has developed a hi...

Patara Delfin Hotel

Patara Delfin hotel is famous for its amazing view of the Patara village and sea view....

Golden Lighthouse Hotel

The Golden Lighthouse Hotel is a delightful family run hotel surrounded by landscaped gardens and set in an elevated position just a couple of minutes walk (200m) from Patara village centre....

Patara (Lycian: Pttara), later renamed Arsinoe, was a flourishing maritime and commercial city on the south-west coast of Lycia on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey near the modern small town of Gelemis, in Antalya Province. It is the birth place of St. Nicholas, who lived most of his life in the nearby town of Myra (Demre).

The name Patera is still attached to the numerous ruins of the city. These, according to the survey of Capt. Beaufort, are situated on the sea-shore, a little to the eastward of the river Xanthus, and consist of a theatre excavated in the northern side of a small hill, a ruined temple on the side of the same hill, and a deep circular pit, of singular appearance, which may have been the seat of the oracle. The town walls surrounded an area of considerable extent; they may easily be traced, as well as the situation of a castle which commanded the harbour, and of several towers which flanked the walls. On the outside of the walls there is a multitude of stone sarcophagi, most of them bearing inscriptions, but all open and empty; and within the walls, temples, altars, pedestals, and fragments of sculpture appear in profusion, but ruined and mutilated. The situation of the harbour is still apparent, but it is a swamp, choked up with sand and bushes. (Beaufort, Karmania, pp. 2, 6.) The theatre, of which a plan is given in Leakes Asia Minor (p. 320), was built in the reign of Antoninus Pius; its diameter is 265 feet, and has about 30 rows of seats. There are also ruins of thermae, which, according to an inscription upon them, were built by Vespasian. (Comp. Sir C. Fellows, Tour in Asia Min. p. 222, foll.; Discov. in Lycia, p. 179, foil.; Texier, Descript. de lAsie Min., which contains numerous representations of the ancient remains of Patara; Spratt and Forbes, Travels in Lycia, i. p. 31; foll.)