Kalkan

In Kalkan the sea is mostly reached by ladder. The mountains on this stretch of Turkey's Turquoise Coast fall so steeply into it that the town has too little flat ground for a real beach, and apart from a small pebble one by the harbour, the swimming around the bay is done off concrete platforms and ladders built into the rock. The water is worth the climb down. By August the air is close to 34C and the restaurants and boats are booked up in advance. By September the air has cooled, the crowds have thinned and the sea, at around 24C, is near its warmest. That is when we went.

The day we would send anyone on is out on the water. We hired a little boat in Kalkan and went exploring the bays nearby with a speaker and some beers, which was the whole plan and all it needed. On land the rock is the obstacle and the beach clubs are the way round it, with platforms that let you in and out of the sea without a scramble. That is the case for Kalamar, a separate bay a short way from the centre, whose villas and beach clubs have their own sea access; the cost is a car or a taxi into town for the restaurants. The hills above the bay are quieter again, with private pools and the view back over the town, and the walk home is uphill.

Patara, about 15 minutes' drive west, has the flat ground Kalkan lacks: 11 miles of sand backed by dunes, with a Roman theatre close by and ruins still being excavated. Kaputaş, east on the coast road towards Kaş, keeps up the local habit: a cove of turquoise water at the bottom of about 180 steps, best reached in the morning before it fills.

The evenings belong to the town. Kalkan was a Greek fishing village called Kalamaki in Ottoman times, and its white houses, many under bougainvillea, step down cobbled lanes to a small working harbour, with the restaurants and bars along the way. We ate at the Fish Terrace on the waterfront and at Small House, which does lovely local Turkish cooking, and went out to Villa Mahal in Kalamar for lunch. Those lanes are the thing for parents to know about. We went as a couple, before children, and with a pushchair the hills would be a nightmare. A small child in a carrier is manageable, as long as the legs doing the carrying are up to them.