Kemer Kemer is a seaside resort and district of Antalya Province on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey about 40 kilometers or 25 miles west of the city of Antalya. Kemer is on the Gulf of Antalya, 53 kilometers or 33 miles of sea coast which skirts the western Taurus Mountains. The coast has the typical Mediterranean hot, dry weather with warm seas. Until the early 1980s this was a quiet rural district covered with citrus groves but today the town of Kemer and coastal villages in the district play a very important part in tourism in Turkey. Until the 1960s there was no coastal road and the district was accessible only by boat. Then a road was built and from the 1980s onwards this was followed by a great investment in infrastructure, planned by the state and funded by the World Bank, aimed at developing a large tourist trade. One of the major attractions of Kemer is its natural beauty; sea, mountains and pine forests. The shore from Beldibi to Tekirova consists of unspoiled beaches in bays of various sizes, mostly pebble rather than sand. With easy transportation, good communication and other municipal services Kemer has a large proportion of the hotel bed capacity of the Antalya region, and is a comfortable and peaceful holiday coast with internationally accepted reputation, attracting large numbers of visitors from countries such as Germany, The Netherlands and in recent years predominantly families from Russia. It is a common sight to see a Russian girl walking down the street with bluejean cut-off shorts so short you'd think she only saved the waistband walking along near local village women covered in long burkas with headscarves. Yet the village women pay little attention and make no judgement. Many of the visitors come as part of low-cost all-inclusive package deals but tourism is still the mainstay of the local economy. There are so many visitors that most shops in Kemer are set up to sell things like leather jackets to overseas visitors and trade in the euro as well as the Turkish lira.
Kemer
