Çıralı: Still is a beautiful beach backed by mountains, with an array of laid-back pensions. arriving in Çıralı, you cross a small bridge where a few taxis wait to run people back up to the main road. Continue across the bridge and you'll come to a junction in the road disfigured with innumerable signboards. Go straight on for the pensions nearest to the path up to the Chimaera. Turn right for the pensions closest to the beach and the Olympos ruins.

          The Chimaera:
          From Çıralı, follow the track marked for the Chimaera (Yanartaş, 'burning rock'in Turkish) three km. along a valley to a car park, then climb up a mud track for anoher 20 to 30 minutes to the site.

          The Chimaera, a cluster of spontaneous and inextinguishable flames which blaze from crevices on the rocky slopes of Mt Olympos, is the stuff of legends. It's not difficult to see why ancient poples attributed these extraordinary flames to the breath of a monster-part lion, part goat and part dragon. Even today, they have not been explained.

        Gas seeps from the earth, and bursts into flame upon contact with the air. The exact composition of the gas is unknown, though it is thought to contain some methane. Though the flames can be extinguished now by being covered, they will reignite when uncovered. In ancient times they were much more vigorous, being easily recognised at night by mariners sailing along the coast.

          In mythology, the Chimaera was the son of typhon. Typhon was the fierce and monstrous son of Gaia, the earth goddess, who was so frightening a being that Zeus set him on fire and buried him alive under Mt Aetna, thereby creating the volcano. Typhon's offsring, the Chimaera, was killed by the hero Bellerophon on the orders of King Iobates of Lycia. Bellerophon killed the monster by aerial bombardment - mounting Pegasus, the winged horse, and bourng molten lead into the Chimaera's mouth.