2 Best Sights in The Turquoise Coast, Turkey

The grave of Myra's famous 4th-century bishop—St. Nicholas (aka Santa Claus)—quickly became a pilgrimage site shortly after his death. A church was built around his tomb in the 6th century but later destroyed in an Arab raid. In 1043, St. Nicholas Basilica was rebuilt with the aid of the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX and the empress Zoë. It was, in turn, heavily restored in the 19th century courtesy of Tsar Nicholas I of Russia. (To this day, most visitors to the church—now operated as a museum—are Russian.)

It's difficult to distinguish between parts of the original church and the restorations, although the bell tower and upper story are clearly late additions. The colorful, evocative frescos are reminiscent of the early churches of Cappadocia. The reputed sarcophagus of St. Nicholas is in the southernmost aisle, though his remains were stolen in 1087 and taken to Bari, Italy, where the church of San Nicola di Bari was built to house them. A few bones remained, so the story goes, and these can be seen in the Antalya Museum.

A service is (theoretically, at least) held in the church every year on December 6, the feast day of St. Nicholas. Among his good deeds, the saint is said to have carried out nocturnal visits to the houses of local children to leave gifts, including gold coins as dowries for poor village girls; if a window was closed, said the storytellers, he would drop the gifts down the chimney.

A few dark blue and turquoise tiles still decorate the Yivli Minare (Fluted Minaret), a graceful, 13th-century cylinder erected by the Seljuk sultan Alaaddin Keykubat I; the imam once climbed its narrow steps five times daily to give the call to prayer. The adjoining mosque was converted from a Byzantine church, and the remains (displayed under glass) of an 800-year-old water channel can be seen if you step inside. Within the pretty complex are two türbes (tombs) and an 18th-century tekke (lodge), which once housed a community of whirling dervishes and is now a small free museum devoted to the traditions of their Mevlevi Order. The old medrese (theological school) adjacent to the minaret has been covered under an unattractive bus-station-style roof and is a tourist-oriented shopping center, selling standard Turkish knick-knacks (think cotton clothes, pottery, copper work, carpets, and tiles). At the time of visiting the minaret is fenced off while undergoing some restoration works.