Dalyan Mud

Dalyan Mud Baths near the town of Dalyan in Muğla Province, southwestern Turkey, offer a uniquely theatrical bathing experience in the sulphurous mineral-rich grey clay that emerges naturally from the geothermal vents of Lake Köyceğiz, where boats bring visitors to apply the traditional mud treatment that has been used since antiquity and that the Romans knew as pigmentum from the area they called Caunos, the ruins of whose Lycian-era theatre and temple still stand on the hillside above the mud-plastered bathing terrace. The sulphurous mineral mud, combined with the warm spring water used to rinse it off before bathing in the lake, provides a profoundly relaxing and skin-conditioning treatment that attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors annually who combine the mud baths with boat trips through the extraordinary Dalyan River delta to see the nesting beaches of the protected loggerhead sea turtle at Iztuzu. The combination of therapeutic mud bathing, spectacular ancient ruins, protected sea turtle habitat, and the beautiful Köyceğiz lake environment makes Dalyan one of Turkey's most complete and ecologically distinctive wellness destinations.