The place is called Burj Al Babas and it's a ghost town consisting of half-completed mini-castles that were apparently inspired by French châteaux. There are currently nearly 600 of the palaces, though there were supposed to be more than 700. So why on Earth are all these palaces just sitting there, completely empty?

The most famous "abandoned city" in Turkey is Kayaköy, located near Fethiye in the southwestern part of the country. Formerly known as Levissi, it was once a thriving community of Greek Orthodox Christians. The town was abandoned in 1923 following the "Population Exchange" between Greece and Turkey after the Greco-Turkish War, which forced thousands of Greek residents to leave their homes in Turkey and move to Greece. Today, Kayaköy stands as a "ghost town" and a poignant open-air museum, featuring hundreds of roofless, sun-bleached stone houses and two large Greek Orthodox churches slowly being reclaimed by nature. Walking through its narrow, silent streets provides a haunting look into a lost era of Mediterranean history. Another notable abandoned site is the Ani ruins near the Armenian border, once a powerful medieval "City of 1001 Churches" on the Silk Road. While Kayaköy feels like a modern village frozen in time, Ani is a sprawling archaeological site of grand cathedrals and fortifications that serve as a testament to the region's ancient geopolitical shifts.