Turkey........all mezed out!!

Professional shot!!

Mud mud glorious mud

Travertine steps

Roman gateway

Hi everyone, we are on our latest adventure in Turkey. We got here last Monday but the first week was just chilling in a cheap hotel in Calis beach near Fethiye. It was much posher than our usual backpackers hostel/hotel and of course the target market was the one or two week holidaymaker looking for cheap alcohol, English breakfast and Sunday dinner. Our hotel, Rosary Beach , served Turkish food and at £150 for a week half board was pretty good value.

We mainly lazed around the pool but did hire a scooter to see Capa Coy a deserted village where Greeks were ousted after the second world war and no-one else has lived there. We went over to Oludeniz, which I hated, busy, smelly and the Blue Lagoon nothing like the fabulous photos. We also went on a fairly hairy trip towards butterfly valley, very slow going up but fast coming down.

We took a tour to Dalyan, spent a lovely day on a boat, got thoroughly manky at the mud baths and ended it on a lovely beach, with hundreds of others.........

Monday we set off on the local bus to Denizil then on a little dolmus  to Pamukkale. We are now back in our comfort zone of a family run hotel, plain and simple. Today we visited the site here which is a mixture of tavertine terraces and the ancient Roam city of Heliopolis, where Philip the disciple was martyred. My word of the day is incongruous, the tavertine terraces and ancient Rome, the bikini clad women in a Muslim country where the mosque rings out the call to prayer, the tranquility of the start of our day to the masses of humanity half an hour later. It was mobbed by large groups of Russian tourists with the telltale armbands of all inclusive resorts. The Roman site was fascinating and very large and it was much too hot to see all of it.

Tomorrow we head off to Aphrodisias, yes, you guessed it linked to Aphrodite herself. There is a complete Roman theatre there.  Then Thursday we are getting the train to Selcuk to visit Ephesus. I know it will be busy but we will be spared the bikinis.

This is my first visit to Turkey and the people seem very warm and genuine. We are trying to learn a few words but it is very difficult. It is hot and dry but cool at night and at the coast we were on the shaded side of the hotel. Here we have air conditioning which you need in the daytime.

The food has been good, Meze as most of you will know is a selection of salad/dips which start a meal. In the hotel in Calis there was a great selection every night. Lunchtime today we had delicious Gozleme a very thin bread base stuffed with spinach and cheese, the lady sat crossed-legged rolling dough with a thin stick and got a perfect round each time!!

Tonight we had a mixed plate for starter then I had stuffed aubergine and Chris had liver. Breakfast is bread, cheese, local olives, tomato and cucumber and either boiled egg or omelette. We overheard some other English guest at our last hotel complaining that the breakfast was Turkish and not English!!

Till next time
Take care
Norma xx