MargoMusing

Our next couple of days were fairly low key. We returned the car, did a fair bit of shopping (shoes, and a wedding veil, and several souvenirs, were bought, and postcards were sent)

We spent some time with K's friend Liz, who lives in Fethiye, and we all got pedicures (Sadly, the place K used to go had closed, so we were not able to get little flowers and things painted on our nails). We ate at a restaurant in the market where you bring your own fish (or go with the waiter to buy it) and they then cook it for you. We had calamari, and some kind of toothy fish. (Both were delicious). I visited Fethiye Museum, which is small, but interesting - I was their only visitor..



Included to show how clear the water was..

Then on the Thursday, we actually had to get up at a specific time, (quelle horreur!) as we had booked a boat trip, so needed to be at the beach on time to embark. All of us had done the "12 Islands" trip from Fethiye, so this time we decided on the "Blue Bays" trip, from Oludeniz. We embarked from the beach, and quickly found ourselves a comfy corner with 3 giant pink beanbags, and settled in to enjoy the trip. The boat carried around 30 people, and went to 5 or 6 spots where it moored to allow us to swim. 
It's fun. The water was incredibly clear and, except in the aptly-named 'Cold Water Bay' warm enough to be able to swim for as long as we wanted.

Lest we wear ourselves out with all the lounging on beanbags, swimming, reading, and listening to the cheesy 70s pop being played over the PA system, a young crewman came round periodically to offer drinks and ice-creams. Drinking freshly squeezed orange juice while lying in the sunshine and watching fish a couple of metres below is a pleasant way to spend time...

The trip included lunch of fresh, barbecued fish (and a variety of salads) before spending the afternoon - you guessed it - lounging, swimming, and floating.. There was one island where we were able to go ashore and scramble among some ruins (I think relatively recent ones), and look down to the boat.
Then we chugged bag to Oludeniz, where the breeze which had sprung up during the afternoon made disembarking rather wetter and more exciting than embarking had been.

It was a very relaxing day, although unfortunately we all ended up having caught the sun a bit, mainly due to suncream being rubbed off by clothing, we think. (It turns out that Banana Boat's aloe Vera gel is very, very good in these circumstances - far more so than any of the other after-sun products any of us had!)

It's possible that when we got back to the flat we may have filled glasses up with frozen fruit juice diluted with gin, and spent a very relaxed evening...

It came as a shocking realisation to us that despite having been in Turkey for 4 days, we had somehow omitted to spend any time sitting on the beach, so on Sunday, after a late and fruit-filled breakfast, we headed out to Ölüdeniz, which is reported to be one of the most photographed beaches in the mediterranean.

It is lovely. There is an almost land-locked lagoon, and it is a National Park (Loggerhead turtles lay their eggs there,so it's protected) - no motor boats are allowed in the lagoon, so it is quiet, as well as beautiful.

It's also very busy. The beach is covered with sunloungers and parasols, all for rent, and there are lots of little booths selling cold drinks, snorkles, ice cream and so forth. It's not the kind of place I normally go, but a little hard lounging once in a while never hurt anyone.

We rented a some loungers, and settled in for some hardcore relaxing. We'd brought along some goggles and snorkles, and I went for a long swim. The water is crystal clear, and there are lots of fish, even in the shallow water by the beach. Around the rocky banks at the end of the lagoon, where it was quieter, there were not only fish (in every size, from whitebait up to 2-foot long thin, pointy fish with blue and yellow bits on) teeny tiny jellyfish, a few sea-urchins, even sponges. If, like me, your normal sea-side experience involves the North Sea or English Channel, then the mere concept of being able to swim for more than 10 minutes without losing all feeling in your extremities and turning an unattractive shade of blue is, in itself, a revelation. Doing it in water so clear, and being able to see so much, is even more amazing.

We stayed until almost all the sun-loungers were empty, and the shadows growing long. sometimes it's nice not to have a time table to keep to.

We dined that night up at the kale Park restaurant, which is at the top of the hill above Fethiye, with views out over the town, and the bay.

The retaurant is next to the ruins of a crusader castle, and there was, inevitably, a small selection of goats scrambling among the ruined walls!

We sat over our meal on the terrace all evening, watching night fall, and the stars come out.

And one of my favourite things about this town? The random Lycian sarcophagus in the middle of the road...

After our adventures with ancient history, we decided to stay closer to home, both geographically and historically, the next day.

So we went to Kaya village (Kayaköy /Karmylassos ), which is just outside Fethiye. Kaya was a village inhabited mainly by Greek-speaking Christians, but it was abandoned in 1923, after the end of the Greco-Turkish War (or the war of Turkish Independence, depending on your political views) when, as part of the peace treaty, a population exchange was agreed, allowing Ethnic Greek Christians to move to Greece, and Muslims to move to Turkey.

However, as Kaya had been Greek, Turks did not wish to live there, so it became a ghost town, and is now preserved as a museum.

The village is mostly ruins, now. The majority of the buildings are roofless shells, the alters are gone from the churches, and the place is silent other than the chirping of crickets, and birds.


When we went into one of the churches we flushed out a small group of sheep, and there were swallows nesting in the roof.


There is one house which still has its wooden internal walls, shutters and balcony, although they are rather decrepit, and seem to have been burned at some time. Outside the window was an apricot tree, with all the apricots growing, frustratingly, just out of reach...

From the chapel on the top of the hill, there are magnificent views out over the sea, and there are flowers everywhere, and fig-trees growing up inside many of the ruined houses.

Now that the village is preserved as a museum, and is something of a tourist attraction, there are several little restaurants there. And a random pair of camels and a donkey, on which one can, I assume, have rides. We, however, were far more interested in the gozleme, which are chapati-like pancakes, made in a woodburning oven and stuffed with cheese and spinach.

It's possible that the afternoon may have involved rather a lot of sitting on a sunny balcony. And possibly a G'n'T or two. And maybe some pistachio ice cream.

The baklava, however, wasn't until later.

ve been away from the internet for the past 10 days or so, as I've been away on holiday in Turkey with my sisters, and for part of the time, with D, my sister K's soon-to-be sister-in-law.
We had a great time, and I really enjoyed being able to spend time with my sisters, and getting to know D.

I think it will take more than one post to cover it, so will take me a few days, but here goes!

Our flight out was on Tuesday evening, from Gatwick, so my younger sister E drove to mine for lunch, then we went to K's home where we left E's car and all 3 of us got a trian to Gatwick.

As we were going on holiday, I'd come prepared, and once we were safely on the train produced cans of G'n'T, slices of lime, and ice cubes (it's harder to transport ice cubes secretly and with no cool bag than you might think) so we all had drinks in style.

We then met D at Gatwick, and spent 4 hours on a charter flight filled with fractious children! Once we got to Dalaman, however, things improved - we picked up out hire car, and K bravely drove us home, in the dark (Both Turkish roads, and Turkish driving, tend to be.... interesting!

K's fiance owns a flat in Fethiye, which is where we stayed. It's about 25 mins walk from the centre of the town, slightly up on the hill, so it's a little cooler, which is nice.

We spent our first morning stocking up on food, then, as one does, we headed out to the Hamman (Turkish Bath). We decided, on the advice of some of K&C's friends, who had visited just before us, to try a new hamman at one of the local hotels - it was very modern and shiny - and instead of the traditional cold shower after the sauna and scrubbing there was a very cold plunge pool, instead. It was fun, and very relaxing,but all of us who'd been hamman-ed before agreed that we preferred the less slick sand more traditional city hamman, and resolved to go there for our next scrub! Although the hamman proved, once again, that no matter how well you believe you've exfoliated, the Tellak (masseur) will prove you wrong. I do wish that there was a Turkish Bath near me at home!

The following day we decided that some Proper Culture was appropriate, so we drove to Patara, which is a Lycian site - it was an important naval base around the time of Alexander the Great, was mentioned in the Iliad, was visited by emperors Hadrian and Vespasian and was the birthplace of Nicholas, Bishop of Myra (AKA Santa Claus). It was eventually abandoned after the harbour silted up, any many of the ruins were hidden, and preserved, by the sand dunes.


Parliament Building, Patara

There has been a lot of archaeological work going on over the last 20 years or so, including, most recently, the excavation and partial reconstruction of the Parliament Buildings - there were the headquarters of the Lycian league, and the archaeologists have partially rebuilt it using some original and some replacement material, and leaving parts as they were found, so that in the seating, for instance, you can see the original ruin, how the building was constructed, and finally the finished article, faced with marble etc.

Patara amphitheatre

There is also an amphitheatre, which has not been rebuilt, 2 bathhouses (one of which is currently propped up with a good deal of scaffolding,

Harbour Baths, Patara

Lycian sarcophagus and arch of Modestus, Patara