Fethiye

Ölüdeniz

I think the picture above fairly accurately sums up the last four amazing days that we have spent in Fethiye – it has been a like a holiday from the holiday.

Whilst here we have taken the foot of the accelerator a little, have gone to bed early and woken without an alarm, eaten amazing home cooked meals from our guest house and spent our days roaming the countryside or along the coast in search of remote beaches and deserted villages. We enjoyed our first swim of 2009 (bloody cold, but oh so good) and counted down the clock each day until the call to prayer rang out at five marking what we deemed an appropriate time to have a beer. We contemplated taking a cruise for a couple of days along the coast to Olympos, but were enjoying doing our own thing and the friendly atmosphere at our pension so much we gave it a miss.

That is all I am going to write, this is my last night of the holiday from the holiday and sitting in front of a computer on a holiday is simply not the done thing. I will let the photos and videos tell the story instead.

Every day at 5.00 we cracked open a beer in front of these two fishing boats and watched them bob back and forward

Elizabeth enjoying her first swim of the season at Ölüdeniz

After an eight kilometre walk over hills and through the bush we reached the village of Kayaköy, which consists of about 2000 deserted buildings. The inhabitants left after WWI and the war of independence. At the time it was deserted there was a large swap of Ottoman Christians from Greece, replaced by Muslim Greeks.

The scene above was what greeted us after a long 1.5 hour dolmuş (mini-bus) ride from Fethiye. It was a bloody steep walk down and we were slightly concerned that the next bus back wasn’t for another six hours. But that beach sure was enticing given the heat, so we bid the dolmuş farewell and scrambled down through the bush.