Fethiye

Well, we have hit the road again, we skipped the hotel breakfast today, this morning our breakfast was to be at a place via a recommendation.

Akçapınar a must apparently for a great toasted sandwich and the route would take us through a small road lined with huge Eucalyptus trees. The toast sounded good and we hadn’t recalled ever seeing eucalyptus trees before, so that would be a first too. Pinar in Turkish means spring as in (water) spring. In my mind I had pictured a beautiful water side restaurant, the smell of fresh coffee & cheese toasties wafting through the fragranced eucalyptus air.

We found the road leading to the restaurant, beautifully lined on either side with huge eucalyptus trees, but the rest of my vision did not materialise. Instead, we found a fairly run down wooden clad restaurant with a small dusty car park to one side. Not a spring in sight.

However, it was busy so they must be offering something worth visting for ! We sat and ordered two mixed toasts (cheese, tomato and spicy sausage), with Turkish black tea and before we knew it they arrived, piping hot.

 

Well, it was nice I must say, especially if you just closed your eyes a touch and imagined a cool stream running close by.

 

As we were readying to leave a very underweight loin cloth clad man strolled by, bare footed with sun scorched skin and long white hair. I thought for a moment he may have walked off a film set remaking Robinson Crusoe; it was quite bizarre. Then within a minute he was gone. Sorry no picture to add, he was way to quick for me to grab my phone in time.

Back on route to Fethiye only 90 minute’s drive away, initially we had not planned to visit Fethiye this year, as it’s a destination we have visited many times before, however our plans now slightly changed for a very nice reason. We found out our good friend Dilan was staying in Fethiye until Saturday. We absolutely wanted to see her if at all possible. I emailed the hotel ahead and pretty much begged for them to find us a room, after several emails to Can the reservations manager he managed to fit us in for two nights only. The stars aligned, Hillside beach club here we come.

Hillside beach club is a most wonderful hotel like no other in Turkey, I’m not going to tell you too much about it as we prefer to find space ourselves each year and keep it as secret as possible. The less people that know about it the better. 😊 Our drive was nice and easy and once we passed Dalaman we were familiar with the road, normally this stretch of road would be via a taxi from the airport, however this time we were in our own car, it felt really nice driving at our own pace.

The hotel is roughly 10 minutes drive just beyond Fethiye and as you climb up the private road a most wonderful view appears of the hotel and cove below.

 

Once we had entered through the security gates, we approached the hotel and quickly finished our online check in that I had already completed, the car was swiftly parked for us and in a golf-buggy loaded with our suits cases, we were shown to our hillside room.

 

We then went in search of Dilan and texted her that we had arrived, she is the most wonderful kind fun loving person you could ever wish to meet, funny, talented and intelligent, our reunion was made just close to silent beach of all places. Lots of hugs & kisses exchanged, we quickly moved along as not to disturb too many guests. The next two and half days were to be filled with all sorts of fun activities together. Archery, drum lessons, swimming, dancing, drinking, eating to name just a few. We just laughed so much and enjoyed every minute of her company.

   

This year we also spent a little time with Dilan’s parents Burhan (Bey) & Seher (Hanim). They looked just like two film stars; they really made us feel very welcome in their company and we chatted for quite a few hours mainly when Dilan was at another one of her fitness or Pilates classes, that we just couldn’t keep up with. Just slightly older than us, we shared some of our life stories, we laughed, cried and tried to take in as much of their wisdom and knowledge as possible in the short time we had with them. We felt like we could just listen to them for hours.

 

By the time Saturday morning arrived we truly felt like we had stayed for a week. We were all leaving at roughly the same time, Dilan & her lovely parents were flying back to Istanbul. We were to travel further south along the Turkish coast, onwards now each mile ever closer to Cyprus.

Our last pictures all together, taken just minutes before our departure. I really do hate goodbyes. ☹

Thank you Dilan, until we all meet again….