Kalkan and around

I got back last night from a couple of days in Kalkan.  My sister and brother-in-law have had a two-week holiday there and I went to visit them and have a little break.

Kalkan is a very pretty town about an hour’s drive from Fethiye.  It is on the coast and built on the side of a mountain so the view when you come over the last hill is really spectacular.  The view from their hotel – situated quite high up the slope – was also breath-taking.

a pool with a view

 The town itself is clustered around the harbour, but there has been lots of building in the last few years so there are many villas spread over the hill.  They are not all attractive and in some ways it would be nice if it could have remained how it was but nothing can spoil the quaintness of the centre of the town with its old houses crowded onto steep streets and the stunning blue of the bay, interrupted by a couple of islands.

There are many lovely restaurants there and the nicest places to eat are on some of the roof terraces so you make the most of the views.  While the menus are a bit more varied and adventurous than most of the restaurants in Çalış, prices are also significantly higher.  Even the shops cater for bigger spenders.  There is a bag shop selling very exact copies of designer bags which they have made by a factory in İstanbul – the average price being about 300TL.  The copy watches are indistinguishable from the real Breitlings and Vacheron Constantin and while the prices are a fraction of the cost of the real ones, there is nothing for a tenner!

I drove to Kalkan on Friday and Kaan came on the bus on Saturday.  Having spent two days lying around and eating a lot (sticky toffee pudding was the highlight for me!) we went off exploring yesterday.  Demre is a town about 70km east of Kalkan.  The drive itself is lovely as the road follows the coast much of the way.

Lycian tombs at Myra

 In Demre, we headed for the Lycian remains of Myra.  This is currently being excavated by a team from Akdeniz University, but the Lycian rock tombs and the large Roman theatre are worth seeing.  In the town itself, there is the church of St Nicholas where his remains were held (he was bishop of the town in the fourth century) until the chaos at the time the Ottomans took over enabled ‘pirates’ from Italy to steal them and take them back to Bari in Italy.

It is still a site for pilgrimages – mainly by Russians (I guess because he is the patron saint of Russia) – and it was quite busy but the frescoes inside are lovely.  Outside, this is Kaan adding to a mosaic that is being done by visiting children to raise money for ongoing renovations to the church.

Back to school

Hooray!  Like mothers everywhere I have finally breathed a sigh of relief as the children went back to school yesterday.  Not that they really require much entertaining any more…Emre has been officially working in the hotel and Kaan has spent most of his time here enjoying the constant stream of friends and the pool.

For the boys, Poppy is home – the one place they have known all their lives.  Sometimes we have lived in, sometimes (as now) out; when they were younger I didn’t spend so much time here and we would mainly visit to use the pool – even renting the hotel to somebody else to run for two years.  But it has always been here and their childhood memories will focus around it.

Emre playing in the pool

They have both had accidents here, Emre falling and splitting his chin (first stitches – more traumatic for me than for him) and Kaan burning his hand on a motorbike exhaust, treading on glass (just last month).  I knew Emre could swim when, not far off his third birthday, he fell in the pool and by the time I raced over was keeping himself up and heading for the edge.  Kaan learned to swim in Poppy pool and though he was initially rather reluctant, once he got the hang of it he was like a little dolphin, spiralling as he swam down to the bottom to pick up coins we threw in for him.

Kaan and his friend (watching the belly dancer!)

 Through Poppy, they meet knew people all the time and – one of the things I enjoy about the hotel – a whole range of people that it might be hard to come across in a normal life.  This has also definitely helped with their English as they have listened to many different people and many different accents, rather than just me and the few English friends I have here.  In these days of facebook, of course it is easier to keep in touch with these people and I often see that the boys are exchanging messages with guests old and new.

 But it isn’t all play…Emre has worked the last two years during his summer holiday and even Kaan is willing to lend a hand when needed.  We had one complaint on trip advisor this year from guests that they were ‘met by the owner’s son’ (only heard about this as I got so obsessed with trip advisor last year that I haven’t let myself look at it at all this year!).  Now personally I don’t see the problem with this; he’s sixteen years old not six, he wasn’t wearing his pyjamas and he’s quite polite and helpful (as apparently another guest pointed out on the site – thankyou for that!)  My mother ran a business while I was growing up and I helped out from a young age – willingly as I earned money, but also with a sense of pride.  I think it teaches them responsibility, as well as a whole range of skills (from cooking to pool cleaning) which are bound to be useful to them one day.

And there are also perks of the job.  They get to go horse riding, diving, on boat trips and to the Turkish bath with guests.  So even if I have been pretty busy this summer and not had time to take them away as I usually do, they haven’t really had a bad summer.

Kaan diving

 Cem and I actually started in the hotel business running Camelia Apartments in 1996 especially because it would allow us to be together – and with Emre who turned one that summer – more than if he took job and I was at home.  And at Poppy that is still true, even if I am a bit relieved now to have a few hours peace while they are at school!

Great balls of fire!

Just when you think life can’t get any more hectic, it does!

Yılmaz has finished work now so I am now chief cook and bottle washer, as well as all the other jobs I do.  The cooking doesn’t bother me, actually I quite enjoy it, but it means I am in from 8am until about 10 or 11 at night which is a long day.  Thank goodness we have mostly repeat guests in who are understanding if things take a little longer.  Not all though…we had some new arrivals in who complained that they went to reception and there was nobody there to help them.  Unfortunately we are not a big enough business to have somebody sat on reception all day, but as all the other guests agreed, it isn’t hard to spot one of us running round in the kitchen or bar and ask for help.

I did have a couple of days off while friends Grant and Dawn were here.  We had one lovely day in Kalkan and Patara beach (18km of sand, great waves), and another day we went to Günlüklü beach and Göcek.  Günlüklü is named for the trees that grow there, one of the few places in the world where they grow naturally.  They are called ‘liquid amber’ trees because of the amber sap they produce which is highly valued in the cosmetics and perfume industry.  They also have very pretty bright green leaves and provide great shade and the beach has been tidied up a lot and is a lovely spot now.

Cem in his usual place

 The hotel is still full, but now the children have gone back it is noticeably quieter.  Until the evening that is when, especially with Frank around, the bar is quite lively.  We upset the neighbours the other night and have promised to be more careful about the noise levels.  It isn’t the music, so much as the laughter which at least means people are having a good time.  Will have to make sure they do it inside the bar with the doors shut after midnight though!

 

Had a great ‘Turkish night’ last week.  We ordered a belly dancer as usual and she was pretty good, though that was partly because she had plenty of enthusiastic guests to work with.  But she also brought along an added extra (her other half I think) in the form of our barman of several years ago who goes by the name of Sylvester (can’t even remember his real name) and is now doing fire shows.  Now I have to confess that I was very dubious about letting him lose in the bar with lighted missiles, remembering him as quite keen but a bit of a twit and having visions of him hurling his ‘flaming balls’ into the audience, if not setting fire to the bar roof.  However I had to eat my words when he put on the best fire show I have EVER seen.  He was truly amazing and finished up doing somersaults, still swinging his fire balls.  Needless-to-say, guests who had come along were suitable impressed and those who hadn’t because they thought it would be just another belly dancing show were disappointed.

Just goes to show, you never know what will happen at Poppy!  It’s nearly 9am now, and I wonder what today will bring…