DAY 17 - Saturday 21st May

Ian’s turn.

We have been traveling around for a few days and have fallen behind in our blog.  No rest allowed on this holiday - so here is the latest.

By the pool Villa Rhapsody

Tuesday (17th) saw us waking in the lazy island of calm of The Oyster Residence, in the madness that is Oludinez.  This hotel is the best place we have stayed so far, - but it was too good to last.  So we pack our bags and off we go to Villa Rhapsody, about 10 km away in the hills behind Oludinez - but it could have been a million miles away.

Deserted village of Kaya Koy in background

Set amongst fields and a short walk from the “ghost village” of Kaya Koy, it is a small “pension” run by a turkish / dutch couple.  No “duff-duff” from disco speakers here!  Good food but a very hard bed for the next three nights.  We sat by the pool, swam, read another book and went for walks to see the local sights, including the 500 empty houses in a village that was emptied and deserted when the Greeks and Turks swapped 2m people following their war in 1923.

Found a great wine bar amongst the ruins, and had my best white wine yet. Back to the pool, grilled fish for dinner.

Jane, wine and olives - what more could I want?

Thursday 19th May -  Pick up a hire car from Fethiye in the morning, (usual story in the shop, 3 men sitting around talking and one woman doing all the bookings and paperwork….)

Then drive 30km north to another Lycian ruin at Kaunos and a protected turtle hatchery at Iutuzu beach, near Dalayan, the first real sandy beach we have seen in Turkey so far. 

Driving on the “wrong” side of the road a little stressful but the roads are generally good and wide and drivers pretty calm, so far at least!

Friday 20th May - set off on the coast road to Antalya via Kas.  Its a bit like the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, except cut into a steeper, higher, hillside, and liable to get very narrow at the pointy bits - so luckily it was not busy as I drove along. Stopped at another sandy turtle beach at Patrata, with the usual greek /roman ruins, but this time they are actually rebuilding the old Odeon - looked great. 

Reconstruction of the odeon at Patara.

Arrived at Kas and met up with Steve and Pam T who are touring Turkey (in the other direction!) before meeting us again later in France.

Kas is a delight, a small but rapidly expanding seaside town clinging to the steep slopes and small foreshore next to a harbour, with a string of islands just offshore. It is the base for much fishing and tourist sailing and cruising. Our hotel is one of many built into the hillside but has no lift, - 150 steps from our room down to the platforms built out over the sea for sunbathing and swimming.

Look hard for bits of the sunken city of Simena.

Next day a quick drive to Kerkova, and a trip out in a small boat to view the drowned remains of the Lycean city of Simena, which was not only destroyed by an earthquake in 270AD, but it actually sunk it!  We had time to just sit and soak up the suns rays looking out over the amazing view too, so what more could you want - a softer bed perhaps…..

The upload speed for the photos is terrible here, so I'm going to post his now but add more photos later.