Turkey, 2003

Turkey is a big country. Opinions you’ve heard about Ankara or Istanbul do not necessarily apply. But that’s fair, smaller towns in a country are rarely anything like their capital city. We stayed hundreds of Kilometres away from either of Turkeys major cities, instead we hung in or around the Mediterranean Sea. We flew into Dalaman airport, moved to Fethiye, across to Antalya and back to Dalaman more-or-less along the coast.

This makes somewhere like Bodrum a fairer comparison. But even there, the tales of “in your face” sales techniques make it sound very different.

Even in the tiny part of Turkey that we saw, there was immense variety. On the trip there was everything from thriving local towns (where we felt like we were the only sight-seers) to tourist centres (where the first language appeared to be German) to “wilderness” that felt like it was hundreds of miles from any form of civilisation. In-between there were vast amount of Roman and Greek ruins, statues and busts of Atat?rk, lovely bays that reminded me of Italy and snow-capped mountains.

Few countries can claim to much variety in such a small area. If you can’t tell, I was impressed and I haven’t even spoken about the locals hospitality.

Click the small pictures below for a full size version.

The obligatory Atatürk statue in Fethiye. Early morning in Fethiye. An amphitheatre near Termessos. The sight on our walk from Olympos to the Chimaera
The partial roof of the theatre in Aspendos. The aqueduct at Aspendos. The landscape in southern Turkey is greener than you mi The harbour in Antalya.
The fluted minaret in Antalya Mosque in Elmali On the way to Kas. On the way to Kas.
View over Kas as we approached from the surrounding hil Kas A view from Kekova Island and how we got there. The bay A view from Kekova Island.

All pictures here have been taken on my EOS300 using Fuji Sensia II ISO100 slide film. Most of the outdoor pictures were taken using a polarising filter.

If the pictures have piqued your interest, there are a few resources that you might want to have a look out for:

  • I read Jeremy Seal’s “A Fez of the Heart”(Amazon UK/US) to get the feel of the place before I got there. Unfortunately the area I went to was barely mentioned, but it’s a good book and well worth reading.
  • Turkey.com has lots of interesting stuff including city guides and travel tips.