Back from Cyprus, the weather was still holding nicely in the mid 20’s and with generally sunny days. This bode well for our planned travels west along Turkey‘s Mediterranean coast where we hoped to revisit a couple of our old haunts and explore some new places. The week ahead would take us through Aydincik, Fethiye/Oludeniz, Bodrum, Kusadasi, Pergamon and Canakkale before heading out to Greece ( actually, 10 days, but I’ve squeezed it all into this “week”s blog 😊 ).

Aydincik was one of those diamonds in the rough that you just occasionally stumble across when on the road. A cuter town than most, fronted by a large bay with a huge beach and a big flat area for picnicking and camping right behind. Provided gratuitously by the municipality, it has toilets, a freshwater supply, lots of garbage cans and is kept in very good shape – a nice boulevard provides for an easy walk into town for any and all supplies Such “finds” not being too common, needless to say it attracts a big crowd of both local and foreign tourists with campervans. We had one beautiful day there while the sun shone brightly and got some swimming in, but then the wind picked up to levels that were too high to be comfortable. We left, but it’s the kind of place people stay for days and even weeks. Some had.

The next section of the Turkish coast was very developed, sort of a playground for Turkey’s well to do ( and there are lots of them !) but it was a pretty drive and nice break from the long miles of flat nothing further to the east.  One of those places we were keen to revisit was Fethiye/Oludeniz, a real favourite from our first visit in 1989. Of course, we knew it would look nothing like it did back then, and indeed while it has exploded in size, the town, marina, beach, and lagoon remain as pretty as they ever were. In Fethiye, the marina provided a wonderful, safe, flat and convenient location to park up for a couple of nights. Like Bodrum just further along, Fethiye is an extremely popular place for the yachting crowd, and lots of tour operators here offer boat charters out to the nearby islands. It’s an extremely pretty part of the Turkish coast with several Greek islands just a few kilometres away. 

Continuing west, popular Bodrum was our next stop – in addition to revisiting the town we had some service work to be done on the van ( transmission oil/filter/gasket change ) so kind of killed two birds with one stone. Bodrum, too, has changed beyond recognition, and grown enormously but its downtown waterfront area remains lovely, and is delightful just to explore.

Kusadasi is a hugely popular pit stop for all tourists, even the cruise ships stop here, given its proximity to Selcuk and its stunning Ephesus ruins. Tempting as it was to revisit Ephesus ( yes, it’s that impressive ), time was working against us and rather than do a repeat visit we opted instead to visit the Ancient City of Pergamum, just a bit further north, with an en-route stop at the historical Ottoman village of Sirince. Details of each under their respective links but suffice it to say we really enjoyed both – a real joy to have Pergamum almost to ourselves due to a very early start.

Swinging further west there was really only one major attraction on our radar before crossing back to Greece – Canakkale, on the eastern shore of the Dardanelles and its connection to Troy.   While the ruins of Troy are visible, most reviews were less than glowing, complaining that there just isn’t enough left to make it a compelling stop – we’d been badly burned a couple of weeks earlier visiting the much over-hyped Gobeklitepe ruins ( “another hundred years of digging needed”, said one critic, and I think he was underestimating 😊) so did not want to make the same mistake again. Hollywood has come to the rescue of Canakkale in this case – the very Trojan horse featured in the 2004 Brad Pitt epic, “Troy” is now on display right downtown for all to see, probably the city’s biggest attraction along with its majestic waterfront promenade and proximity to the historical Gelibolu peninsula just across the Dardanelles.

Given our plans were now fixed for a trip home over Christmas, all that remained was the drive across to Greece, making our way ultimately down to Athens for our flights home. Still some more of Greece to explore before leaving, stay tuned for that.

Till next week…..