Travelling around Turkey
In our usual style, we stayed at three places, an apartment for 5 nights, an all inclusive for 6 nights and a city hotel for 3 nights – we love doing this as it means we can see more of the country and explore a bit but still have a few nights all inclusive for the kids to enjoy. I can organize holidays for clients too in the same style so please let me know!
We flew into Dalaman with Turkish Airlines, which really surprised me in a good way. Their international flights in Economy have a good seat pitch, seat back TVs and a meal service including alcoholic drinks. Amazing for a 3 ½ hour flight and a world away from EasyJet and BA for a really good price! From Dalaman we had a two hour car transfer to Kalkan, a place I have wanted to go to for a long time, and it lived up to my expectations. Kalkan is a fabulous bay side town built into the hills overlooking the Turquoise coast. People often stay in villas but we stayed in a wonderful centrally located apartment hotel called Samira Exclusive Hotel and Apartments https://www.samirahotel.com/
We loved everything about this beautiful town. We were steps from several amazing restaurants and in our five days there we didn’t have a bad meal. The way the town is laid out, there are no or very few hotels with beach access, so there are several beach clubs around Kalkan or a short free boat ride away. We spent two days at two and absolutely loved both. For 150 Lira (around £4) the beach clubs provide loungers and towels and access to their diving platforms, trampolines and whatever other things they have in the sea. The beach clubs we tried all had outstanding, really well priced restaurants and so were the perfect place to spend the whole day.
We also took a boat excursion one day we were there. At the harbour there are several boat companies and most do a similar style tour around the nearby islands. We went with a company called Falcon and had a superb day on a catamaran with around 20 others. For around 40 euros each the tour took us around several snorkelling locations, some beautiful islands, a place for a mud bath and included a superb lunch. Kalkan certainly stole my heart and I know I will be back!
Next stop and we took a car transfer of around an hour back towards Dalaman for our next location. We stayed at Jiva beach, an all inclusive hotel in Calis, close to Fethiye https://jivabeachresort.com/ The rooms at Jiva were amazing, two huge rooms with high ceilings connected by a large airy corridor. The buffet was good, with loads of choice and very good Turkish food.
The beach is gorgeous – pebbly but with lots of comfortable loungers and a great bar with the occasional DJ, especially nice to listen to while relaxing with a sun downer! The entertainment was great with really high quality singers, dancers and performers.
Slight downside is that a la carte is limited to one free one every 7 days. However, the hotel is really good value and you can pay for around 15 Euro each to have extra a la carte meals.
Our final stop was Istanbul – we took the very short one hour flight from Dalaman and arrived in time for some late afternoon sun at our hotel. We stayed at Hilton Bosphorus which we loved! https://www.hilton.com/en/hotels/isthitw-hilton-istanbul-bosphorus/
It had an old world glamour about it and it was a huge resort style Oasis in the heart of Istanbul new side. The fact we had a pool really was lovely as after a full days sightseeing, we could jump into the beautiful pool and cool off and have a cold drink at the pool side bar. Istanbul is a fabulous, historical but cosmopolitan and beautiful city.
We visited the Hagia Sophia and Grand Bazaar as well as the Spice Market and Taksim Square, walking for miles and using the brilliant tram system, including the world’s second oldest underground, the ‘Tunel’
I would highly recommend spending a few nights in Istanbul as part of a Turkey holiday, I can incorporate this into your trip using free stopovers on Turkish Airlines. A very good value way to include a trip to this beautiful city! All in all Turkey surprised us, we loved exploring the coastal towns and Istanbul - it really felt like a bit of an adventure, rather than the average short haul holiday. You can’t fault the food and the weather either. All in all a great place for a multi centre trip. Of course you can also fly and flop, but I think you’d be missing out on the marvelous experience of seeing a bit of Turkey outside of the resorts.