Time out in Bodrum

Ron's been busy planning our next major excursion, to Eastern Europe and thereabouts, for some time, and we didn't think we needed much more travelling than that. But things have been getting a little noisy in Üçyol recently with the natural gas coming to this part of the city, and it has been unreasonably hot. We needed a break from the jackhammers and the sweat. So I went onto Trip Advisor and looked for an inexpensive, quiet hotel near Bodrum.
Bodrum had never been high on our to-see list. It's supposed to be a noisy tourist trap. But it's a part of Turkey many people see and we thought we should, too.

And it was a delightful surprise.

The summer season doesn't really start here for another week, and Bodrum was only maybe 1/4 full of visitors - many of them Turkish. And our hotel wasn't in the town but along the coast 20 km or so in a quiet little village. The Sunny Garden Nilufer is quite a large place, but there were only maybe a dozen guests there in this quiet part of the season. And what a pleasant group of people they were! All English except for us and two Irish girls (who immediately captured the heart of the barman). We enjoyed the company of all the other guests and ended up hanging around the breakfast or dinner table far later than we'd planned.

Usually I'm upset to see rampant tourist developments taking over an area, but the Bodrum peninsula is different. For whatever reason the land seems barren and desolate - recently volcanic, probably, and very dry and rocky. There's not much agriculture possible, and fishing isn't providing a very good living these days either. It looks like tourism is the best possible use of the land. And the sea is so warm and clear, and the people so warm and hospitable - it's a perfect place to holiday. We were surprised, too, to see how much real Turkish life still goes on around there. A tourist with eyes to see can learn quite a bit about Turkey hanging out here. It's not a bad place at all. And places like this give young Turks a reason to learn English - many of the people you meet there are able to make a good effort in at least a couple of European languages, which is not normal in Turkey. I suspect anyone who manages to learn a bit of English heads there to work for the summer. Maybe that's why you can't find English speakers in Izmir.

Anyway, it was worth doing and we'd recommend the Sunny Garden Nilufer to anyone. Now we're back among the jackhammers of Izmir looking forward to the peace and quiet of Vienna in a couple of days.