Share on social media

All good things just come to an end. To finish my holiday, I opted to stay in a 4 star, all in hotel in Fethiye, instead of the standard hotel or apartment I’d usually choose.

With an all in you get all your meals provided. With this particular hotel, you get all the drinks also and any snacks you may wish to satiate yourself with in between. This, I thought, made it worth the €140 they were asking (reduced from €240). https://maps.app.goo.gl/11eEsmxLkrSzPWzy8

It came with great reviews, and I really wasn’t seeing a lot more in Fethiye that was catching my eye.

The hotel is located right on the promenade around 4km out from what you might call the town centre.

The sea was very calm when I woke up in the morning.

It was so calm and inviting, I went for a swim for around half an hour. After that, I had an appointment to use the spa facilities. Just the sauna and steam room. The steam room turned out to just be the Turkish bath which was colder than my bedroom. So I just had a quick sauna for 30 minutes.

After this, I went to the pool area. The sun was moving higher in the sky, above the hotel buildings and it was possible to get some sunbathing done. The bar was also open, and as it moved toward lunch time, I had a few drinks, free of course. A bottle of miller, a Pina colada and something called an Alexander cocktail, which I’d not tried before.

At 12pm, they turned the poolside music off as they set up lunch service which ran from 12 until 2. I went and had a little wash, then took advantage of this.

It was pretty spectacular. Especially the cold foodstuffs. Lots and lots of choice, all fresh. Lots of different dishes of different nationalities. I had two lots, one of dishes that caught my eye and the second of stuff I wasn’t sure about. Also a glass of champagne. Didn’t really have any of the cooked stuff, although that looked nice also.

Here’s a picture of the promenade.

Dalyan is better than Fethiye

This is a fact, at least from a tourist point of view. Although I could have stayed in Dalyan, I wanted to visit Saklikent Gorge, which is a bus journey from Fethiye.

Here’s some snap shots from the trip.

As you can see, the hills are pretty shocking. What goes up must come down… And the journey was not a long one, only about 60km. With the traffic not heavy, all in all, it was a pleasant journey.

I stopped for a cold drink and took this picture. They had some viewing cameras where you could insert a coin and get a birds eye view across the whole bay. By the time I left, there were a few people doing this.

Saklikent Gorge

This is somewhere I visited many years ago. I seemed to have fond memories of it.

It’s basically a carved out ravine which you walk along the bottom of. Along it’s base is this muddy river. It is one of the deepest in Europe.

I really didn’t think much to it.

The last time, it was much more natural, with dragonflies and birds flying around. Now it just seems like a dirty river with a load of tourists. The gorge is impressive, no doubt in it’s scale.

If I were asked, I’d say you’d be better visiting the range river in Akyaka. Maybe both, but this place is a tourist trap, whereas Akyaka is a beautiful place, as well as being a tourist trap. Luckily I didn’t fork out to pay for a taxi to the gorge, as the tourist guide recommends. I caught the bus and it cost £3 rather than £30.

This ended up taking the majority of the day and I had about 2 hours to hang around to wait for the bus by the time I returned.

The bus was taking me from Fethiye to Istanbul. It took around 12 hours and cost around £30.

It was an overnight bus and we arrived in Istanbul at around 10am.

Istanbul Karakoy

This time I’m staying in a neighborhood called Karakoy. It’s where posh hotels like the Marriott and some other boutique type operations have set up. It’s just on the other side of the river. Next to the bridge. There are many restaurants and a few bars. It’s kind of the favoured tourist spot.

After dropping the bike off at the hotel and had a wash and a little rest, it was time to go and pick the bike flight-bag up and do a little bit of souvenir shopping in the bazaar.

This pictured is the harbour side.

By the time I’d got my shopping and bike bag picked up, it was getting late.

Only a few hours until I catch my plane, I have to leave the hotel at 6am.

The main thing I have to is pack the bike into the bag make sure it’s all secure as well as pack my other stuff up, making sure I have access to the bits and pieces I might need access to in the airport or in flight.

Istanbul airport

The prices are truly shocking. For example, 4 peroni size 250ml bottles of lager €10 (duty free), reduced from €12. Went into McDonalds, to check the prices in there. Standard product. Standard prices, so I thought. Surprise! McDonald big Mac. No fries, no drink, just one burger 520tl.

520tl is £13. That’s at today’s exchange rate. £13 for one big Mac burger.

Felt happy I had some biking snacks left in my bag which I sat and ate.

Who pays £13 for a burger? Or €12 for 2 pints of standard lager?

As I looked around and absorbed this information whilst eating my peanuts and writing reviews. I could only imagine there is one main recipient of this excessive charging of tourists.

And here we will leave it on my final post on what turned out to be the Hellenistic cycling tour. Turkey is a big country with a lot of hills.

Until next time.