Events In The Fethiye Region - Yeşil Üzümlü Mushroom Festival

Just a short ride from Fethiye - about 12 kilometres I think - is the beautiful village of Üzümlü and yesterday was the last day of the Üzümlü mushroom festival so we decided to go up there to see what it was all about. There were quite a few of us and it ended up being a full and eventful day. A walk around the stalls in the square first of all (Üzümlü is famous for silk weaving so there were lots of fabrics for sale), then a convoy up to the ruins of Cadianda and then back down to the village for the concert at the end.

I mentioned the other day that it was morel mushroom season at the moment and they were really expensive on the market - 50 lira a kilo - and I haven't seen any since. Well, I found out why yesterday. While we've been basking in the unseasonably warm and dry weather, this has been a drought for the mushrooms and so there aren't many morels about this year. Apart from that, these are the only mushrooms I saw. I think yesterday's part of the festival must be more about getting people together to have a good time.

Cadianda was amazing but I'm going to do my post on that tomorrow so I'll leave that for now.

The concert at night was started by Grup Shadow who play at Deep Blue Bar sometimes. They got us all dancing around a little - and then someone bought the first couple of litres of homemade wine, found some plastic cups from somewhere and plonked them on the table! Slippery slope. As there were twelve of us, a couple of litres of wine didn't last too long. It was very moreish and soon warmed up the shivery ones amongst us.

The man selling the wine was doing an absolute roaring trade. It was all in Fanta, Coke and mineral water bottles and the mineral water bottles were 5 litre ones. No point messing about then. As there were twelve of us, a 5 litre bottle soon appeared on the table and it was flowing very well. So well that a little while later, we were in the queue at the stall for another 5 litre bottle. We managed to drink the lot before leaving and I don't envy any of our friends who had to get up for work this morning. I woke up about 8 feeling very queasy and everyone had their fair share of the red stuff last night. All really good fun and a lovely atmosphere though so it's a small price to pay isn't it?

So, thoughts on the Üzümlü Mushroom Festival. Well, I've no idea what goes on on the first two days. Possibly a bit of mushroom hunting. Day three definitely had a 'festival' atmosphere, well supported, lots of t-shirts with mushrooms on...and of course, lovely homemade wine. Think I might be pencilling it in on my calendar for next year and you never know, we might even see some mushrooms.