Welcome to this month’s random news from daily life in Fethiye. All those little goings on that don’t merit their own blog post.
Little happenings and repeat visits to places – they get mentions on social media but would go missed on the blog if it wasn’t for this section.
And it’s been super busy.
We’ve been busy in the kitchen and we’ve been busy out and about, too, so let’s make a start.
Fethiye Harbour News
Starting off with our favourite topic, as usual.
What are we going to do with ourselves when all of this is complete, eh?
We’ve been photographing the harbour developments since 2008, documenting the creation of Duck Island and the building of Phase 3, including the marina.
Of course, we were around for Phase 2, as well. Wow, a lot of changes!
Anyway, back to right now. Work continues on a daily basis on the final section of Fethiye harbour. And last month, we showed you the pretty waterways that are starting to take shape.
These waterways are now more plentiful, winding and weaving throughout this vast area. Many of them have the decorative stone borders in place, too.
There’s still a long way to go, as you can see. We walk along here most days – this photo was taken on the 28th June at sunset.
There’s never any more than four or five dumper trucks and a couple of diggers but they’re plodding on, building dusty soily hills, flattening areas, building dusty soily hills and digging the waterways.
And we’ll keep plodding through and taking photos…
A Little Bayram Tourism Boost
As the end of Ramazan approached, the three day Ramazan Bayramı festival arrived and, with it, a bit of welcome domestic tourism for Fethiye.
We took ourselves off to Zentara Beach in Koca Çalış for a couple of the days.
Well, the weather in Fethiye has been so hot and you’re just always guaranteed a cooling breeze around Çalış and Koca Çalış.
Ramazan Bayramı is celebrated with all things sugary so, as well as cooling in the shade of Zentara, we also shared our post that celebrates a few traditional Turkish desserts.
And More Beach Life With Help Beach & Yacht Club
Yeah, guess our biggest news of June was going off to take a little peek at Fethiye beach scene’s latest offering, Help Beach & Yacht Club.
We loved it and went back again the following week. Clear water, chilled atmosphere, forest setting.
We’ll not repeat ourselves because we’ve already written about Help Beach but, in that article, we did say things would probably change pretty quickly as it’s a brand new business and they were still setting up systems.
Well, the article has been updated twice since we wrote it – we like to keep things current. So, if you’re thinking of heading there soon, have a quick look at the article.
There are links on there if you want to message them about anything before you head off.
***Another update April 2024*** Help Beach announced that they are sadly closing the business. Let’s see what takes its place at Küçük Boncuklu bay…
Eating & Drinking Fethiye
Most of the places on our list of places to eat and drink around Fethiye are places that we go to often.
It might be just to bob in for a coffee, a quick beer or two, or it could be a meal for a special occasion. It’s been a tad busy on that front, this month.
Anyway, we’re not going to mention on the blog every time we’ve been to one of the old faithfuls, but, you see, the thing is, this list has been on the blog for a while now.
Which means some of the bars have been on there for a long time, too. And these bars change over those years.
We’ve Brought Cafe Park Teras Into 2017
Well, the views from Cafe Park Teras are always going to be amazing. But this month, we also showed you the interior as it is today. Oh, and some of the drinks we like there, too.
Hey, we did say we like to keep things current. Eek, well, we try to, anyway.
We were at the point where we just couldn’t point anyone to our Cafe Park Teras blog post – the bar was unrecognisable! Anyway, all sorted now!
Çarıklı Et Restaurant Is Still A Favourite
June is the month of Barry’s mum’s birthday so it was her pick of where to go for something to eat.
Oh, we’ve got loads of places to write about that she, and we, love. And we thought she’d go for one of those places.
But no. “Let’s try something new,” she said.
Well, you know we’re no strangers to Çarıklı Et Restaurant along Fethiye harbour. A true meat lover’s haven.
Barry’s mum loves meze but doesn’t love red meat. She opted for a chicken wrap. Very well packed!
So well packed, she ate half of it and asked for a packet for the other half so she could take it home! Two meals from one.
Well, as you can see, we got a bit (over) excited with the meze, as usual! Typical.
By the time we’d eaten that with hot bazlama bread and olives – and then the homemade potato crisps arrived ‘for the table’ – oh yeah, I was delighted to be faced with my wondrous wedge of fillet steak covered in creamy, peppery mushroom sauce.
This was a ‘late lunch’ and no evening meal or snack was required!
Çarıklı Et Restaurant is a newbie, really. Only 7 or 8 months old. But we’ve eaten there a few times (obviously not fillet steak, all the time).
Their hot meat and offal meze dishes are yummy, as are their burgers. And it’s on the harbour. And it’s not expensive. Great stuff.
Posh meal or snack joint – and a breakfast, too.
Just a pointer; if you want meze like the plates above, they’re not on the menu as they change all the time. Take yourself inside and order them from the fridges.
Mmm, as good meze should be.
A Quick Lighthouse Pide
June was also the month where, for whatever reason, we were in a rush one day.
We were along Çalış Beach and needed a quick snack. We hadn’t been for a while so we ducked into Lighthouse Restaurant for a pide.
We’d spotted that the pide chef was still the same each time we walked by so we were pretty confident the pide wouldn’t disappoint. And it didn’t. We all need reliable pide pit stops in our lives.
Daily life sees us bobbing in and out of all sorts of places but we’ll be here all day if we go through them all. Just know that we do try and keep our little collections up to date as best we can.
At Home In The Kitchen
Wow, we’ve been so busy in the kitchen, too, throughout June.
Usually, our summers are packed with friends and family coming over to visit from the UK. That’s all gone a bit crowded now as they’ve gradually been drawn towards April/May and October visits.
That means this summer is relatively quiet for us.
More time to play in the kitchen!
New Creations
Let’s start with the new recipes we’ve done.
It got a bit ‘meaty’ in June. We were still in the month of Ramazan and were keen not to waste our leftover Ramazan pide bread.
We know Turkish families come up with all sorts of creations for their leftover bread so we decided to experiment, too.
So we made a traditional et sote (sauted beef) and served it on top of bite-sized pieces of toasted bread.
Spurred on by our little bread and meat theme, we then decided to make our own Iskender Kebab at home.
Back to our local butcher (who, incidentally, is Çarıklı Et – they of restaurant of the same name) in the fish and vegetable market where he chose and thinly sliced the right cut of meat for us.
Anyway, next time we have friends round for food, might treat them to our little Iskender efforts. It was good!
Old Faithful Creations
The people of Britain had a little bit of a summer in June. It seemed a bit split between our friends – some whooping for joy and others moaning about the heat.
Guess it depends on your line of work – who wants to be sat in an office when you can be playing in the sunshine?
Anyway, the temps in Fethiye were also on the up so we shared some of our favourite meze for barbecue season.
And it’s been a long time coming this one: in our quest to have our Turkish recipe articles neat and tidy, we’re still plodding through them, one at a time.
Our Antalya style piyaz recipe is now all sorted, complete with the tale of why we love this dish so much.
And the photo above? That’s our Turkish green lentil salad recipe.
And this, the last week of June, has seen a steady supply of it in the fridge. We ended the month with super high temps and this salad is so refreshing and light but keeps you fuelled for the day, too.
We can’t get enough of it at the moment.
And right after this article is finished, it’s straight back to the kitchen to make some barbunya pilaki. The first batch of summer 2017.
Beans were podded last night and are awaiting their fate. Can’t wait!
“Thank You.” No, Thank YOU
And we can’t not mention this, in this month’s news.
We got a lovely message from a reader who comments on our Facebook page a lot. She told us she was coming out to stay at Yacht Classic Hotel as usual and had a Turkish cookery book that she would like to go to a good home.
Would we like it?
We do this blog purely because we love doing it.
I don’t even want to call it a labour of love because ‘labour’ has connotations of hard work. We do work very hard on it but that’s because we want to.
So when someone messages us and considers we would be a good home for their book and it’s left for us with a ‘Thank you’ card to boot, well, that’s just lovely and makes blogging that bit more worthwhile!
So, a big thank you to that lady. You know who you are!
Incidentally, the book is one we have wanted for some time. Respected chef and photographer, Leanne Kitchen, takes you on a photographic and culinary journey around Turkey and produces her own take on some traditional recipes.
We’re now the happy owners of ‘Turkey – Recipes And Tales From The Road.’
We’ve already leafed through the pages a few times and will be testing some of the recipes, soon.
Instagram June Photo Favourite
And finally – it’s Instagram time.
Our most liked Fethiye photo of June. And this photo won hands down. Back to Help Beach again for this one.
Well, if you’re going to sit down for a spot of lunch, there are worse views than this one from the dining area of Help aren’t there?
Hmm, think we ought to head back there soon. In this heat, the sea is looking very tempting!
Okay, let’s see what the Fethiye July has in store for us…
BacktoBodrum
Tuesday 4th of July 2017
All sounds amazing. I really must make time to follow all your suggestions. (When it's a bit cooler)
Turkey's For Life
Thursday 6th of July 2017
It was definitely a busy month, BacktoBodrum! :) Yeah, we seem to get out and about a lot don't we. Looking like it's gonna be a while before we're enjoying cooler weather. :)