Oh, hello and welcome to our first monthly Fethiye news update of 2018!
It seems a long while since all the festivities of New Year were done and over with and our ‘quiet winters’ are actually mad busy with daily life. That daily life involves beach walks, exercise classes, training for runs, cooking, trying out new places.
Where does the time go?
For 2018, we’re keeping these updates as random as they’ve always been. Any little things we notice going on around town, what we’ve been up to on the blog, sporting updates and foodie updates. The usual collection.
So let’s get started…
Fethiye Recreation Area
Back in our 2017 August news, we said the new Fethiye recreation area had an estimated time frame of 330 days.
Since then, we’ve shown you various photos of muddy piles and rubbly hills. Ahh, well, a lot has changed and things are really taking shape down there, now.
Forbidden Entry – Zoom Lens
Standing on the bridge with zoom lens and you can now see that Fethi Bey (he who our town is named after) has been transferred to his new home in the park.
It must look fantastic for those entering the bay by boat as he’s close to the shore, looking right out across the sea. Curved pathways are also being laid at pretty decent speed.
From the State Hospital side, looking back towards Fethiye, it’s a case of poking the camera through the fence here. The jury is still out on the windmills, for us.
We shall see when all is completed.
However, the half pipes for the roller blading/skateboarding/BMXing kids are in place and a basketball court is going up, too.
We know that at least one of the winding paths is going to be joined on to the running track that already lines the seafront.
We can’t wait for this to be ready! We’re also wondering if one might be a cycle path, too.
Fethiyespor Season – Round 2
In Turkey, the football season is split into two halves.
In mid December, everything comes to a halt and then there’s what seems like a huge break before the second half of the season kicks off.
Fethiyespor’s first match of the second half of the season was away to Hacettepespor (Fethiyespor lost 3-1) so we had to wait until 28th January for the first home match.
Transfer season means Fethiyespor lost ten players but also gained fourteen new ones which means we were basically watching a new team on Sunday afternoon.
A 2-2 draw was a good result seeing as we were down to 9 men!
One player was sent off and we guess there must have been an injured player who had to go off but couldn’t be replaced because we’d used all of our substitutions.
Whatever the case, there were definitely only 9 men on that pitch. We counted numerous times.
Çalış Plays Host To The Winter Cup
And fabulous scenes in Çalış over the last couple of weeks or so.
The Turkish Sailing Federation Winter Cup took place in Çalış this year. Small kids and young people from different sailing clubs around Turkey converged along the beach and the sea was a mass of dancing white sails.
Along the beach, the kids were responsible for assembling their own sails onto the boats, for towing their boats in and out of the water, and for transporting their boats back to their base before washing them down.
Lovely to see.
Barry nearly got taken out by a small child carrying a large sail one morning as he ran along the beach, but all good fun! You can see a few more pics here.
Eating And Drinking Around Fethiye
We’re the same as a lot of other people in January – reining in the spending and trying to live a healthier life.
That’s meant not too much alcohol and not eating out too much.
We did grab a quick gözleme at Denizatı on Sunday before the match because we’d both done our long Sunday run in the morning and were pushed for time.
Apart from that, it’s been the odd couple of drinks and live music here and there at Motto and Cafe Bahane in Çalış.
And, in Fethiye, one or two at Cafe Park Teras. We’ve also been sampling more coffee joints around Fethiye, too.
Watch this space for blog posts – and don’t forget, we have lots of other Fethiye food and drink ideas, too.
Re-opened And Closed
And just to let you know, the guys from El Camino pub and restaurant are back from their winter break and they reopen on Saturday 3rd Feb.
Charcoal Palace – Mangal Saray have also reopened (weekends in winter) following some work they had done to the restaurant.
On the ‘closed’ front, this is a happy temporary closure. Denizatı Restaurant, along the harbour, are closed for around 20 days for a refurb.
Can’t wait to see what that’s going to look like!
In The Kitchen
The 2017-18 winter season in Fethiye has been, and continues to be, really mild.
However, even if it’s felt like winter in name only, we’ve still tucked into our usual winter seasonal produce and played around with some new ones, too.
Cauliflowers are still in their winter prime and, earlier this month, we added a new meal to our list of Turkish recipes.
The Turkish cauliflower stew pictured above, karnabahar yemeği, is a tasty, simple celebration of the cauliflower – and healthy, too!
Cabbages are also in season so we also reshared our etli kapuska cabbage recipe in January.
And what’s a winter without soup? Traditional tarhana soup is so comforting. We’ve also tucked into homemade courgette soup, too, this month.
That’s led nicely into updating and improving our courgette soup recipe.
Still a painfully slow process but, yes, we are still working on making all of our recipes easier to follow.
Locally grown avocados are also in their prime during the height of winter so guacamole and other avocado recipes have been on the menu, too.
Our quiet winter time means more time for watching a little bit of TV. Rick Stein’s recent series of his foodie travels around Mexico has seen our menu going a bit ‘tacos’ of late.
Instagram Fethiye Photo Favourite
Yes, we’ll continue through 2018 with our most liked Fethiye photo of the month on our Instagram account.
All photos on our account are taken by us either with camera or, more often, by phone.
January’s most liked photo was taken along the new part of the harbour.
No special photography day. Just a snap I took as we walked home from Çalış Beach. Guess simple snaps are sometimes the best.
And that just about wraps January up. Just as well, seeing as we’re already into the second month of the year.
Let’s see what the next four weeks treats us to…
Gary Doody
Thursday 15th of March 2018
It would have been nice for turkish windmills being turkey
Turkey's For Life
Saturday 17th of March 2018
Yeah. We'll see what it all looks like when the park's finished.
BacktoBodrum
Saturday 3rd of February 2018
Were there windmills on the front before? I don't remember them.
Turkey's For Life
Wednesday 14th of February 2018
Ha ha, no there were no windmills before and these are the Dutch/British kind, not like the ones on the Greek islands and the Turkish coast. We shall see when all has been finished. :)