News From Fethiye – May & June

Well, hello! If you follow our articles regularly, you might be wondering where we’ve been. We’ve not disappeared. Far from it.

Let’s have some long overdue news from Fethiye…

All New

You’re reading this article on our brand new blog layout, with our brand new blog logo. And, as with any undertaking like this, it’s been a lot of work – and we’ve still got lots to do.

But here we are, doing a lot of learning as we go along. Every day’s a school day and all that. We hope you like the new look, anyway. We’re over 10 years old, now. It was time to ‘grow up’ a bit.

The Çalış Beach Project

We didn’t think we’d still be writing about this at the end of June since the original projected completion date was mid-April.

Work grinds on, however. They’re getting there…

It’s certainly a project that has divided opinion. Both locally and amongst the many regular visitors to Çalış who are watching progress from afar via various social media channels.

For our part, we’re sharing updates on our Instagram Stories, adding a couple of photos each time we’re down there. If you follow us on Instagram, we’ve got a dedicated Highlights section showing progress.

We love the smooth, speckled wall topping and the matching strip down the centre of the promenade even though this has definitely added to the time taken towards completion.

The main area of debate has been the palm trees that previously lined the beach wall. These have now been replaced and different trees are currently being planted.

We have no official confirmation of what these trees are but general chatter seems to agree that they are Benjamin trees.

There’s still lots of cleaning up to be done – they were working on this yesterday – so we’re still struggling to get a real picture of how it will look everything is complete. Time will tell…

Time To Run – Or Walk

Compared to the myriad of construction/upgrade projects currently underway in Fethiye, the re-laying of the running track that follows the coastline appears to be a relatively small undertaking.

But it’s an undertaking that has been much-anticipated (work was originally scheduled to begin last November) and much-appreciated by myself since I use it on an almost daily basis.

Barry runs for miles but takes himself off around Çalış or Fethiye centre. I prefer to trundle along the track and slightly beyond.

For a whole week, work had ground to a halt at the halfway point so we’re still not at a stage where we can christen it by running the full length. As I type, however, the poor workmen are once more on with their task – in almost 40 degrees heat!

If you know this stretch, the newly re-laid section is the original 1.9 kilometres that begins at the back of Boğaziçi Restaurant and goes as far as the bridge, just before Şehit Fethi Bey Parkı.

The track is far from practical, situated where it is. Because it runs along the rear of the harbourside restaurants, it is forced to endure high heels, bikes, mopeds, cars, delivery lorries, construction equipment – and those of us trudging up and down it at various times of day, trying to keep fit.

So, it won’t be long before the beloved track isn’t looking so shiny and new. But it will be no less loved by myself. And, no doubt, many others in town.

Lifting Of Restrictions

Where where we up to the last time we did a news article? Difficult to keep up! A look back to our April news roundup tells us we had just gone back into another lockdown.

That was a 17 day lockdown and then places partially reopened. We had evening curfews still in place as well as all day on Sundays and restaurants etc had to close by 9pm.

As is becoming (unwanted) tradition by now, we again did the rounds of some of our favourite places. A lunch at Gustorante, where my rather large Mexican burger caused a bit of a ‘wow’ when I shared it on my Facebook profile.

We took a stroll to Fethiye centre for lunch and drinks at Büyük Ev and a catch up at Cafe Park Teras and Deep Blue.

And at Denizatı, we went the seafood route and ordered a couple of seafood meze dishes. Grilled calamari and fried mussels along with some homemade potato wedges. Perfect!

On July 1st, aside from the wearing of masks, we once more come out of all restrictions. Let’s see how we go…

(Whenever we mention our regular haunts, Bahane on Çalış Beach is usually a part of that list. Unfortunately, since our last news update, they were asked to vacate the premises they were operating from. A newly-located Bahane is in the pipeline…)

In The Kitchen

We’re in the midst of a heatwave at the moment so life is all about salads, dips and any other cold foods.

Last night’s meal was cold chicken wings served with a refreshing cacık and shepherd’s salad. It’s definitely the time for grazing.

Because we’ve been so busy doing the redesign on the blog, we’ve not been able to post for a while. But we’ve got two brand new recipes for you that we can now add to our Turkish recipes collection. Look out for those coming soon…

The arrival of all the spring and summer fruits and vegetables on the market has meant the Friday village market has been such a pleasure to visit. We’ve been buying all sorts and experimenting with different recipes.

It was our Friday market visits that spurred us into action to bring our love of seasonal food all into one place with our huge article about seasonal eating in southwest Turkey.

Beans

The foodie discovery of spring was definitely our broad bean salads. We posted our broad bean and orzo salad recipe and we also have another one to add to that article.

As the summer has progressed, broad beans have moved over to make way for barbunya (borlotti beans) so barbunya pilaki has been on our hot weather menu, too.

But the current staple – we just love a roasted green bean and feta salad on a hot day. When the appetite isn’t playing nicely, this seems to be the salad we can both still enjoy.

And Now, We Travel!

For 16 months, we have been firmly rooted in Fethiye. At first, we didn’t want to use public transport. And my Turkish driving licence application took an absolute age to process because the DVLA in the UK were so behind due to Coronavirus restrictions.

And then various lockdowns and whatever restrictions were in place here meant that, once I did have my licence, the sort of break we like to enjoy just wouldn’t have been enjoyable.

So, we’ve bided our time. And last week, for the first time in over a year, we hired a car and took ourselves off for a few days. At last!

We’ve been able to add considerably to our recipes collection over the last 16 months and now, after all this time, we’ve also got some new travel stories to tell, too.

Those stories will be from the Bozburun Peninsula – in particular, Selimiye.

We really hope, next time we’re doing a news update at the end of July, we are still celebrating our freedom from restrictions and more travel options are being made available to us all…

Caretta Caretta

And just to finish off with some random good news: The bay in Fethiye at the moment is abundant with endangered sea turtles!

It’s nesting season so they could be here to lay their eggs along Çalış Beach. We counted around 20 caretta caretta turtles whilst walking along the harbour a couple of days ago. So lovely to see!

And that just wraps everything up for now. Time to get to get to grips with this new-look blog and share some new articles with you!

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