August News – Hot ‘n’ Happy Hectic

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Welcome to another roundup of news from life in Fethiye – the month that was August!

And looking back, it’s been a long few weeks.

Throughout the month, if anything catches my eye that I think might be useful for these articles, I make a note of them.

Looking at the list before me, now, it feels like some of these occurrences took place an age ago; not just over the last few weeks…

It’s The Weather, You See

So let’s put that down the Fethiye weather throughout August.

If much of July was all about the 40 degrees (plus heatwave) and dry heat, August was all about the humidity!

Whilst the weather forecasts were displaying a cooling of temperatures, we had Real Feel temps of 40 plus because the humidity levels were so high.

Visibility low. Energy levels well and truly sapped.

As I type, however, the weather gods are bang on cue and appear to have flipped that September switch.

Hot sunshine paired with September breezes. And a significant drop in humidity. Bliss!

The oven, hob and recipe books are once more looking like they want to return to being a part of our daily home life…

New Bridge Colour

In July, we told you about the new walkway over the bridge in Çalış where the Calış water taxis and the day trip boats leave from.

Well, work didn’t stop there.

If you know the very steep pedestrian bridge near the fishermen’s cooperative, you’ll know it was green and numerous bits of wood were missing.

The green bridge is now a white bridge. And new wooden panels have been laid, too.

That bridge will never be perfect – the wood always breaks at the top – but it’s looking a lot better than it did. And it’s a tad safer, too.

These two bridge jobs have actually just been drops in the ocean when it comes to infrastructure works, however.

There’s been a huge project replacing the roads, pavements and roundabout around the state hospital and Duck Island area.

And all of that is still ongoing…

As with much of life here, the timing of this work has not been without controversy. Lots of people have been questioning whether it needed to be done at the height of the tourist season.

But, we are where we are. And we’re coming out the other side, slowly, with that work well on the way to completion.

Wider pavements – complete with ridged walkway for the visually impaired – and smoother roads for those of us that walk, ride and drive around that area regularly.

Busy Belediye

Obviously, the belediye (local council) is always busy doing what local councils do.

As well as the paths and roads, at the beginning of the month, they served up free aşure to anybody who wanted some.

They also launched a new emergency response boat system.

This means that anyone who encounters problems whilst out on the seas of the Fethiye area can now be reached quickly by the boats. And, hopefully, helped to safety.

Children’s play parks and outdoor facilities like basketball courts also continue to be built in the various neighbourhoods around the area.

We also told you in last month’s news update about the new council run public beach in Çalış – Çalış Halk Plajı.

The official opening day for this was on August 14th.

We had a walk down there a few mornings ago, just to have a quick look at the set up.

We can tell you that there’s loads of space & lots of beds and umbrellas. But also lots of open beach for those who just want to lay towels on the beach.

The cafe area was already pretty full when we arrived – people having breakfast before their beach session.

Busy Us

And, as for us, we’ve been very busy, too.

Usually, when the month is so hectic, it flies by. This time, however, cramming so much into a few weeks seems to have made time stand still.

No complaints from us on that score. The slower the better for us.

Summer 2023 has definitely been our busiest year since pre-pandemic for friends coming over on holiday. And for that, we’re grateful!

Day Trips

In August, some friends were over with their son. They’re definitely not people for lazing around in the sun, so we were out and about all the time.

Kayaköy

We joined them for a day in Kayaköy and later a barbecue at Cin Bal.

The Traditional Tour

On another day, we shared costs and hired a car for the day.

We took ourselves off to the Xanthos Valley area to clamber around the ruins of Tlos before stopping off at Yakapark Restaurant.

And then, of course it was onwards to Saklıkent Gorge.

We’d been here with friends just a few weeks previously. So we sat outside along the river whilst our friends took their son into the gorge.

Very entertaining watching the river rafters passing by – some more confidently than others.

After that, as if we weren’t tired enough, it was onwards to Gizlikent Waterfall.

We were all impressed with Gizlikent. Lots of activities to take part in.

We’ve published our articles about all of those places. You can access them by clicking the links above.

Long Weekend Away

August is also our anniversary. So we decided to go away for a few days…

First thought was to get the catamaran from Fethiye to Rhodes to have a long weekend in Rhodes Town.

Then, not sure how we arrived at this, but we suddenly decided to continue our explorations of the Turkey’s Aegean coast.

So the Çeşme Peninsula ended up being our destination.

Obviously, we have blog posts en route from that trip. But we had a great time, and yet again, the geography and differing landscapes of this country have amazed us.

In The Kitchen

Pretty much the same news as last month, really…

Nothing new to add to our collection of Turkish recipes because of the heat. We stick to what we know.

And at this time of year, that’s anything that keeps us cool.

Kısır has probably been the winner in the popularity stakes this summer. And no cooker involved.

For whatever reason – maybe the cold spring and the hot summer – barbunya (borlotti beans) have been a bit thin on the ground at the local markets this season.

But, as soon as we did spot some, we made a big bowl of barbunya pilaki.

Chicken liver pate and smoked trout pate also got us through a few days – easy spreads for toast and crusty bread.

As we said above, the kitchen is starting to look a bit more inviting again. So let’s see what happens in September…

Out & About

As it’s been a crazy busy month, we’ve been dipping in and out of our usual haunts.

A couple of errands to run around town a few days ago and nothing in for lunch. So, instead, we had a lovely lunch at Paşa Fırın.

We’re not the type to go out for a coffee. But, if you know us, you know we love a Greek frappe.

Aside from the froth, a Paşa Fırın iced latte just about does the trick for us. Soooo refreshing on a hot day.

And, just for a change of scenery, we took ourselves off to Mekan in Koca Çalış, recently too.

Mekan is on our list of Fethiye beaches. There’s no airs and graces about this beach but it reminds us of when we first moved here.

Pleasant, simple. And a lovely afternoon.

Fethiyespor

A bit of method to the lateness of this month’s news – we thought we might as well wait to see how Fethiyespor did in their first match of the season.

It’s just ended in a 0-0 draw, away to İnegöl Spor.

Our Fethiyespor club post has been updated and Barry has sorted out the fixtures and current league standings.

And we’re off and running for another season.

In Other News

Our little section of news bits ‘n’ bobs that aren’t necessarily Fethiye-related but that have jumped out at us over the last few weeks…

Theatre Restoration

If you follow the blog regularly, you’ll know the Tlos ruins have been a bit of a feature of our summer this year.

We noticed that work was ongoing at the ancient theatre. And it was announced in August that it is being restored with an aimed completion date of 2025.

After that, the theatre will be used for live performances. Another ancient theatre being brought back to life.

Good Caretta Caretta News

In August, DEKAMER announced a record number of hatchlings at Iztuzu Beach (Turtle Beach) near Dalyan.

In June, we took friends to visit the DEKAMER turtle rehabilitation centre.

It was lovely to be able to message those friends to tell them that eight of the turtles had been successfully treated and released back into the sea.

The Towel Movement

What a fast moving story this one is!

We first read about the ‘Towel Movement’ in Greece with locals in Mykonos tired of businesses closing off beaches (illegally) to those without the funds to pay.

They decided to take action by taking their towels to those beaches and using the beach.

The news from here is that the locals of Çeşme then followed suit.

And we’ve also seen on Instagram that locals in Datça are carrying out a similar campaign: #ŞezlongsuzDatça (Datça without sun loungers).

And, even more recently, a movement in Fethiye has also formed: Kıyılar Halkındır (The Coast Is For The Public / For All).

It is enshrined in the Turkish constitution that the beaches and coasts belong to all and should be accessible to everyone.

It remains to be seen whether this movement will grow and make itself heard around the country.

We have no problem with beach clubs and the facilities they have on offer. But we do strongly believe that those businesses need to allow people to enter to swim and place their towels to use empty beach spaces.

You could write a full thesis on this topic when you start thinking about it more carefully.

But this is our monthly news roundup. Neither the place nor the space…

Into September…

We’re already here, aren’t we?

We’ve got more friends arriving this month. They’re staying in Ölüdeniz so we’ll no doubt be over that way at some point this month.

And lots of other things will take place, won’t they. They always do.

Let’s see…

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