A crazy busy September has whizzed by. So it’s time for our monthly news roundup from life in Fethiye.
Is It Autumn Yet?
Dates are irrelevant. We’re talking weather, here.
And as I type, the Fethiye weather has thankfully cooled to lovely pleasant temperatures. Temperatures more suited to this time of year.
Just a few days ago, lots of us were wondering if summer was ever going to end, as yet another heatwave came along, giving us temperatures more akin to early August.
But we have a few storms forecast for the coming days. And we think we’re safe in saying autumn is finally upon us.
Out & About
We usually have this little section a bit further down the article. But, as we said, the month has whizzed by.
Friends from the UK over on holiday means lots of playing out. And a bit of eating out, even when we haven’t been with them.
A sizable selection of Fethiye’s bars and restaurants have been frequented!
That’s because the food shopping gets neglected!
You gaze into the sad-looking fridge. Grabbing some food elsewhere suddenly seems more appealing.
Both with friends and without, we’ve been to…
Nefis Kordon for a yummy kuşbaşılı pide. That also prompted us to update that article seeing as they gave the place a facelift right after we wrote the initial article.
For the first time since the pandemic, we treated ourselves to a takeaway fish and chips from Charcoal Palace in Çalış.
As our review of the restaurant says, this place is our guilty pleasure!
Great to tuck into at home after we’d watched the Benyamin Sönmez Festival performance at the entrance to Çalış Beach.
Also along the beach, Mexican pizza at Calisto has been on the menu. As has panko scampi at Lukka!
In Fethiye centre, we’ve had drinks at Deep Blue in Paspatur and enjoyed the fabulous views from both Cafe Park Teras and El Camino.
And a bit of Hatay cuisine at Mozaik Bahçe thrown in for good measure.
Slightly further afield, a bit of blast from the past for us. A lovely afternoon spent at the Olive Garden in Kabak.
We’ll be updating our articles on the Olive Garden and Mozaik Bahçe in due course!
Out For A Wander
Again, with friends here to visit, it gets us out and about around the area.
This time, we kept it very local.
Our friends’ daughters wanted to get up close to the Fethiye rock tombs.
So we took them for a wander up to there. And then made a circular loop, walking along Aşıklar Tepesi and taking in the views along the route.
Events Galore
As soon as the weather starts to cool a little, Fethiye springs into action with local events.
So many were there in September, we could barely keep up with proceedings.
Most recently, we had the Sporfest Fethiye Halkoyunları Festivali featuring folk dancers from the local area and also different countries.
The festival also features races such as a Gran Fondo. And open water swimming at Ölüdeniz.
At the beginning of the month, it was the Muğla ZurnaZen Festival, featuring musicians and singers celebrating the traditional Turkish woodwind instrument, the Zurna.
Midway through the month, we had the annual Benyamin Sönmez Classical Music Festival which had performances in the ancient Telmessos Theatre and sunset performances at Çalış Beach and Göcek.
And then we also had the inaugural Fethiye Gastronomi, Kültür ve Dostluk Festivali.
A great idea. And a festival that we hope continues to grow in the future.
The name of the festival in English is the Fethiye Gastronomy, Culture & Friendship Festival.
The day and evening featured Turkish and Greek chefs cooking and sharing their cuisine whilst folk dancers entertained the crowds.
As well as their Turkish counterparts, officials and media representatives from the Greek islands of Rhodes and Symi also attended.
There was a great turnout.
It looked like interest might have been greater than expected. So we’re hopeful for an even bigger event next year.
The motto for the event:
Bir deniz, iki yaka, kol kola – One sea, two sides, arm in arm.
A short video here that gives a bit of a feel for the day.
And, in October, we also have the Fethiye Race For Life (Yaşam İçin Yarış) on 15th October coming up as well as the International Ölüdeniz air Games on 18th-22nd October.
Most of these events – with links to relevant details – appear on our Fethiye events calendar.
So keep an eye on that if you want to know what’s going on whilst you’re in the area.
Fethiyespor
Dare we even mention them?
Clearly not the start to the season the club were hoping for!
A 2-1 away loss at the weekend. Not pretty!
If you are here, head to a home match to give the team some much needed support.
Hopefully, we’ll have brighter news for you at the end of this month!
On The Blog
Being out and about with friends means time to sit down and edit photos or construct sentences is very limited.
A new addition is our guide to the Çeşme Peninsula where we visited in August.
A beautiful area of the country.
That doesn’t mean that article is the only work we’ve done on the blog over the last few weeks.
Lots of Turkish recipe improvements with more clear instructions, better photos and any tweaks to the actual recipe we might have made.
Updates to articles about the ever changing food and drink scene around these parts.
There’s always something going on.
In The Kitchen
Can’t say September was the month where we launched ourselves back into the kitchen with gusto.
But we have – thankfully – started to spend more time in there, cooking again as the weather has started to cool.
For seasonal food, September is the start of pickling season. And the local markets and supermarkets are brimming with ‘turşuluk’ vegetables (veggies for pickling).
We’ll be buying ours soon and making our annual huge jar of Turkish pickled vegetables (turşu).
Our smaller jars are constantly filled – and emptied – and refilled with homemade pickled red cabbage and pickled beetroot.
No new recipes added to the blog – that will happen this month.
We’ve still just been eating whatever our appetites have dictated.
Sweet potatoes are expensive here but have been on offer recently so we bought a few.
We love Turkish musakka but I decided to use the sweet potatoes to do a take on a Greek-style moussaka. And very nice it was, too.
In Other News
News that isn’t from Fethiye but very much worth a mention nonetheless…
Tebrikler, Filenin Sultanları
We’ve mentioned the Turkish Women’s National Volleyball team, previously, when they achieved number 1 spot in the women’s volleyball world rankings.
Well, Fillening Sultanları – Sultans of the Net – are just on fire at the moment.
At the beginning of the month, they defeated Serbia to become European Champions.
Further Olympic qualifier matches saw the team undefeated. And so they are now all set to (hopefully) take Paris by storm in 2024.
Throughout the three tournaments listed above, they have remained undefeated throughout, making history as the first team ever to have achieved that!
Volleyball is a popular sport in Turkey. These amazing women have made it even more popular, packing out bars, restaurants and public spaces each time they play on TV.
Two New UNESCO World Heritage Sites
At the annual UNESCO committee gathering in Riyadh in September, there were two new additions for sites in Turkey, taking the total tally to 21!
The ancient site of Gordion was the ancient capital of Phrygia and is perhaps most famous as being the birthplace of King Midas.
The second addition is interesting in that it is not one site but quite a few – The Wooden Hypostyle Mosques of Medieval Anatolia.
Turkey has numerous mosques that have ornate wooden interiors. They were built between the 13th and 14th centuries.
The interior columns (hypostyle) are also wooden rather than stone.
Five of these mosques – around the country – have made the UNESCO list as one entry known as a ‘serial property title.’
So, if you’re a traveller who likes to tick off World Heritage sites, you’ve just been given a good dose of extra work to do!
We’ll be adding these two new sites to our Turkish UNESCO World Heritage list, soon…
Into October
As usual, we’re already here.
We’re looking forward to cooking, running events, sleeping and exercising without drowning in sweat puddles, the Ölüdeniz Air Games…and just a bit of chilling and blogging.
Let’s see what happens…