Week 2 Kalkan Holiday

One of the reasons I love Kalkan so much is the choice of cafes, bars and restaurants. There are so many to choose from and the prices differ wildly but you will always get a great meal. Unlike some of the more touristy resorts on the Turquoise Coast, you cannot get English, Chinese or Indian food but mainly Turkish food with some European influence. We have visited many of the eateries but not all. Some have come and gone over the years, while others have lasted and flourished.

We have our favourites, ones that we return to time and again and others that we have tried just the once. This holiday we have eaten everything from a 14 lira (about £3.10) chicken kebab wrap at Hunkar to a 90 lira (about £19.80) four course meal with wine at The Olive Tree. Now don't you think at these prices that they are both amazing value?

Many of the restaurants are on rooftop terraces with views over the bay and the sunsets over the headland. I finally gave way and ordered my first dessert of the holiday at the Sade Terrace Restaurant one night which was deep fried icecream with caramel sauce. The immediate taste reminded me of another food I had eaten but I could not put my finger on it until the lightening bolt hit - Butterkist toffee popcorn.

The village is full of little cobbled streets, some with tables outside the restaurants where it is lovely to sit and people watch while you enjoy your glass of wine and delicioius meal. We ate at Salonika one evening with musicians playing traditional Turkish music at the next table. The food was devine. I had a chicken casserole with bulgur side and David had the lamb version. A tray of dried herbs and spices was brought to the table for us to add to taste - chilli, cumin, mint and oregano. A wonderful evening.

We've spent more time lazing around on this holiday than any other and one day we walked to the Indigo Beach Club for a day of sunbathing (shade bathing), swimming in the sea and a lazy salad lunch with ice cold beer in icy frosted glasses. They bring around complimentary Turkish tea and Madeira cake in the afternoon too. Our unexpected treat was one of the staff telling us that we could order free drinks paid for by one of the shop owners who was eating lunch and had spotted us sunbathing. Now that is the Turkish approach to people. So kind, generous and friendly. He owns a brilliant bag shop which I may have bought just a few items from over the years... no need to say anymore on that!

We've wandered around the weekly market again as there is no chance of avoiding it as the entrance to our hotel is on the road where the market is held. We didn't buy anything but a stroll into the village afterwards led me to buy a clutch bag (from the shop mentioned above) and a necklace. We pay in Sterling and I had none with me at the time. Both shop owners insisted that I took the items and paid them before I flew home. They know me from the years of visiting Kalkan but how trusting and refreshing is this approach. It is not the first time they have done this either.

We spent a while at the Fener Cafe (at the lighthouse) yesterday and read the complimentary British newspapers while sipping chilled drinks and watching the shuttle boats going back and forth to the beach clubs. A sleepy cat and dog slept under our table and nothing would awake them from their sleep, not even the noise of another cat catching a bird and running off with it in its mouth hotly pursued by a waiter trying to save the little sparrow. Shame.

Today is another trip to Kas to wander around the shops, seek some shade in the central gardens and watch the paragliders land on the harbour side. It's all busy busy busy ....

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Turkish Holiday

So here we are again in Kalkan. I keep thinking that the world is a big place and there are lots of other countries to visit but I adore Kalkan in beautiful Turkey. Equally the Turkish people in Kalkan are just so lovely. They great us like long lost friends each time we return. How they manage to remember us I do not know but they do.

We have three holidays a year so just having one of the three in Kalkan is not so bad although we are coming back to a Turkey again in September but on that occasion we will be staying in Olu Deniz. Over the last couple of years, Turkey has lost favour with some tourists and a couple of travel companies that we have used many times over the years ceased trading. We have had to come on our own this time rather than through a package holiday so I booked the flights, accommodation and transfer separately. I've done this previously in Turkey only that time we stayed in Gocek and the transfer was 30 minutes maximum. The transfer to Kalkan is 1.5 - 2 hours and an 80 mile plus trip so the transfer costs were not cheap but I did some shopping around and got a sweet deal in the end.

I have felt frazzled the last three weeks at work. Stressful tasks, long hours and travelling around the country led me to feel permanently tired and slightly irritable. I have so needed this holiday to wind down. The weather is perfect and I've seen we are missing a heatwave in the UK so I feel a little cheated but I'm glad my family are enjoying the hot weather at home.

We have lazed around a lot so far with a couple of days by the pool and a day at one of the beach clubs dotted around the bay. You get a free boat to the club, free sunbeds and umbrellas etc as long you buy your food and drink there. We love them all but our favourite is the Kalkan Beach Park. A dog followed us along the harbour with his mate and when we got on the boat he joined us but his mate was not brave enough and stayed on the harbour side. The captain was not bothered about our guest and just laughed to himself. The dog happily sailed with us to the far side of the bay but he then decided to take the return trip back.

We had a day out in Kas which is about a 40 minute drive away by bus. We love it here as well and have had a few holidays here over the years. We looked around the shops, stopped at one the beach clubs for the breeze to cool us down with icy cold beers.

We looked around the weekly market one day and strolled around the village but bought nothing as we don't need anything really, plus we can buy the offerings cheaper at home on the Cheshire carboot sale!

We are sunbathing (or rather shade bathing) under fluttering umbrellas by the pool at the moment. I have to be careful after getting skin cancer two years ago so I wear factor 50 on my face and at least factor 30 on my body. Having said that both of us have permanent tans with loving warm holidays and spending as much time outdoors at home as we can. Give me a sunny day and I'm in my garden!

We are going for a stroll to the KAPSA shop in a few moments. It is an animal charity shop that looks after the strays, finds adoptive forever homes (often in the UK) and foster homes in Kalkan for the many dogs and cats. We'll see if there are any bargains and also leave a donation.

Table booked at the fabulous Olive Garden for tonight. Authentic Turkish cuisine on a roof top terrace with view out over the twinkling lights of the harbour. Bliss...

Bank Holiday Monday Carboot Finds

I wish I could get a decent nights sleep. It seems an impossibility for me. I was awake at 4.36am the last Bank Holiday Monday morning. Wide awake with no chance of dropping off again. It seems to be getting worse as I get older but on the up side I manage to cram more into each day through my lack of sleep. Is it a middle aged woman thing?

Because I was awake early we got to the carboot sale early. My first purchase of the day was a tray of eight white geraniums for £12. These look beautiful planted alongside the tray of white cosmos that I bought the previous week. I have decided to go for a white garden this year instead of my mixture of reds and pinks. I am hoping it will give an "elegant and sophisticated" look to my garden. 

I bought two white wicker baskets with white cloth linings for just 50p for the pair. The cloth linings needed a little freshening up although they were not dirty as such but I just like to give everything a thorough clean when I get home. These have been used in one of my kitchen cabinet shelves to store my wax melts. What do you think of these Glade wax melts in Pumpkin Spice at just 50p a pack?

I found a dark grey throw which was originally from IKEA and which matches one I have already. This was £2 and will make a change from the cream ones that I currently have on my settees. I'll put this away and use it towards Autumn/Winter time as I think it is a little too somber for Summer. 

I found another box of Yankee Candle tealights in a scrummy Vanilla Cupcake scent for £1. These are currently £6.99 in the shops so a real bargain. 

I love Laura Mercier body soufflé but I don't like the price. I bought two new jars for £2 each. These are around £22 a jar normally for the 100g jars. These both smell heavenly. One is Ambre Vanilla and the other is Almond Coconut Milk. 

David was spending ages looking at one stall so I stood at his side in a trance staring into space and pondering what was in a box on a stall opposite. It looked like some kind of Fitbit activity type tracker. It connects to your phone via Bluetooth and records how many steps you take, what distance you cover, how many calories you eat and buzzes if you slouch to maintain your posture. I ended up chatting with the lady seller and she said I could have it for £3. I reckoned the app that you have to download to use with it would cost a lot and that it was probably a silly waste of £3 after I had bought it. I googled it when I got home and OMG - they cost £80 on line and the app is free!!! Roll on finding out I am lazy, slouch too much and eat too many calories. I hope it tells me off and makes me a skinny fitness freak before my next holiday.

I bought three items from one chap who was selling a lot of ladies make-up and accessories. I bought a boxed set of five OPI nail varnishes for 50p, a Leighton Denny varnish for 50p and a travel pillow (great for on planes) for £1. After I had bought them he told me that he recently lost his wife and was selling all her belongings, selling his home and starting afresh. He said he would never get over losing her but day by day he was getting better. It is amazing the conversations I have with some of the sellers. I'm told that I have one of those faces that people just start talking to me and tell me anything and everything.

Three magazines for 20p each August & October 2016 and February 2017.

Three travel size Soap & Glory items for £1 for all three. I love these and find they are just the perfect size for a weekend away.

My usual load of DVDs for 20p to 50p each. When I have had enough of these I bundle them up into about a batch of about 10 and sell them as a job lot on eBay. Two of these DVDs have never been opened and are still wrapped in their cellophane. I am slowing working my way through the recent bundles that I have bought and am really enjoying watching the boxed sets of series 1 and 2 of Blacklist.


Eight tins of spiced tuna - best before December 2017 for £2. These will be great for lunches as sandwiches or with salad. I am always on the look out for interesting lunches as it can become so boring having the same old sandwiches say after day.

A Williamson Tea caddy for 50p. I have four of these now and love that they all have elephants on them. I buy these whenever I see them on carboot sales with or without the tea. They fit nicely on my top pantry shelf and I use them as storage for sweetener & sugar sachets.

Ideal Home Show & Eat & Drink Festival

I subscribe to the email newsletter from Martin Money Saving Expert and recently the newsletter said you could get free tickets for the Ideal Home Show which was also combined with the Eat & Drink Festival. It is not far away from us at Event City and we visited the Christmas Ideal Home Show last year which was great, so we decided to visit again.

I applied for free tickets on-line (should cost £12.50 per person) and they were emailed instantly to me. Today was the day for visiting and we were there as the doors opened. I love looking around these shows but only for a couple of hours tops. Any more than that and I'm bored so we were home for lunch time complete with bags of freebies. We managed to not spend a penny and were full from eating our way around all the foodie samples. Our favourite was the Bonne Maman stand that was giving away free pots of their desserts and loads of £1.50 money offer vouchers. We visited the stall twice and ate salted caramel, chocolate and creme caramel desserts. They were scrummy.

We both got free goody bags from the two shows and even the cat got 4 packs of cat treats which were inside them. Cereal, crisps, Baileys chocolate, chocolate cake, Orangina drink and body lotion samples were in the bags. Great snacking for us, a treat for the cat and the body lotion samples will be sold on eBay along with a load of other ones when I manage to get about 50 together.

We got a couple of cloth bags given to us from different stalls and one had a fabulous craft book inside complete with pull out patterns worth £14.99. I think this will be given to my mum as it is more her sort of thing than mine. There were also lots of other freebies such as Magazines, pens, a decent sized tape measure for David, packets of mints etc.

We enjoyed looking around the stalls and I really coveted one of these cabanas as they looked so exotic. While they looked lovely in the show I imagine that they would not look quite so good in a soggy back garden in South Manchester and would need a fair amount of upkeep in our weather so the day dream was over.

The food and drinks on offer were plentiful with fabulous stalls, just look at the Captain Morgan pirate ship selling Mojitos.

There were a few "ladies who lunch" in the champagne bar sipping chilled flutes of bubbles with dinky bags tied with ribbons containing jewellry and toiletries bought from some of the many stalls. I love people watching so it was good to amble around and see others enjoying the show.

It was back home by late lunchtime to start packing for our next holiday. Posts to follow over the next couple of weeks on the forthcoming break.