Kas and Marmaris - our first road trip

 Having moved to another country, involving long flights, language barriers, bureacracy and strange everything, what did we do to help settle in?

Leave again. 

Not long after arriving in Finike the cold weather decided to slide off the mountains above us and come to visit the low lands. Faced with days of close to zero nights and frustrated by our inability to obtain boat parts and the essential vaccum (for storing linen and clothes) we run away to Marmaris via Kas. The temptation to be warm and closer to a hot shower was too much for me anyway. We hired a car and yelled at each other while Mike remembered how to drive on the right hand side of the road, and I kept "reminding" him.

The trip there was on a bitterly cold Sunday. It involved winding seaside roads - similiar to the Great Ocean Road in Victoria -  rural towns, straight roads reminiscent of driving through La Trobe Valley (Turkey's Traralgon), rain and deep fog, wind that cut through you, closed cafes all the way, snow capped mountains and finally amazing views looking down on Marmaris, The Pine Honey Capital of The World! (I didn't know it was a competition..)

On our way we did drop into Kas. It was FREEZING. Wet. Very slippery, and, we discovered, without power. So no warm cafe to escape to and and have a cup of tea/coffee/chai. Apparently it helped to be Russian and therefore immune to the cold (ah, there's a story there), but as we are neither, we decided to push on.  But not before seeing how lovely it is, and what a pretty place to come back to... And as always, the cats are well taken care of.

 

Marmaris is a port city, popular with tourists and boaties, located on the Turkish Riveria or Turquoise Coast. Population about 98,000, and probaby much more when the warm weather arrives. Lots of big hotels along the coast, 3 Marinas of varying size and a beautiful big bay which we will come back to and lower our anchor into, and... relax. 

Link to Marmaris Map

But we were here in the cold weather to shop. We visited "yacht' street, which is actually a meandering bunch of streets and lanes near the main Marina, chokka block full of chandleries, sail makers, riggers, canvas specialists.... if it's not in Marmaris, it ain't in Turkey. Naturally, we didn't find what we were looking for, but picked up other 'must haves' like new plastic wine goblets, charts, turning blocks, winch bits, power tools and generally wandered around clutching a list which we ignored. And no vaccum.

Night time saw us venture out along the seaside (looking like Santa and his Russian Bride) to the first restaurant that looked warm. Indeed we were the only ones there, and we were given the best seats in the house, the ones next to the heater. Lovely, a little bit expensive and nice staff. We discussed the difficulty we were having saying 'thank you' properly. The advice we received was to say

                                                                 TeaSugarCream

very fast, and it would sound about right. Further advice was we would have problems should we travel as far as the Black Sea, as no-one could understand them, not even the Turkish. It is a bit like the Scottish, Irish and English.... 

 The next day I continued to complain about no vacumm, but after getting advice from the right people - aka the ladies at our accommodation - we visited to Carrefours.... ahhh bliss. Yes we did get a small cleaner to suck air from bags but the main score? CHEESE. Or more precisley, CHEDDAR CHEESE. And asian souces. And something almost like bacon. And smoked salmon.... a veritable goodie bag. Munching on yummy donuts, we left bloated and feeling more positive about the drive back to Finike. 

The journey back took some interesting turns - see next post - which saw us pull into Kas again to sleep, before an early start to return the hire car by 9am the next day. The temperature had risen to -1 degrees, the rain had stoppped and power was restored so it was a much more pleasant stop. Once again we sought out a cafe with heating and about 7 cats, who were there for the same reasons as us, and enjoyed the night and morning views over Kas, before a sunny drive home to Finike.