Have motorbike will travel. Pay big money to have motorbike and definitely will travel!! Yesterday Randal and I went for a short ride to Icmeler, about 5 miles from the center of Marmaris. ( It’s about 5 miles from the marina to Marmaris, but on the small crowded dolmuses it takes about 20 minutes with all the stops and people getting on and off.) Icmeler is a holiday town with beaches, hotels and restaurants, buses, taxis, cars, motorbikes and no gas stations! We drove around looking for one and then back in Marmaris to fill up and asked where the station in Icmeler was located. “They have none,” was the answer. That means that we’ll have to really plan out our trips because you can’t be sure every town along the way will have a place to fill up. We can travel about 100 miles on a tank of gas so we should be safe in most cases. Today we went for a longer ride over the mountains that follow the coast. It was a beautiful day and a great ride. The road was scenic and the traffic very light probably because it was Sunday and Turkey has “western weekends” rather than Muslim weekends of Friday and Saturday.
We stopped for photos on the way back.
I can’t tell you the road name or number because it isn’t listed on the map…it just shows where it goes which is good enough.
. “When you start on your journey to Ithaca, then pray that the road is long…”
It was hilly so we chug-a-lugged as we neared the tops of each rise but had no problems actually getting to the top and there was enough of a shoulder so the infrequent traffic didn’t try to run us off the road. ‘Once upon a time’ we would have biked this on bicycles.
We’d chosen Turgut for two reasons. Randal was told that there was a carpet showroom there, and though we eventually want to buy one or two, in the meantime we enjoy the search and learning more about them and seeing the wide variety. The other reason is that Turgut is a good day-trip from Marmaris. It is about 45 kilometers from the marina. The speed limit on the road is 50 k and we didn’t exceed the speed limit which was a good thing because we did pass at least one ‘polis’ car watching on the side of the road. Over the mountain tops we couldn’t exceed the limit and going down I wouldn’t let Randal exceed the limit. The closer we got to Turgut on smaller country roads, the slower we wanted to go just to enjoy the scenery.
The way to the sea side restaurant in Turgut where we ate lunch.
We got to Turgut about lunch time and there were several choices at the small crossroads that we guess is the center of town. We had found the carpet showroom on the small country road just outside Turgut but decided to visit after lunch. Randal saw a sign pointing to the beach down this narrow road so we went there because he wanted to eat by the water. I know water views can double the cost of the meal, but we were “on holiday” so it was ok
The Ella Bar and Restaurant where we were greeted as though we were special guests from afar.
View to the right.
View to the left.
At the shoreline the water of the Mediterranean was crystal clear.
Randal takes time to smell the fragrant roses.
Turks love flowers and you see them everywhere. My favorite is when they fill huge empty olive oil cans with plants. We have one and it’s exactly what I’ll do when it’s empty.
The owner asked if we wanted chicken or fish apologizing for what we already have learned from visiting the fish markets, which is that fish is more expensive than chicken or meat. But we opted for fish since we rarely eat it and we were having an adventure. The owner then brought out two fish and said that one was 20 TL and one was 30 TL. We opted for the 20 TL thinking we would share one fish.
First came marinated green beans and eggplant and the ever-present crusty bread.
Washed down by the ever present Efes beer. I had Turkish tea which is black tea in a lovely tea glass.
Salad was served with the meal and there is always lemon to squirt on everything.
The main attraction(s) cooked perfectly.
We thought we were sharing one fish and they thought we were each eating a fish. I ate all of mine and Randal ate all of his. With all of the salads and bread we certainly could have shared one fish and next time will know to say, “Just one fish, please.” Randal was quite taken with the owner who spoke honestly about the price of fish and didn’t bat an eye when we ordered the cheaper one. We invited him to visit our boat but he said he really didn’t like Marmaris and told us to come back and he’d take us out on his boat. We may one day bring DoraMac here in our travels and then he’ll visit our boat.
The road from the restaurant back to Turgutkoy. I think the koy indicates the actual city center though Turgut is listed on the map.
I got off and walked along the road a short way taking photos and Randal returned to get me.
Then it was on to the carpet show room, but that will have to wait for the next email.
http://www.marmaristown.com/sightseeing/turgut.html to learn more about Turgut.
KEEP GOING SOX !!!!!
Ru
DoraMac