A great holiday in Turkey

 

Panorama of the beach. The safety guide rope is visible on the right.

Tourism is huge business in Turkey, the 6th most popular tourist destination in the world. People are drawn there for archaeological sites such as Ephesus, cultural sites such as the Blue Mosque or the Hagia Sophia and the beach resorts along the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts. In 2019, 51 million tourists entered Turkey. This year they expect 25 million as the world recovers from Covid and Turkey battled forest fires all summer.

Russia is #1 country of origin for tourists and Ukraine is #7

We took our first holiday in Turkey in 2008 in July. Never did that again. 40C+ is out of our comfort zone. So after that we went in late September and sometimes into early October. Weather is still warm and the water is too. Also the price is way down. Our experiences have been mixed, to say the least but the swimming has never disappointed us. 

Antalya, the tourist capital of Turkey, sits on top of the Gulf of Antalya with resorts down both sides. Until this year we stayed in resorts in the Bildebi area, north of Kemer on the west side of the gulf. This year we tried one south of Kemer, Club Akman Beach Hotel in the Camyuva area and were so happy with it. I'd give a 5 star rating to this 4 star hotel.

Location of Club Akman

Overhead view of Club Akman Beach Hotel

Tanya in front of the hotel. Everyone at the resort is double vaccinated
 or had a negative test within 48 hours of arrival
so no masks inside but if we went out we wore masks

For great pictures of the hotel, go to www.clubakmanbeach.com/en/ or watch https://youtu.be/eiVQ5HVK8FU. Far better photography than I am capable of.

North of Kemer the beaches are very bad. Narrow with coarse sharp gravel. You need rubber sandals even in the water. Not very good for kids. The beaches in Camyuva are not perfect but far superior and great for kids. The sand is coarse grey but not impossible to walk on in bare feet. The sea does not drop off quite as soon so there are decent shallows. Club Akman was swarming with kids, ranging from babies to toddlers to preschoolers and a few 6-10 year olds. Little ones were in flotation devices with parents close by. Even the babies. 

I can't swim but here, I can't sink either. It takes little effort to stay upright in the water and paddle along. Tanya swims like a fish and is usually way out from the beach area. I stay close to the safety guide rope where it is only 5 to 6 meters deep and would paddle back and forth between the two docks in the picture, about 400 to 500 ft.. The water is so clear you can see the bottom. 

Just paddling along, vertical to the horizontal

Tanya off to the left along the safety guide rope.

All of the resorts we stayed at over the years, including this one, catered to Russian speakers. Up and down both sides of Kemer, even the people in the shops spoke enough Russian to make sales. So I was a bit of a curiosity and got many questions, "Where are you from?" The Activity Director (6 ft blonde model, 1/3 my age, 6 months making money in Turkey, 6 months spending it in Moscow, flawless English) said I was the only foreigner at the hotel, maybe in all the Kemer area. 

That cracked me up. Housecleaning staff were Tajik or Uzbek, grounds maintenance were from Turkmenistan, the night receptionist was from Armenia, some guy who looked homeless but told me he was director of maintenance, was from Manchester. But I was the only foreigner.

Women outnumbered men about 2 to 1. Mothers with kids. Wives holidaying while husbands worked. Men, by and large, wore boxer swim trunks and sported washtub abs. A few 6-pack abs but mostly two-four pack abs. I felt right at home.

Women's bathing suits were much more varied. A few one piece but mostly two piece. Some were mainly strings which, like barbed wire fences, protected the property but did not obstruct the view. The rest of the tops fell into five categories. Orthodox which were divinely iconic. Catholic which supported the masses. Presbyterian which were staunch and upright. Salvation Army which lifted the fallen. and Baptist which made mountains out of molehills.