Alacati. I came, saw and fell in love..

I’m back from our amazing road trip. And Elif and I both fell in love with Alaçatı.
It’s hard to explain but the minute we arrived in that little old village, where once the Greek and the Turk happily lived together side by side, it felt  like I was home. After a long and beautiful trip through the country, we checked into our sweet hotel, an 150 year old stone house with its eight individual decorated rooms right in the center of Alaçatı. We were welcomed with a glass of cold, homemade lemonade in the little garden.

The center of the town is just absolutely picture postcard beautiful. It feels like diving into history, where the locals have painted their stories and their memories onto the walls of their houses in vibrant shades of blue and decorated them with colorful details. Some of these memories weigh heavily on the hearts of those who remember what it once was, a place where the Greek orthodox and the Turks lived peacefully together, and what has been lost in the forced separation and exchange of immigrants almost ninety years ago. But despite the fact that the Greek have long left, their influence is to be found everywhere in the little village, thanks to the residents who take great care of it. In the windmills, the architecture, the letters on the street signs and in the construction of the mosque that once was a church. It gives this whole area a unique character. It is as if the mix of the Greek and Turkish culture brings forth a new culture, a different way of living altogether. Just like you get beautiful green when you mix yellow and blue.

It is a place where the Bougainville and Jasmine grow like they have never been cut, where the tree branches bend under the heavy weight of ripe pomegranates, figs and olives at this time of the year, where some of the old people talk with a lovely Greek dialect and everyone likes to take their time. It’s a place where you can enjoy delicious home cooked meals in the small restaurants, explore different bays and beaches, taste the local wines, shop for gorgeous arts and crafts in the small boutiques and feel the strong winds from the north and the south playing with your hair almost all year around. There’s beauty all around in Alaçatı; in the nature, the elements, the locals, the houses and gardens, the streets and shops, and in watching the many windsurfers gliding over the water surface in extremely high speed. And all this time I walked around feeling like I was home, as if I had a grandmother there who was living right around the next corner. It felt strange in a very good way.

The touristic season here is very short. It takes place only during July and August. And it’s mostly Turkish people coming from the cities who are visiting. The rest of the year it’s pretty quiet and mostly visited by windsurfers from other parts of the world because of it excellent conditions. Alaçatı has been announced as a protected urban area, and with that come many rules to make sure that it stays like that. So you won’t see any high buildings, no plastic chairs or colorful parasols on the terraces,  loud music at night is forbidden, even in bars in the center, and you won’t find a Döner place anywhere near. All foods and things that have a strong smell or are ugly to the eye are forbidden. And don’t be surprised when your hotel room has no tv. This has been left out on purpose, so you get a real chance to unwind and relax while staying in this village. I can’t tell you how much I was able to appreciate the calm and serenity after those loud and crazy busy months in Alanya.

So we cruised around the peninsula, visited nearby villages, ate delicious Kumru sandwiches for lunch, dived into the cold sea (funny how it doesn’t get warm over summer like in Alanya), slept in a fairytale bed, met Hıdır a very kind journalist from Ankara who now runs a beautiful glass art and antique shop with his wife in Alaçatı, Mustafa the Sheppard,  the 19 year old Serdar, Bașak a shopkeeper from Germany, John from Ireland and others. We went to Çeșme and visited Elif’s niece in Izmir University. Then, on the road back we got lost on the highway somehow (we were on our way to Manisa?!) and missed the bus that we were supposed to catch from Denizli to Alanya at 1 am. So we drove back to Izmir and spent the night on a busy night life square in the Bornova district, drinking coffee with a friendly old man who left Istanbul 23 years ago and never returned because he couldn’t get the girl he loved. Then we drove to Elif’s parents house in the village nearby Denizli where we left the car behind and slept for 2 hours before we took the bus from there to Alanya the next day. By the time we arrived at home that evening we were so tired that it was almost impossible to keep our eyes open. But we also felt extremely inspired by this whole trip. And I just feel so lucky that I get to live in and discover this amazing country in all its diversity. I love it.

picture album on my Facebook page.

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