Sunday Break

We had a little Sunday break and went to Akyaka, a little seashore place which is a bit like Marmaris but smaller and has still the lovely village feeling. Akyaka is also mostly popular among the Turkish tourists, it is close to two cities so people escape for the day or weekend here to enjoy some good fish and the lovely beach.

Akyaka s about 40 km from our town and most its income is from fishing and local tourism, you won't see much foreigners here.

Before you get to the beach there is a river where all the fishing boats are during the day. During the day the fish are sold, at night they are caught.

Here you can see a fisher's wife repairing a net which is done by hand. The new generation (her daughter) doesn't give much hope for their business as she couldn't take her eyes of her phone.

The walk to the shore feels like a jungle, so much fun.

There is a sandy beach to sunbath but it was crowded and not our taste, we love the rough kinds where usually no one goes.

Akyaka is always windy making it a great place to wind surf, and it doesn't feel as hot as other places.

I'm thinking of trying it out, anyone having any experience? I would love to hear if you liked it :)

Istanbul - Day 6

(Map source at DeviantArt)

Istanbul is the second largest city in the world by population, and keeps growing every day. One of the many things that makes it unique is that it is partially in Europe and partially in Asia. Water is an important part of Istanbul as it goes right through the city.
There are bridges that connects Europe to Asia, but due to the amount of people there are also ferries as public transport to cross the continents. So people who live in Asia and work in Europe cross by boat everyday.

Some of the bridges do not only have the function to cross rivers, on top dozens of men catch fish every day.

And under the bridges are fish restaurants to eat right near the sea.

New buildings keep popping up to accomodate the huge amount of people but Istanbul has a huge history so you can easily come across palaces, churches, fountains and amazing details of centuries ago.

It is definetely a city to visit, but not for just a few days, you can spent months discovering new places every day, best time is Spring and Autumn when it is not too hot but it is always crowded :)

Marmaris

As you might know we live in Marmaris. A small and quiet town in winter time, and a highly popular place for local and foreign tourism in Summer. It used to be a small fisher's village, but with the tourism most of that is gone, we wrote about this before in this previous blogpost.
But in small little nooks and corners you can still find some people who are loyal to their history, and it is refreshing to see those.

It is funny though as when you look at these pictures you get a very nostalgic feeling but just 30 meters away on the left side is the very chic and expensive yacht marine with expensive boutiques and million dollar yachts. At the right side across the water is the bar street, where all the buildings are bars, not a typical fisher's town location.

As many of the local people all of a sudden got extremely rich with the sudden raise of the value of their properties it is really rare to see a local dedicated to his work of origin, but actually the true colors of Marmaris are much more valuable than the ones that are bringing money in.