Myra Ancient Lycian City
Kalkan day 6

Car Hire

Today we decided to hire a car and go explore out of Kalkan. After breakfast I went down to the hotel reception to ask if they could recommend a car hire company near by. The told me that they would phone around and get me the best price. Ideally I only wanted the car for 1 day, but most car hire companies don't do that.

The first option would not be able to deliver a car until the next day and would be £45 per day.

The third option could do a minimum of 2 days and that would be £55 per day or £45 per day for 3 days, they would be able to deliver the car later in the afternoon.

The second choice, Define Tours the one I opted for, was £45 per day for 3 days. The car I got was Fiat Egea Cross Automatic. They said that they would deliver the car in a hour 12:30. They arrived about 5 minutes early and showed me around the car and I photoed all the marks (not many) and made a video of the car. I asked if the car had Car Play they said no only Bluetooth.

Driving

When I got in the car the first thing I did was turn on the air conditioning and then try and connect my phone to the car via bluetooth. This was the first issue, the car was Turkish and all the navigation was in Turkish, I had to use my phone camera to translate all the menus, even this was not very clear. I tried to find a setting to change it to English but there was not an option. Eventually I found that too many phones had been paired to the car and I had to delete them before I could add mine. My advice is if you are hiring a car abroad then ask the hire company to help you pair your phone before they leave.

The main differences between this car and mine was, firstly this one has an hand break mine has an automatic handbrake. Secondly the gear shift is in a different location, mine is above the steering wheel. Finally the drivers seat is on the left, my friend who agreed to navigate tried to get in the drivers seat.

I soon got used to the automatic gears, but on a few occasions I did try changing gear with the windscreen wipers and I did try drive away with the handbrake engaged.

Gözleme

On our was we decided that we would look for a roadside cafe and get some lunch. As we were going around the coast we saw a sign for a Fish Restaurant, when we pulled in it was closed and had been for quite some time as it was completely empty on the inside.

After about an hour we saw a sign for Limon Cafe which said 700m. When we pulled in a man directed us where to park and helped us.

We were brought a menu by a man who said "I no speak English", I replied "I no speak Turkish". The menu had a number of options, but it turned out that they did not have most of the options and the only thing that they did have was Gözleme and Turkish spring rolls.

Gözleme is a Turkish pancake, it is a large circular very thin pancake where they place the ingredients as a filling and then fold over the pancake and cook it with the fillings. My friend and I had Sausage Gözleme and Susan had Cheese Gözleme. I also had Turkish spring rolls which were fried rolls of very thin pastry filled with Feta Cheese. To drink we had homemade lemonade which was refreshing and delicious.

Before we headed on we had a toilet break and Emergency Pistachio Ice Creams.

Myra

When we arrived at Myra I spotted a free car park across the road from the entrance, we went and parked the car under the shade of some trees. Once we got out of the car a man came across and said:

Free parking, I have shop, Cold Fresh Squeezed Orange Juice. Small Business. Cold Fresh Orange Juice.

We went and bought tickets €13 each.

Myra was one of the largest towns in the Lycian League and dates back to about 168 B.C. There are Rock-Cut Tombs in the hills around the town and a huge Amphitheatre.

To think that the Tombs and the Amphitheatre were over 200 years old they were very impressive and certainly worth your time to visit.

Once we finished we had another emergency ice cream on the way back to the car park. Once there we went to visit the small businessman to have some of his freshly squeezed cold orange juice, it was excellent and cost us 400₺ for the 3 of us.

Andriake

There were more ruins about 15 minute drive from Myra, so we drove round to see if we could see them. On the way we passed a restaurant called Santa Claus.

By the time we arrived at Andriake Ancient City there was only 45 minutes before it closed, so we had a brief walk around the site. There was a bird viewing terrace, but, at the time, there were no birds to view. The view however was stunning.

In the valley below there was a river following out to the sea and some small lakes. As we drove out we saw that there were groups of Turkish families swimming in the river and having picnics.

I decided that rather than drive the main road to our next destination, it would more fun and interesting to go the back roads. This took us up over the top of the hills, the views were absolutely incredible. As we approached the villages we kept seeing signs that read Yavaş, after seeing it a few time I thought there are a lot of villages called Yavaş. Then I noticed that I was seeing this on corners and it actually meant Slow.

Şahika Bahçe

Our chosen, destination was Şahika Bahçe restaurant, which I found, before we came, by searching for restaurant on Google Maps. The reviews were superb and it was an absolute must from what I had read.

As we were arriving into Bezirgan, Waze was getting a bit confused so I asked my friend to find it on their phone and direct me. We finally found a sign for parking for the restaurant. We then had to figure out how to get from there to the Restaurant.

Once there we found a garden with dining tables and chairs, we called out as we saw no one and after that the Manager Abdull came and spoke to us. We asked if we could have a table for 3, he explained that they had none, as they only do two tables per night to make it very intimate.

Abdull showed us the menu and it was a 10 course tasting menu, he said that they had a table for tomorrow so we booked it.

We then said, "If we can't eat here, where do you recommend we eat in Bezirgan tonight." Immediately he said Pirha Köy Sofrası, it was just around the corner and he said that it was true Turkish food. He also recommended a restaurant in Kalkan called Hunkar Ocakbasi and said it was his favourite in Kalkan.

We then drove around the corner to Pirha Köy Sofrası and parked up. When we walked in we were welcomed into a garden, the owner told us it was his house and it was a family run restaurant. There were a number of tables dotted around the garden, it was a truly magical place.

Susan had the Homemade Manti (Turkish ravioli) with freshly squeezed Orange & Pomegranate Juice. My friend had Alinazik (Ground meat, served with roasted eggplant and garlic yoghurt) and freshly squeezed Pomegranate Juice. I had Grilled Meatballs (with pilaf rice, grilled tomato and pepper) and freshly squeezed Pomegranate Juice. For pudding we all had, the only choice, Semolina Halva with Ice Cream (served with tahini and walnuts).

All the food was insanely good, Im quite please that we couldn't eat at Şahika Bahçe as we would not have discovered this.