First Day A walk around Marmaris harbour

It seemed much earlier than my new watch suggested when I woke up at 9.30am; I didn’t feel a bit like getting up for our introduction with the rep at 10am. Also breakfast finished at 10am so I thought that I might have to skip that. Claire decided that she would skip both and go back to sleep so I went down on my own. I saw the rep’s book on a table but no rep so decided to grab breakfast first which was great, especially for a free one. Hot boiled egg, cheese, feta, salami, sausage, tomato, cucumber, bread, honey, jam, butter and tea. I can’t believe what we have here at this hotel for the money we paid; it’s really a one off find at the price. I almost feel bad about moaning about everything; not really, only joking, “Can’t grumble enough”. I saw the rep after breakfast but all he wanted to do was sell the excursions, he wasn’t there in any way to help us. I complained about the transfer but he said there was nothing he could do about it but he would find us a taxi alternative for our return journey if we wanted but that would be £60 extra for it. I think we will endure the free transfer as its like someone giving you £60 to go through with it and its not so bad on the way back, you don’t mind taking a while as you will only have to wait at the airport when you get there anyway and what else would I have to moan about. I asked him for a local map but he only had excursions details, he told me I could buy one from a shop; very helpful. They also allow us a free full day boat trip in with our price but you have to buy your food and drinks on the boat.

After I had gone back up and we had both showered we had a 2 hour walk west along the harbour and were impressed with Marmaris its quite pretty and not as bad as we expected. Especially when you get right around the bay where all the yachts are, it’s very up market. You can rent a yacht or Gullet for the day at 400TL which would be cheap if there were about 16 of you. I found a nice boat trip at 30TL for a full day with lunch and drinks included. We usually get our moneys worth when we go on those all inclusive things. You can go without the drinks for 20TL but for us it’s worth paying an extra fiver for all our drinks; you only have to have two to break even. I guess that we will be going on that later in the week; we will just be taking it easy for the first few days. I also popped in to the shop where you get ferry tickets to Rhodes from but it’s about 125TL return each which I think is expensive for an hour each way. That’s almost as much as I paid for the flights and hotel for 2 weeks. If we do go to Rhodes, I want to stay over for a night or two and get a bike there so we can see the whole island. The cheapest motor bike I have found so far is £10 a day; not too bad but I will look a little more before we get one. I don’t want to book the bike for a week here then go away for a couple of days so will have to decide soon. They also have these 3 wheeler electric scooter things that people seem to be flying around on; I wouldn’t mind one of those for a day.

No internet in our hotel which is a pain in the neck but the next one down has internet but not wifi so I will have to use that to put the blogs on and catch up with emails etc. Can’t remember if I said but we put our house on the market before we left and had an offer on Sunday £10,000 lower than asking price but I turned it down. They haven’t come back to me but its early days yet. Michael Graham are doing a great job, we had at least one viewing every day from the first day we put it up. Just reminded myself; I need to put my phone on to see if we have any messages, I haven’t put it on since we arrived here, Claire forgot my charger.

We had lunch by the sea on our way back and the price was quite good at £5 for half a chicken, chips and salad with a large beer. Efes is the local brew all over Turkey and it’s very good as you don’t get hangovers with it. Today must be an exception to the rule.

We went to the next hotel towards the sea to do our internet duties and have dinner. Very reasonable at 15TL for garlic bread, cheese, soup, 2 dips, main course and pancakes and ice cream. They had the football on where Holland went through to the final. Our friends from Wales came and joined us, Sharon and Danny and we drank into the night; in fact we didn’t go to bed until 5.45am so we missed breakfast again. It’s amazing how fast time seems to go by when you are in the bar. During half time four of the waiters danced to Turkish music for our entertainment. We had a great night and are going back tonight for the Spain Germany match. We will definitely be going to bed earlier tonight.