Holidays

Following on the super smooth organisation of Don and Muriel Clark, some thirteen G & H Ramblers found themselves, after a dawn start,  fifteen degrees warmer, at Bodrum Airport on Monday 24 September, looking forward to a week’s walking with HF Holidays.  As the  daytime temperature never dropped below thirty thereafter, their endurance skills on the Bodrum peninsula’s stony tracks were certainly to be tested.  Encouraged by our  two guides, Barbara and Ian, we explored the extensive olive groves and forest from nearby Torba to the end of the peninsular at Yalikavak, sometimes with stupendous views down to the coast, and once among the semi-excavated ruins of Pedasa.    By summer’s end  this is a dried, harsh environment, of hollyoak, thorn bush and asphodel, yet graced by the plenty of the olive harvests to come, the sense of the antique world never far away, and the call to prayer floating into our lunchtime shade.  The antique and modern blended happily: exploring the ancient stones of Pedasa, our route had been traced using Google Earth (and local know-how) given the complete dearth of walking maps in Turkey!   Our very comfortable modern hotel, with a magnificent landscaped circular swimming pool. and verandah awash with cerise bougainvillea and plumbago proved a daily balm to the footsore and weary, including, too, those who  made the long journey to Ephesus during the week.  One of the greatest ancient cities, an antique blockbuster, of truly imperial dimensions and character……. Not forgetting also the magnificent temple of Artemis, with its great head of Medusa and soaring columns thirteen metres high, and the scattered antique masonry everywhere, adorned with scraps of Greek and Roman detail.