Fethiye Festive Season - Photo Story

A Turkish family enjoying a Sunday barbecue in the mountains around Nif

I love this photo and as we've just woken up to the second day of Advent and the UK and much of northern Europe is covered in snow, I've taken the opportunity to use it. I'm hoping it will help us to feel more wintery and festive in a still very mild Fethiye.



I took the photo when we were part of the Fethiye mass exodus to Nif one day, two years ago. Pleasant, sunny days are not the only barbecue days in this part of Turkey. Any day is a barbecue day; especially if that day is a Sunday. The weather is completely irrelevant. The day we went to Nif (one of my best days out ever!), people built snowmen, sledged down mountainsides, threw snowballs, got very cold, very wet and then ate köfte and drank tea, grilled and heated by their roadside barbecue. 



We have to keep reminding ourselves that it's December. We should be getting organised for the festive season. Christmas cards need to be posted to friends and family. We ought to be deciding what we're doing for Christmas Day. What are we cooking? Who do we need to buy presents for? Hopefully, this snowy photo will work its magic and get the ball rolling...

Fethiye Weather - Baltic Temperatures

So far this winter, we've been enjoying warm Fethiye sunshine, unseasonably high temperatures and mild evenings. However, rumours were rife from the beginning of November that Fethiye was in for a cold winter (by Fethiye's standards) and last week, weather presenters broke the news that Baltic temperatures were being pushed towards Turkey.



Yesterday and through the previous night, thunder rolled and cracked right above us, lightening shot across the sky constantly and the rain pelted. This morning, we woke up and opened the curtains and it was that tell tale clarity to the mountain scenery, the sea was grey, the sky was filled with erupting white cloud. It was cold! We could see a couple of tankers sheltering in the bay and after a storm, there's only one thing to do; take a walk along the beach and watch the sea.

Rolling waves hit Çalış Beach

We were wrapped up in hat and scarf today and it was still cold. The waves along Çalış Beach were rolling in and crashing along the shore and as you can see, the sky has remained angry for most of the day. 

Angry skies over Fethiye

In fact, the sky and sea have been amazing to watch today - no doubt helped along by the Baltic storms and temperatures. Whether this is just a cold snap or if this is it for the rest of winter, we don't know. For now, it's all fantastic, powerful scenery and we'll make the most of it while it lasts.

Fethiye Storms - The Aftermath

I know there are horrendous storms that affect certain parts of the world on a regular basis and last night's storm in Fethiye would probably look like a mere gust of wind in comparison to those, but for this area of the Southwest Turkish coast, the storm was pretty significant. Thunder, lightening, high winds and pelting rain battered the house all night (amazingly, we only lost one roof tile) so that when we woke up this morning, we opened the curtains, not just to let the daylight in but to peer through the window to assess the aftermath.

Waves crashing against Red Island in Fethiye Bay

Being a large natural harbour protected by surrounding mountains, Fethiye doesn't feel the full brunt of the extremes of weather. Tell tale signs of last night's storm in Fethiye were a swollen sea the colour of clay and these waves crashing against the rocks of Red Island - these waves come from the direction of the open sea. A bit of online communication with a friend in Çalış and we had to go over there to see for ourselves.

A bedraggled Çalış water taxi jetty

We could hear the waves crashing onto the beach as we walked down the street in Çalış but the first effects we noticed of last night's storm were at the Çalış water taxi jetty. 

Çalış Beach Promenade

There's going to be a big clean-up operation going on over the next few days. Some of the bars and restaurants in Çalış have been damaged as the sea was crashing right over the promenade, bringing the beach with it. 

Crashing waves on Çalış Beach

As you can see in the photos, the sea at Çalış was still very swollen today. We've never seen Çalış look quite like this in all the time we've been here. Waves were still reaching the wall between the beach and the hotels and bars but we could see that they were even bigger down towards the dolmuş station - so we continued further along the beach.

Çalış rolling waves

The beach and the sea looked absolutely amazing. No pebbles on the beach; just pure, smooth sand. The waves were huge and I did a great video...but I've tried twice to upload it and it won't work, so photos it is. You'll just have to use your imagination.

The biggest, most beautiful waves were in front of Güven's

These were the waves at Güven's Restaurant. If you know this place, you can get a good idea of the strength of storm when I say the waves were coming right up, over their seating area, through the garden and hitting the windows. There's only the steel frame of their covered area left. The rest was blown away.



And as I write, the rain is again pouring from the sky in Fethiye. So far, only the odd grumble of thunder and no high winds. Here's hoping...





Update 18/12/10 - We managed to upload the video to our Facebook page. Watch it now!

Christmas Day In Fethiye - A Tale of Two Cultures

Our Christmas Day in Fethiye usually involves us inviting Turkish friends to our house for the day and force feeding mince pies and other Christmas 'delights' upon them. This year, we decided to keep it quiet and just do the rounds, bearing gifts. We were to go to our friend's house and give them their Christmas present, up to another friend's in Fethiye and then across to Çalış to visit Barry's parents and eat Christmas dinner with them.



The visits to Turkish friends was supposed to be a quick, 'Hello, Merry Christmas and here's your gift. Must dash.' However, what we should be more than fully aware of by now, is that that is just not possible with Turkish friends. Hospitality is everything - the guest is everything! Luckily, we'd given ourselves a bit of leeway with regards to time.



And so a Christmas Day stroll, in the warm sunshine, along Fethiye harbour and to 'house visit' number one. 'We can't stay. We're just dropping these off and then we're going to...'

'Nonsense. You can come in for ten minutes.'

Before we knew it, we were taking our shoes off, slippers were placed on the doorstep for us and we were sat in their house exchanging gifts. Then came the food...

 A VERY traditional Turkish recipe - Aşure / Noah's Pudding

This is aşure. The story goes that aşure is what Noah made as a last meal on the ark once the floods had subsided. It's also known as Noah's Pudding or Noah's dessert. As there wasn't an abundance of food left in the ark's food stores, Noah used the various ingredients that were left over (grains, pulses, dried fruit) and produced this bountiful and very filling concoction. Today, ingredients vary slightly between different regions of Turkey and countries of the Middle East.



Aşure is one of the oldest recipes of this part of the world and at the moment, unbeknown to us (until yesterday) it is aşure time of year. Turkish people make aşure and serve it to family, friends and neighbours. It's served as a symbol of peace and love - and we arrived just as aşure was being distributed. Spoons were handed to us and a rather large bowl of aşure - not something you want to be eating when you're just on your way to eat Christmas dinner - but hey, it's Christmas! What better time for us to be eating aşure?   



I swirled my spoon round and round in the bowl to try to identify the ingredients in there. Our friend is no cook and just told us there were 'lots of things' in it. I spotted barley, white beans, chickpeas, crushed walnuts, pomegranate seeds, cinnamon (lots of cinnamon). A quick scout around Google pages this morning has revealed that there was possibly rice and rosewater in there as well. A dessert containing chickpeas and beans is not something I would have considered - but it works. We shared a bowl of warm aşure and I have to say, I'm not sure I could have gotten through one to myself. Very rich, very festive (that must be the cinnamon) and then a burst of freshness as the crunchy pomegranate seeds pop between your teeth. Oodles of calories!



We arrived at house number one expecting to offload some gifts and make our bag a bit lighter for our walk to house number two. We left house number one with more gifts than we arrived with and very full tummies! Very fitting that we should arrive at our friends' house on our Christmas Day in Fethiye just as they were sharing out aşure; a symbol of love, peace and merriment.