Cennet gibi, or A Little Bit of Heaven

It’s late on Monday night here, and we’ve just spent our first full day of a one-week stay here in Çiralı.  We arrived last night after driving in our rented Hyundai Getz from Antalya Airport through city and suburbs, mountains and tunnels, until we came to the turnoff, wound our way down in the dark for 7 km through showers and mist, and arrived at the village of Çiralı and the beach and all of its little restaurants, souvenir shops, citrus groves, and pansiyons.  We had a late and friendly dinner at the Oleander, drinking a little rakı (bir az sadece) and remembering with the staff Lorraine’s birthday celebration there on our last visit two years ago.

We tried on the beach today to remember how many times we’ve been here, when it was, where we stayed each time, and what we did.  The first time was in 2003 with our daughter E., having driven all the way from Kapadokya and winding down the small road in rain and darkness to find Fehim Pansiyon where we stayed for a night before heading on to Patara Beach and the coal-choked atmosphere of Muğla the next morning.  We have learned a lot since then; for example, find a place you love, go there, and stay there.  Which is what we did yesterday.

It wasn’t until our third visit that we discovered Arcadia, where we have now stayed on several visits, loving the wooden bungalows with verandahs and thatched roofs, the gardens and groves, the proximity to the sea, and the tables with white cloths at the crest of the beach where the most wonderful breakfast anywhere is served to you every morning.  We have told others about it and regaled those not fortunate to have got there yet with tales of those breakfasts just above the morning Mediterranean.

I love that Çiralı is hard to get to, surrounded by high rocky hills, that huge loggerhead turtles come to lay eggs (check here for the hatch) all along its protected beach, that the pansiyons and hotels are small and intimate, mostly  set in citrus groves, that the water is so clear and so warm, that you can walk to the far end of the beach and see the cut stone piers of the ancient port of Olimpos, that you can climb partway up the mountain at our end to see the amazing flames of the chimaera, and that there’s a Mount Olimpos looking over it to connect us with a rich and resonant heritage of travel by sea and small settlements around the edges of the Med, the sea that was (and sometimes still seems to be) the sea at the centre of the earth.

So Lorraine and I are staying at Baraka House, checking out this new enterprise of our friend Ihsan and following the advice in the top picture, remaining calm, deciding difficult things like whether to have another cup of tea or coffee at breakfast or whether one more piece of toast with bal kaymak is too much, what we will read, or where we will swim today.  It’s difficult, but we are moving slowly, like the tortoise on our walkway, and we think we will manage.  It is, after all, cennet gibi, or a little bit of heaven, and there's no need to rush anything here.