Deb's Travels: Beach bums in Cirali

We arrived late last night (almost midnight) in the small village of Cirali. We picked Cirali as we wanted a few days in a beach location that wasn’t a busy commercialized area full of tourists….we wanted small, quiet and along with that we get cheaper prices for the hotels and better value for our money! The owner of the small family run hotel we are staying at here is actually a born and raised Calgarian and moved to Turkey with her husband to open this bed and breakfast. Small world! The service here is amazing and they feed us a 4 course Turkish dinner every night included with our room. They even stayed up and fed us at midnight last night when we arrived! We were starving and so grateful! The food has been really good so far and so much healthier than London. We’re finally getting vegetables back in our diet. Cirali is a close hike to the Olympos ruins and the Chimaera fires as well…that and a fantastic beach gives us a big bang for our buck here!
Today we recovered from London and spent all day at the beach sunning ourselves and reading under blue skies and 36C temperatures!

The beach is a short 10 minute bike ride from our hotel and surrounded by mountains and forest. The beach extends for three kilometres and is one of the few protected beaches where the Caretta or loggerhead sea turtles lay their eggs. Caretta return to these shores where they are born after they reach maturity to lay their eggs, having travelled thousands of miles to get here. This ritual has continued for millions of years will continue to take place as long as the area is protected by the WWF for their nesting. It’s the only reason the whole area hasn’t been taken over by large hotel chains.
The beach itself is great. It’s pebbly, not sandy, and has great scenery. There are restaurants and small guesthouses along the beach and a long as you order some drinks and food you can spend all day on their sun loungers. The ocean is calm and fairly warm too so great for a soak when you overheat.