Antalya – A Change of Pace

We woke early to catch our flight to Antalya, which meant another encounter with the enormous scale of Istanbul Airport. This time, though, we knew what to expect. The endless corridors, the distances, the sheer size of the place no longer surprised us quite as much. Perhaps that is what travel does. What overwhelms you on arrival can feel almost familiar only a few days later.

The flight to Antalya was short, and the difference was noticeable almost as soon as we stepped outside. It was warmer. Much warmer. The jackets that had occasionally been useful in Istanbul suddenly seemed unnecessary.

Our drive to the Sirene Belek Hotel took about forty-five minutes. The resort, built in 2001 and renovated in 2012, is enormous in its own way, spreading through beautifully landscaped grounds all the way to the Mediterranean. After several days of navigating Istanbul’s streets, mosques, palaces, bazaars, ferries and crowds, the change of pace was immediate.

We didn’t try to do very much.

We walked leisurely through the grounds toward the beach, eventually settling down for Turkish tea and cookies while waiting for dinner. The Mediterranean stretched out ahead of us, the resort behind us, and for once there was nowhere we particularly needed to be.

Dinner was an all-you-can-eat affair with more choices than I could reasonably count. Istanbul had already introduced us to the extraordinary relationship Turkey seems to have with food. Antalya appears determined to continue the education.

Later in the evening, we met up with friends at the MAXGOLF Golf Tours gathering to go over the plans for the next few days. There was, however, one small complication: we don’t play golf.

While our friends had come to Antalya partly for the fairways, Yemi and I would have to create an itinerary of our own while the golfers golfed. Somehow that didn’t feel like much of a hardship. We were in a part of Turkey we had never seen before, with the Mediterranean at our doorstep and several days available to explore it.

And then it was time for bed.

Istanbul had been about movement—walking, looking, learning, trying to understand centuries of history compressed into one extraordinary city.

Antalya, at least on this first evening, felt different. Warm air, Turkish tea by the sea, an absurd number of choices at dinner, and friends gathered together before we all went our separate ways in the morning.

They would have their golf courses. We would have Antalya.

That seemed like a perfectly reasonable arrangement.

Simply O