Family Trip: Turkey (the trip and the hotel)

Our trip to Turkey begins about a year earlier.  I was discussing a potential move to the UK that January with a couple of skeptical daughters who didn't want to leave their friends during the middle of the school year.  At one point during the discussion I pulled up a map of the US and Europe on the iPad.  I explained that I wasn't promising we would move to the UK, but if we did, it would involve a short plane flight from Indianapolis to Newark, and then a long plane flight across the ocean to the UK.  Elise looked at the map and realized that the UK was much closer to Greece than the US.  That changed the value proposition for her, as her 3rd grade class in the US was studying ancient Greece at the time.

Daddy, if we move to the UK, then we could go visit Greece!  Okay, I've decided I want to go.

When we were on the ground in Derby a couple months later, I mentioned this story to a colleague who had recently moved to Derby from Turkey to join the same group I was in.  He suggested that if we wanted to visit ancient Greece, we should consider going to Turkey instead.  He offered several reasons for this, among them that the ruins of ancient Greece are in modern day Turkey, Turkey is more economical to travel to, and you can always get a boat ride across the Aegean Sea if you still want to visit Greece.

Kristine and I were planning on doing one large (e.g., not staying with friends or going to a cabin where we self-cater) trip while we are over here.  We decided that ancient Greece made a lot of sense given its role in thawing Elise's opinion about moving to the UK, and that Turkey made a lot of sense given my colleague's comments about seeing ancient Greece.  Courtesy of First Choice Travel Holidays, we found an economical all-inclusive trip for the October half-term school break.

Our July trip to the US involved a missing passport.  Our August trip to Germany involved a 3:30 am wakeup call, only to find a completely packed airport at 5:30.  This mixed (at best) experience at the Birmingham Airport gave me some apprehension about making the departure.  Much to my surprise, all the airport logistics went very smoothly.

The parking lot was considerably less packed this time, which I don't completely understand since it was the Saturday before a week-long half-term holiday.

Clare was thrilled about pulling her own suitcase through the airport.  We were thrilled that she's getting big enough to pull her own suitcase through the airport.

Those black dots she was walking over?  I wondered what their purpose was.  It turns out they are an excellent way of helping squirly kids not run around.  All you do is tell them to follow the trail of dots.

Charis took advantage of the peaceful daylight flight to (re)read Pippi Longstocking.

Charis's willingness to spend so much time reading meant that Clare got the iPad for most of the flight.  This meant Clare was cheerful, which also meant Kristine, as the parent assigned to sit next to her on the outgoing flight, had a good flight.

Our flight with Thomson Airways took us into the airport in Izmir.  We stayed at the Onyria Claros hotel, which was about a 45 min drive south, just outside of Ozdere, and across the bay from Kusadasi.

We were in one of the villas, about a 5 minute walk from the main hotel.

With a lovely view of the ocean.

Which not everyone enjoyed all the time.  In Clare's defense, this was the morning after we arrived at the hotel close to midnight the previous night.

The distance from the main hotel meant we did quite a bit of walking.  Or, in the girls' case, running.

The hotel cafeteria had a decent buffet of foods for each meal.  The quantity and variety of olives took some getting used to.

One of us wished that the cheese and sausage platters were available at more than just breakfast (my wife and daughters were not so appreciative).

We all enjoyed the fruit.

And the dessert.

Truly, we enjoyed the dessert (chocolate on pancakes counts as dessert in my book, even if it's at breakfast).

I mentioned the olives, right?

Despite it being the last week of October, the weather was decently mild.  This meant we generally ate breakfast and lunch on the balcony.

Or, more importantly, were able to knit on the balcony.

I realized part way through the week that the girls have had very little exposure to real beaches (no, Connecticut in August doesn't count).  This trip was a great opportunity to rectify that missing experience.  We did the obligatory "bury someone in sand" activity.  To her credit, this was Elise's idea.

The girls labored valiantly to build sand structures that might withstand the onslaught of the waves.

The mild weather meant we could generally use the ocean as a way to clean off.  The mild weather also meant the ocean wasn't really warm enough to spend tons of time playing in.

Apologies for the fuzzy picture here.  I had great fun playing volleyball one morning.  I think we had three nationalities between the five of us (American, German, and ??).  It was the first time I've played in many years.  Something my gimpy knee reminded me of by aching for a long time afterwards.  That notwithstanding, it was fun to revive dormant muscle memories.  And for the record, despite what my brothers might say, this photo captures a brilliant set.

The hotel had several outdoor pools.  The water was actually colder in the pools than in the ocean.  Despite the cold temperatures, the girls were able to convince Kristine to join them a couple of times.

  

Although the cold temperatures did mean recovery time like this.

Part way through the week we figured out where the indoor pool was.  This greatly improved our fun playing in the water.  We would play on the beach from after lunch until about 3 pm when the temperature dropped and the girls turned purple.  Then we'd rinse off in the ocean and head to the indoor pool for another hour or so of water fun.

Somewhat to my surprise, the girls got into mini-golf.

I'm sure this pose reflects great skill and concentration.

On our last day at the hotel, most of the recreational equipment was closed down because the tourist season was wrapping up.  To kill time, we took the girls to the hotel amphitheater (it wasn't used at all the week we were there, but I gather it's a lot more active during the busier times of the year).  Here's Clare performing Frozen, and flinging her arms wide for emphasis on Let it go.

Charis performed a little ditty about beans that she learned at school

Saturday night saw us back at the airport in Izmir for a 9 pm flight to Birmingham.  With a couple of very tired daughters (and one who cheerfully stayed up reading on the 4 hr flight, and then fell asleep in the car before we were out of the Birmingham airport).