DALYAN - Is it Turkey's BEST Holiday Spot? | Adventure Travel VAN LIFE Series Around the world
Welcome to Dalyan! Look at the size of that! The New Year's resolution has been delayed a week! oh really beautiful I am falling a little bit of love with Dalyan! Wow! I feel really privileged to be here. We're Marianne and Chris and we've been traveling full time since May 2018. Whilst attempting to drive around the world in Trudy our home on wheels this happened ..... The coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced for decades. As borders closed around us we decided to wait it out in Turkey until we were able to continue our adventure East. We hope you enjoy this episode, if you do please consider subscribing and giving us a thumbs up! Good morning, so after the festive period we have woken up here in Dalyan and we're so excited today, because where we're staying with Levent - who is awesome! He's very kindly let us stay here, park up here over the festive period and today he's offered to show us around the area.
What are we going to see today? Most of the Dalyan, Yeah i would like to show you all of Dalyan, amazing! It's quite sunny day, it's like we're lucky with the weather today! It's been raining for a few days. Okay let's rock and roll then, yeah let's go! So Levent's just explaining that, the first ever hotel in Dalyan was here and his brother ran it. It was here? you guys ran the first hotel! and here it is no more, it used to be right here opposite these tombs. Imagine some rooms here in a V Shape, yeah and now it's a park. And sometimes in the summer it is completely full here!
Packed! With this very nice view. One of the things Dalyan is famous for, is the Lycian tombs, you can see them in the hills behind us, Levent is just saying you can get a rowing boat to the other side, so maybe we'll look at doing that. But absolutely fascinating! Carved out of the rock face, and it's got legends and myths behind it! How do they carve that out? I don't know .... We've been keep trying to work it's out ... it is a mystery! Yes. We will go to the other side, we will walk or drive, and then we will walk up to the top of that hill. Oh yeah that looks amazing! Down this road is the ferry, the ferry to cross, oh amazing! We're going to the other side! We're going to the other side now! One thing you'll notice driving around Dalyan is that all of the houses are actually really big, detached looking style houses. There's not lots of built up villas, it's got a real different feel to it.
So we've come to the end of the road, there's a barrier here with the water in front. Wow look at this, so we've come to the end this is where you get the ferry across. This place is a fish farm, oh it's a fish farm.
So there's two places to get the ferry across, there's this one on the south of the town and there's another one on the north of the town. And this is the hill that we're going to be walking up on top there, oh it's going to be amazing views. How picturesque is this? It really is stunning! I am falling a little bit of love with Dalyan, it's amazing isn't it? here comes the ferry this is the little ferry ! Oh I think it can only take maybe two cars? Yes or one Trudy! One Trudy look that's a great little ferry! So the ferry is here, we've jumped on the ferry, we're hanging around for a couple of minutes to see if somebody else joins us but i noticed something, and it doesn't happen very often ... Chris and I were stood in silence! It doesn't happen often I've got to say! but this place is just stunning, the water here, actually it's all perfect! I want to live here! Can we live here? Can we just live here ! So we've got the fishing boats coming in, fishing is a huge business here in Dalyan, in the lake and the the river here, and there's a fishing boat coming in now with the boxes of fish.
Look! So they've got lovely blue crabs here, look at those they're big! fresh fish, you can't get any fresher than that ! Literally just caught all packaged up there, oh it's big, look at the size of that! We have got to go! We don't want to miss the ferry! So we've driven up onto the hill on the other side, and you've got this wonderful view over the Dalyan valley here, with the town in the distance there, and we're going to go and see some ruins, what are they called? Kaunos Antique City, ah the ruins of Kaunos. These buildings are huge! Levent was saying that they lock these gates to secure everything that they've been finding whilst they're digging. Ah amazingly built structures aren't they? It's hard to imagine what it would have been like, but seeing these enormous wide columns here, you can just imagine great big pillars and courtyards, and I was saying maybe this was some kind of Roman bath? Or sort of a an area where people would come and bathe in the heat ? There are great big archways, some of them have been blocked up, but great big archways you can see people would have come in and spent some time here, so so long ago! Entry is normally 14 TL, unless you've got a museum card and then it's free. That was a Roman bath! I got it right! There's a very useful sign here, because obviously when you're visiting ruins it's hard to know exactly what you're looking at, and as i've said before, I don't have the best of imaginations, but it's very helpful because they're pointing out what is what ! And there's a dome church, there's the roman bath, there is a temple terrace, so we're going to go and have a look around now ... and use your imagination! Most tourist areas in Turkey have very good and explicit information, which is very helpful especially when you're not particularly knowledgeable about history, because it brings it more alive.
It's nice, they've got these walkways placed all around this area, because they've got these lovely mosaics on the floor and to allow you to be able to see them they've created this walkway so you can come up above then and not damage them and yet still have that experience. It's quite high up and I suppose one of the advantages to being this high up, is the views and it certainly has some of those! How amazing is that! We've come across a goat, we can hear the bells, so there must be loads of them in this little area down here! Oh there's more over there, there's a big black one over there, it's gorgeous ! Goats, sheep, they are the best lawn mowers, the most environmentally friendly lawn mowers! And they're just keeping everything lovely and tidy. This whole area is protected and you can see why there are lovely birds on the water, there's so much nature here, if you listen you can just hear all the goats and the birds, what a lovely space, I feel really privileged to be here.
Just when you thought it couldn't get any better ... there's a donkey! Oh look! So i've come down into the middle of the theatre here, Romeo Romeo! So this is the prime location for a performance, unfortunately today I only have two people in the audience you can see! Bravo Bravo !! The size of the stones that this is built out of a huge, good chunks of rock, that's why it's lasted the test of time. You can imagine the performances that were here back in the day and I just love these olive trees that over the years have sprouted up. Amazingly this theatre seats up to 5,000 people and has a diameter of 75 meters! And it has eight stairways! There's this tunnel entrance to the theatre Maybe the entrance is for the important people ... Like us and Levent! So now we're going to go and walk to the top of the hill. Marianne's excited to do walking! This goes to Koycegiz lake, but this side yes, from the mountain this side, yeah in this area is called Çandir lake, and it is a sulphur lake, it smells, oh and it's warm, yes it's volcanic, and warm, this lake here? No the far one, the one by the rocks? yeah.
So we're about halfway up and we parked the car by the side of the road there, just where that truck's coming and you can see there's about seven donkeys just in front of the truck there and then we walked there by the ruins here, we've walked up the hill and we still have a little way to go to the top up there. So we're nearly at the top and you can see brickwork again, i must be honest, i wouldn't want to bring these rocks up this height! I think they would have been very fit in those days to be working up here, bringing these up! How are you feeling love? A bit warm! It is a good way to burn off those Christmas calories! Yes those Christmas calories ! A massive thank you to everyone in Dalyan who has brought us Christmas cookies, brownies and chocolates and everything! We love you guys but stop feeding us ! Everyone is feeding us, it's so lovely! But stop now! Yeah the New Year's resolution's been delayed a week! Amazing what a view, and we're not at the top yet! There's still a good view! We will go to the top by the flagpole, the tops up by the flagpole? oh we still got a way to go yet! Oh good yay! It's funny this old rock here, looks like tree bark .... but it is stone, it's all the way up there look there, loads of it that looks like wood grain amazing. So we're nearly at the top look at this view! Wow looking down over the ruins, it's a good walk here if you come up, let's see the view from the top here .... Wow Wow wonderful! That's amazing! look at this view, so here's the Lycian tombs and the river which goes to the lake, the hotel is just the other side of here, this is the Dalyan town and then this is where we got the ferry across this morning and then we drove around and climbed up.
But this river goes all the way down to the sea that you can see there, absolutely amazing views! We were just learning from Levent that there's a lot of organic producers here and from up here you can see why, there are crops all the way around and of course they have this fabulous water source, but also what you'll see as well as you look around is there are bee hives everywhere, which is perfect for pollinating these organic crops. What a view and I can't believe how much bigger Dalyan is than we expected, because when you're walking around town it feels really like a village or small town. But it's massive! It's a perfect way to see that they're not all villas, they're all big houses because you can't see any of those sort of villa style buildings, can you? yeah, it's a very unique place isn't it for a holiday destination, and we can see why people come back year after year after year, not just because Levent is awesome! It's idyllic actually, isn't it? So you can see old ruins here on top of the hill and this would have been a fortress because from up here you get the best view for defence, you would see any people coming to attack you a long before they got here. You can also see ruins of the old wall, the city wall that would have surrounded the city, as a as a defence. So we're looking on this side the river goes all the way around and you can see barriers across the river, that's to keep the fish in because this river goes up to a lake this way, and it's just one big huge natural fish farm and fish as we said is a really big part of this community. And then looking in the distance this long stretch here is the famous beach called? Itzuzu beach.
And it's famous for loggerhead turtles, I think it's about five or six kms long, it's one of the very famous beaches in Turkey and the turtle sanctuary is down this this end of the beach down here. What a wonderful view with the marshlands, it's definitely worth a walk up to the top of this hill for this view, and I can't believe how lucky we are with the weather today, exactly! hey it's hot! it is! I'm hot! I sent a memo to get good weather ! I'm actually too hot now, I need to take my top off! Don't jump Levent! I'm not thinking too! There's a big drop, the edge on this side just goes straight down! But what a view! Thank you for bringing us up here - you are welcome Okay now we're going to go down and see if we can get to the tombs to do some filming, maybe we'll get the drone up down there. These are the ones we thought were donkeys from the top, and they're cows! having a little nibble on the olive tree here next to the side of the road, here they've got all these bee hives, Levent was saying that there's lots of beehives here, mainly they get the sap from the pine trees, so the honey would taste so different. That is so funny Levent's just helping the cow get some more olive branches, you've got a happy cow! I hope the olive tree owner does not see this video ha ha! but everyone will love you for being so nice to the cow. So we've come down to one of Levents' friend's farms, where they've got olives and bees and they're doing some pruning work here on the olive trees and looking after them ready for the next season.
Yeah we learnt from our friends in Croatia who have an olive farm, that at the end of the season they cut wood out from the middle branches of the tree to let the air go through, to keep the tree healthy. They've got lots of bees here as well. Yeah for salad, salad ah herbs ? What is it called? And they eat it with salads? You can eat it by itself. in a pan with oil and onions, if you want you can add on pepper, just fry it in the pan, yeah, and you eat it like that, like spinach, spinach oh super, yes so it's this plant here, related to hibiscus. We've driven around and we're actually opposite the little park where we started this morning, where Levent had his hotel, we're on the other side of the river and just behind me, up here are the amazing looking tombs, it's a little bit windy but maybe we can give it a go with the drone.
We'll drive down, I think we should we should do it. They're right there, it's an amazing sight! So that was great, we managed to get the drone up, the wind slowed down so we got some shots of the the tombs for you. They are just really fascinating they remind us a little bit of you know the carvings in Petra, just like that, but it's what time? It is ... must be nearly two o'clock? 13.40 - it's time to eat! I'd like to thank Levent for organising some goats to be around the tombs whilst we were droning, absolutely i hope the goats came out! It was hard to see them with the with the drone when we were flying, but yeah, amazing and we got a lovely aerial view of Dalyan as well.
And we've got perfect timing because we just arrived at the ferry and it's just arriving! Look at that, very well timed, here we go! Because fish is so famous in this region, they've got like a little fishmongers here with fish that's caught locally from the river and then they serve it in the restaurant next door, we're going to have a take out for lunch today. So look at this fish sandwich we got for lunch, with some salad and grey mullet, onion, salad and what do they call it? Fish sandwich. Beautiful this looks so good, with some onions and some salad, and it's even got pickles inside! It's good right? Wow ! Dalyan special! Join us in Dalyan on the next episode as we head to the beach, see some turtles and go on an awesome boat trip!
2021-01-26 11:51
