Early Morning Stroll

Up bright and early for a traditional Turkish breakfast at the hotel – feta cheese, olives and boiled eggs, and then went for a stroll around the local area, to get a flavour of our surroundings. Of course we headed to the beach first.

There’s something very tranquil about walking through the back streets of a town and around the harbour in the early parts of the day, before most of the inhabitants are awake.

There’s a feeling of calm and lack and urgency, that’s definitely missing from back home.  I made a vow to get some more of these early morning strolls onto the agenda.

We came across some early morning cobblers, making leather sandals, who were happy to pose for me!  But other than them, and a few local fisherman enjoying an early morning turkish coffee or tea – there was nobody else around.

A little bit later, as the town started to awaken, we headed off to meet Evren at Sunshine Turkish Homes to meet our real estate team.  I’d found these guys from the Internet, via a site called Turkey Twinkles — the website had researched agents between Izmir and Fethiye, and make recommendations, and also included some places for sale.

Starting our day with Sunshine

We swapped a few emails, and I had a level of confidence about working with STH.  But honestly it was basically a crap-shoot – and we had to start somewhere.

Even though the Sunshine website wasn’t the most advanced — it did have a wide array of properties.  I surfed the web for posts and reviews about STH, and didn’t find any negative OR positive.  I took this as a good sign.

We’d surfed the STH site for a couple of months, and had a good idea of the area we wanted to buy in – but were open to serendipity.  Bodrum looked like an excellent place to have a vacation rental, but we wanted somewhere a little bit more out of the way — and far from the maddening crowds.

Evren sent us some property details, and I spent more than a few lunchtimes in my LA corporate castle perusing the house specs and photo’s.  My appetite was whetted:

“well maintained complex with swimming pool, cafeteria, markets, private beach and 24 hours security”

“located on the beach side”

“there is a great property which is 100 meters from beach. So, it is a really good investment and a summer house.”

“The other property that needs renovation is located in Yalıkavak. Ideal for the DIY expert or the true bargain hunter, 3 bedrooms, roof terrace and sea views this property is located about 7km from Yalikavak.”

Our options were looking good!  Off to meet Evren…