road |

On our way back from Denizli to Fethiye last year, Berkay said he really wanted to take a detour and visit the village of Güzelköy / Bozüyük – while there we stopped at a well known restaurant called ‘Pınarbaşı’ for some late brunch!

Apparently the restaurant has been featured in a few Turkish tv shows filmed in the local village, so it’s quite popular! Berkay wanted to try their lunch menu, but they hadn’t started serving it at the time we got there, so we had to settle for a traditional village breakfast instead, which was actually just what we needed after a couple of hours of driving.

The food was really good, a typical Turkish ‘köy kahvaltısı’ – cheese, olives, tomato & cucumber, peppers, walnuts, eggs and sucuk, jams and spreads, honey & kaymak, fresh bread and a big pot of çay. Really yummy! We could have sat there for ages just eating and enjoying the surroundings.

The best part for me wasn’t actually the food, it was the location. There were trees and gardens all around, along with natural streams of water. We chose a table that was actually sat in the water. They had normal tables and an inside restaurant area, and then little bridges and platforms over the streams leading to tables sat in it. It was mid-September and really warm so it was nice to sit in the shade of the trees with our feet in the cold water, although we were the only ones who chose to do that, I bet it’s really popular in the height of summer. I love the fact they had ducks swimming around the tables and your feet, they definitely benefited from some of our leftover food too! They were so cute.

There’s also an ancient 800 year old tree, which is really beautiful to look at! Apparently, in the absence of modern medicine, it used to be used for its healing powers, with ointments and antidotes made from it’s roots. It’s also thought to have granted wishes to those passing through! The tree started to rot and has been protected for the last 20 years with the hope of keeping it alive in it’s full glory. It’s really interesting how the shapes have formed, it’s gigantic!

From what I can remember, the breakfast was a bit more expensive than normal, but I would go back and visit again because it was a really relaxing place and Berkay still wants to try their main menu! It’s around 2 hours from Calis/Fethiye, past Mugla city centre towards Aydin, so an ideal stop-off point if you’re on a long journey along that road – definitely worth a visit!

While we were in the village of Beyağaç back in November, we drove up a mountain road to a forest area and explored a little whilst hunting for mushrooms.

While we were up there the sun began to set and the trees looked absolutely beautiful with the orange glow behind them and I couldn’t resist taking a few photos as they just looked so magical!

While we were wandering around we came across a mine, I’m not sure if it’s still in use but it was pretty creepy. I checked online and I believe its a chromite mine. I wandered down to the entrance and had a peek in, there were spider webs everywhere and it was really eerie, I don’t know how anyone manages to work in mines like this, it wasn’t very tall at all… it reminded me of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs!

We also found a huge hole in the ground, all sorts of weird and wonderful creatures live up in the mountains I’m sure, any suggestions as to what might have been living in this? It was quite wide and very deep, I couldn’t see the bottom.

We could see all of Beyağaç from the mountain, the views were stunning… fields, trees and farm land in all directions as far as the eye could see. It was so peaceful up there, although a little scary with the mine and I had visions of whatever animal was hidden in that giant hole coming out and chasing us back to the car… What a story that would have been!