Night until Sunday my mum and I came back from our one-week holiday in Side, Turkey. I slept a number of hours before I set off for the last day of the Gave & Interiør/Gift & Interior Trade Fair in Lillestrøm to meet friends and yarn sponsors – exciting and inspiring as usual! Above is a view of the pool at our hotel: Sunwing Side West Beach, early one morning when we went for our swim. As you can imagine it did not stay that quiet during the day. With super hot temperatures between 36 to 39 degrees celsius/96 to 102 fahrenheit we sunbathed in the shadow on the beach during the day, we did not venture far at all. The sea temperature was 30 degrees celsius/86 fahrenheit partly due to the long shallow sandy beach, so the cooling down effect did not last for a long period of time. As a fellow Norwegian turist pointed out, the coldest place on the beach was the cold water shower next to the Beach Club – she and her husband visited the hotel for the 11th time and always for 3 weeks.

Here is the beach from the Sunwing section of it. I did bring my knitting but must admit that I did not do any, during the hot days, only a bit in the evenings when the temperatures where 10 degrees celsius/50 fahrenheit lower could I manage to knit for a short period of time. On the beach I relaxed by reading, swiming and watching the water sports enthusiasts as well as the myriad beach life.

We lasted a number of hours on the beach before we headed back to the hotel, a short walk away, in the late afternoon. It was easy to convince my mum to try out the hotel’s Spa so we had Turkish Bath one day, pedicure another and finished off with a deep tissue massage. We were making sure we were coming home in totally new updated versions! Above is the view from our balcony, which was too hot to use until the early evening. Our view is facing the next door hotel, the German Hane Family Resort. Yes, there were many German turists so even the bazars and shops had their signs in German. However, the Norwegians had shopped an awful lot in the hotel shop, since the Turkish Manager there was fluent in Norwegian. We were gobsmacked when she answered us back in Norwegian! Yes, we were no exceptions, and came home several bags richer. In the evenings we did not need to visit the Hane Family Resort show since we could hear it – if not see it – clearly from our balcony. We found a local restaurant we visited nearby with delicious food and only went by “Dolmus” (read: minibus) to Side once since we were in the nearby town of Everenski, 8 km outside of Side.

Above are the old ruins of the Ancient Side. We were fortunate to capture a young couple taking their wedding photos, before we meet them again strolling down the high street in Side making it an extra ordinary evening for us all!

The last view, to end this postcard from Turkey is the sunset through the Vespasian Gate with all the taxis on their way into the city center. The beautiful part of Side I will remember well.

It was a very enjoyable holiday, indeed! The only ball of yarn I found – and I did not search for it – was an expensive eyelash yarn, so I was not tempted to buy it. But then I did caress my bit of yarn at the trade fair just a few hours after my return home.