ANTALYA: Turkey's Mediterranean Pin-Up Girl

On the face of it, Antalya had it all. Undeniably stunning, its location was good for the Romans to use its nice little harbour as a trading hub, needing only a few low key defences around it. Wrapping around the harbour like an amphitheatre, the streets testify to the periods of development since, with some beautiful Ottoman buildings, giving the historic district a lovely focal point. Walking around the harbour was slow going - as every angle was easy on the eye and hard on the camera, with sparkling turquiose water leading to snow covered ranges forming its mountainous outlook.

But like a beautifully adorned model, the warm heart of this town (if it still exists) was carefully concealed. Dealings with hostels and shop keepers were cold experiences, and people preferred to embrace their lives rather than the sight of another tourist briefly basking in their towns' views. Thank heavens we were in the dead of winter, as high season in this town promised to crash waves of tourists over it to soak in its glitzy ambience.

So in the face of its sheer beauty we cruised the water on a boat, strolled its old streets, and avoided its touristy eats. Eventually finding the restaurant recommended by our hostel after some really vague (and flawed) directions, it turned out to be yet another empty glitzy hole. Instead we lost ourselves in the backstreets, and stumbled on a local haunt with three levels packed into the space of two (cunningly placing roof supports at shoulder height), which had exceptional food. Updating our hostel on our find, his eyes sparked in recognition at the name, but looked puzzled saying, "But I know this restaurant, it's for locals". As if tourists dietary needs are somehow different...

Our highlight in Antalya began unexpectedly with a stop into a second hand (English) bookshop. The owner, predictably, was sprawled in the doorway reading a good book. As we painstakingly hunted through the chaotic collection of books, we were less predictably offered tea and a slice of massive field mushroom ovenbaked in copious oil and garlic, stuffed unceremoniously into crusty wholemeal bread. Our host made some offhand remark about going for a swim, and immediately had a willing accomplice to take a fresh wintery leap into the sparkling water, much to the amusement of coated-up locals playing board games and enjoying the waterfront views. To warm Benj back up, we parked on the edge of the waterfront park and indulged in hot sweet tea from a beautiful silver charcoal-fired tea maker. The gent on the little table next to us kindly gave us a demo on the correct rituals of tea drinking, and we sat there together supping and clashing Turkish and English. In one day, we had found very friendly people and the heart of this town was awakening.

Around Antalya lies a host of reasonable sites that we were keen to see - mostly Roman, with a nice dash of natural beauty. The quiet season was decimating the available tours, leaving us no options but (in hindsight) a very overpriced and average tour from the tour agency in the old district. Side was a remarkable dissapointment, as the tall Roman temple ruins sitting majestically on the waterfront was sprouting reinforcing steel from the base of its columns - the whole thing was a recreation using modern materials. The neighbouring pile of destroyed white marble columns was all that actually remained from the temple.

The one site that left us with the wow factor was the Aspendos amphi-theatre that had received enough TLC from the Seljuk Turks and modernites to keep it in pretty faithful condition to what the Romans created for purposes of artistic and bloody entertainment - even with provision for discharging dangerous animals under the stage into the arena. The result was actually a very illuminating demonstration of what many of the other amphitheatres that we have seen would have been like.

At the end of the tour, we got dropped at the bus station, and we were semi-ready for the long overnight bus trip into Turkey's cold hinterland - Cappadocia. Farewell Antalya and farewell to your beautiful Mediterranean.

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