You don’t have to play golf to enjoy a holiday in Belek, a Turkish seaside-and-golf resort area developed over the past 20 or so years in the Antalya region of Turkey. But if you do, there are 18 golf courses in the area to try out. Lolling in a cabana in the Maxx Royal Golf Resort, we think briefly about those energetic enough to play golf in 34-degree heat; then we stroll down to the sea to drift lazily in the Mediterranean. Right up to late autumn, the water temperature is close to 30 degrees.
The Maxx Royal is a luxury hotel with a Colin Montgomerie-designed 18-hole golf course, rooms, suites and villas, spa, cinema, shops, nightclubs, kids’ club and – best of all for those of us who are simply sun-worshippers – pools and a beach. Guests pay an all-inclusive price for this luxury, which makes staying in the Maxx Royal a bit like being on a cruise ship.
You can venture out to see nearby historic sights, or take a trip to the city of Antalya 35km away.
After our stay here we head 35km west of Antalya, at the foot of the Taurus Mountains, to another, possibly even more luxurious Maxx Royal resort at Kemer. The Maxx Royal Kemer is all eco design, a place of stone and wood and grasses, where suites come with Jacuzzi baths on the balcony. Goats stroll down the mountainside to wander among sun loungers, neither disturbing nor disturbed by hotel guests.
There’s no golf course here, but sitting on its white-sand Tangerine Beach, framed by pine-covered hills, it’s not something that bothers us.
Turkey is one of the most visited countries in the world, its tourism sector important to its economic growth. But visitors have to inform themselves about security before making travel plans, as terrorism affects countries from Turkey to Egypt, Tunisia to France.
Our trip to Turkey was mid-September, as pictures of refugees flooded TV screens. Since then, 100 people died in a terrorist incident in Ankara in October, and 10 tourists in an attack near one of Istanbul’s most visited spots, the Blue Mosque, on January 12th.
The travel advice from Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs still reads “exercise caution”, warning that “the threat from terrorism in Turkey remains high”. The Department (dfa.ie) also “strongly advises against travelling to the border areas between Turkey and Syria” – but the no-go Turkish/Syria border area is more than 1,000km away from Istanbul, and about 700km from Antalya. It advises that “vigilance is required in tourist areas such as Taksim Square in Istanbul”.
Everyone’s reaction to my trip in September was, are you sure? Is it safe? Bearing in mind that I’d first arrived in Ireland from Canada in the late 1960s, when people asked the same question, I reckoned it would be. And it was.
It was a trip that offered a taste of Turkey, with a little over a day in Istanbul, and two days in the south. And tasty it turned out to be, in every sense: the food – from mezze of salads and dips to main dishes of sea bass and steaks to pastries and chocolates – was irresistible.
We got our first proper view of a city that has fascinated travellers for centuries from our room in Istanbul’s Park Bosphorus Hotel, a redeveloped heritage building that was Turkey’s foreign affairs palace 120 years ago. It looks straight over the Bosphorus, where ferries, cruise ships and container ships move calmly up the straits that separate Europe from Asia. Istanbul is a huge, bustling city with a population of more than 14 million, fascinating even apart from the high-profile tourist attractions which visitors may be wary of right now.
With just 24 hours, our choices were limited: a trip to Dolmabahçe Palace, the last palace of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire, offered a brief glimpse of the riches of that empire.
Our trip took us next over the suspension bridge to Istanbul’s Asian side: from Çamlica Hill, a pine-covered park, there are panoramic views back across the Bosphorus to the minarets, skyscrapers and sprawl of European-side Istanbul.
Back in cosmopolitan Ortaköy, an old neighbourhood near the foot of the bridge, we sip coffee by the water a few feet away from the ornate Ortaköy Mosque, watching ferries and tourist boats move. We’re in Open House, a trendy restaurant in an urban village full of shops, clubs and bars. Later, we eat another feast of Turkish food in another waterside restaurant, Reina, looking up at the lights on the glittering bridge nearby.
Twenty-four hours isn’t enough but if that’s all you’ve got, check out istanbulinhours.com: if you have a stopover of six hours or more (up to 24 hours) at Ataturk airport, you can get a free bus tour of the city.
Frances O’Rourke travelled as a guest of Turkish Airlines, which has two flights (four hours and 20 minutes) a day from Dublin Airport to Istanbul, with onward connection to Antalya, about an hour’s flight away. turkishairlines.com
STAY
Park Bosphorus Hotel, Istanbul: Rooms/suites have either Bosphorus or city views. Prices from about ¤200 a night right up to ¤15,000 a night in the presidential suite. Check out the huge spa. parkbosphorushotel.com.
Maxx Royal, Belek and Kemer: Luxury resort hotels with a huge range of amenities to suit all types of travellers, from honeymooners to families. The Belek resort has the Montgomerie Maxx Royal golf course.
Travel agent Golfbreaks quotes a price of ¤1,599 per person for seven nights in April, which includes flights, four rounds of golf, and is all-inclusive (that’s all meals and drinks, including alcohol). golfbreaks.ie. maxxroyal.com
EAT
The House Café, Istanbul: Visit the Ortakoy mosque next door, watch ferries dock by waterside café as you dine or snack on mezze or Turkish pastries. There are 10 in this Istanbul chain ranging from a café in Tesvikiye shopping district to one by the sea in Ortakoy. thehousecafe.com
Reina, Istanbul: Eat, dance by the Bosphorus near the foot of the bridge. Named one of the world’s 50 best restaurants by Condé Nast Traveller magazine, this is also one of Istanbul’s glitziest clubs. reina.com.tr
Food to fly for
The flying chef arrives at our seats with lunch: today’s flight menu is a “Potpourri of Turkish Meze” (bulgur salad with grilled chicken, stuffed eggplant, beetroot hummus, yoghurt purslane salad) to start, followed by a choice of three dishes that include prawn stew with buttered rice and homemade gnocchi. He’s one of Turkish Airlines’s 878 flying chefs, who make sure that food on long flights in business class is prepared and presented properly.
Dull, tasteless and over-priced airline food is a common complaint of frequent flyers, but some airlines are now taking on the challenge of serving good food. Turkish Airlines promises its passengers tasty food made on the day you fly, served up elegantly in business class. The flying chefs even serve candlelit dinners on evening flights (candles battery-operated of course).
To provide this service, the airline went into partnership with catering company Do&Co a few years ago. (Do&Co, an Austrian company founded by Turkish/Austrian Attila Dogudan, caters for events such as Formula 1, the Chelsea Flower Show and the UEFA 2016 Euro Finals. )
In the Turkish Do&Co kitchen at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport, we watch cooks hand-decorating delicate pastries, filling gnocchi, preparing food for the meals that are served fresh every day on all Turkish Airlines flights.
Business class customers can also get a taste of Turkish Airlines food in its huge passenger lounge in Ataturk airport: there’s a pool table, cinema, library and children’s playground in the lounge as well as a number of restaurants serving yummy Turkish (and international) food.
Turkish Airlines CEO Temel Kotil says that the airline sees providing customers with good food as a marketing tool. It seems to be working: the airline has won a number of industry awards in the past few years, and Vogue magazine recently named Turkish Airlines one of four airlines making bad in-flight cuisine a thing of the past.
