Our Family Travels: Cirali

Where we stayed - Canada Hotel

Olympos beach

We decided that we needed o take a bit of a holiday from our RTW trip to give the kids a much deserved break and time to recover, so we spend 5 blissful days in Cirali. I'd read on Trip Advisor about a hotel called the Canada Hotel which was run by a Turkish/Canadian family (surprising aye). It has received rave reviews about the awesome food they serve and the place apparently was fantastic for families. Boy, oh boy were those reviews right!

Beautiful Olympos beach

As soon as we arrived, Carrie was there to warmly greet us and made us feel extremely welcome. After quickly checking in we dumped our backpacks and headed straight for the pool and basically stayed there until just before dinner was served. Dinner at the Canada hotel is a true Turkish experience. First they give you a delicious soup, followed by at least 6 or 7 different varieties of meze (salads, olives, stuffed grape leaves etc). After munching your way though that your starting to get a bit full, but the food keeps coming. The main dish is then served, which always consists of meat/fish and rice/couscous. This of course is then followed by dessert. I don't think in the whole 5 days we stayed we even came close to finishing at least half of the food they served us...We gave it a bloody good try though!

Water-rats

Cirali is a cool little town, with not much more than a few mini markets and a handful of restaurants. It has a beautiful beach (pity it's a stone beach though) which is backed by towering mountains and the ruins of Olymos are a short stroll down the beach.

Olympos beach

One day we hired a car and took a trip down the cost to Kale. It's the town where St Nicholas (aka Santa Claus) came from. We had a quick nosey at his church, which also contain the remains of this tomb although his actual remains are no longer there. They got carted off by some Italian merchant ages ago. Whilst in Kale, we headed in land a bit to Myra. Myra has tombs carved into the cliff face and has a nicely preserved Greco-Roman theatre. The site is also packed with Russian tourist, which I found rather odd too...