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Gulet Cruising in Turkey - a travel feature
Rain was smacking against the window. It was icy cold. Sitting
in the dark depths of Birmingham University's library in 1994,
I was gazing out dreaming of somewhere warm and exotic. Turkey
was the place that lit up my imagination.
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The
Blue Mosque in Istanbul, one of Turkey's greatest landmarks
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Why
Turkey - culture
Three great things embody
this country. Just fours hours flight away from the UK, it has a
culture which is profoundly different, distinctly unfamilar. A land
on the very cusp of Europe and Asia, with two heads simultaneously
facing both east and west, it embodies the magic and mysticism of
the orient. Once nomads from Central Asia, the Turks were for centuries
the middlemen of the world, famed merchants uniting three continents
- Europe, Africa, and Asia, as far east as China. Today, its people
are famed for their warmth and hospitality, a gift of their nomadic
ancestry and Islam's code of respect for strangers in a strange
land.
Why Turkey - history
The second great thing about Turkey is its age. The place is steeped
in history. It's the site of some of the very earliest cities, like
Çatal Hoyuk, stretching back 10,000 years. Ever after it
was a veritable crossroads of civilisations. When archaeologists
dig in Turkey they are confronted by layers upon layers of peoples
and cultures, from Hittite fortifications to Byzantine churches.
Before I'd even set foot there, Turkey conjured up images of all
the things that I longed to see, great sun-burnt plains on which
ancient battles were fought, theatres where Greek philosophers declaimed,
and the marble clad ruins of Rome's imperial ambitions.
An archaeological paradise
It's widely said that Turkey has more and better preserved Greek
and Roman archaeological sites than Greece and Italy combined. The
landscape is simply riddled with ruins, many of which are virtually
untouched. You can literally stroll through an olive grove and stumble
upon a Greek temple still standing proud, and have the place all
to yourself. Many people say part of Turkey's charm is that it is
like Greece was thirty years ago.
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View
from Apollonia, Lycia, in southern Turkey
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Why Turkey - landscape
The third fantastic thing
about Turkey is the landscape. About three and a half times the
size of Britain, it has almost the same population, leaving vast
areas wide, empty, and free of the urban sprawl we see at home.
Add to that soaring mountain ranges, brillant white sunlight, and
a vast coastline stretching along three seas, the Black Sea, the
Aegean, and the Mediterranean, and you have a truly marvellous holiday
destination.
In the footsteps of Alexander the Great
I first went to Turkey eleven years ago, on a 2,000 mile walking
adventure, to retrace Alexander the Great's footsteps from Troy
to the battlefield of Issus, where the epic warrior defeated the
Persians for a second time. A five month journey took me down the
western Aegean coast past some of the giant cities of classical
history, like Ephesus, Priene, and Miletus; deep into the interior
through tiny farming villages where I was feted as an honoured guest;
and south through the peaks and valleys of the Taurus mountains,
where donkeys are still a favoured mode of transport.
Sailing a turquoise coast
A decade later and my love affair with Turkey still beats strong.
While it was walking that brought me to Turkey, today I prefer a
very different way of travelling: sailing aboard a luxurious gulet.
With some 5,178 miles of coastline, Turkey is a paradise for cruising.
Its south and west coasts offer perhaps the most spectacular sailing
in the Mediterranean, full of craggy coves and sleepy fishing villages,
bustling harbours and deserted bays shaped like giant theatres with
breathtaking vistas. Littered with antiquities, protected by law,
large sections of it have remained undeveloped, still lapped by
the clear waters on which the giants of ancient history sailed:
Achilles, Cleopatra, Julius Caesar...
Cruising in style
 In
places, mountains of limestone drop sheer into the sea, elsewhere
pine forested peninsulas stretch out like sinuous fingers hiding
a cornucopia of golden beaches, deep gulfs, and tiny offshore islands.
With such a stunning everchanging backdrop, I can't think of a better
way to see Turkey, to explore its culture, discover such rich ruins,
and drink in the landscape, than to set sail on a gulet. Spared
the need to constantly pack, unpack, and change hotels, instead
one travels in luxurious style. Perhaps the key thing for me is
that it's travel the way the ancients usually did. It makes thinking
about the past altogether easier. Out on the waves, time can literally
dissolve in the water, two millennia can disappear from the mind.
Sailing through history
A mad keen sailor, Peter Ustinov once wrote:
"The sea not only sharpens a sense of beauty and of alarm,
but also a sense of history. You are confronted with precisely the
sight which met Caesar's eyes, and Hannibal's, without having to
strain the imagination by subtracting television aerials from the
skyline and filling in the gaps in the Collosseum...off the magical
coast of Turkey you rediscover what the world was like when it was
empty...and when pleasures were as simple as getting up in the morning...and
every day is a journey of discovery."
Gulets - all aboard
Gulets are really the vessel of choice for exploring the Turkish
coast. Handbuilt from wood, usually pine from local forests, they're
often as much as 80 feet long and sleep between six and 16 guests
in attractive double or twin cabins. They tend to have three or
four capable and helpful crew members, captain, cook, and one or
two mates, who do all the work allowing passengers to relax. Most
gulets have a spacious main saloon, a large rear deck where meals
are served, and sun loungers on the roof at the front. The majority
operate for the most part under motor, but some are also designed
for proper sailing. When the sails go up, and the engine turns silent,
you have the same soundtrack as Odysseus on Homer's "wine dark
sea", the slapping of water on the side of the ship, and the
wind rushing through the canopy.
Ancient Mariners
Aboard a gulet, one travels in the footsteps of ancient Greek pilgrims
en route to an oracular temple like Didyma, or in the wake of Byzantine
merchants carrying a cargo of glass, like the Serce Limani shipwreck
now in Bodrum museum, or like Roman tourists on their way to see
the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the seven ancient wonders
of the world.
Into an ancient harbour
I remember the first time I visited the ancient city of Knidos,
a sensational site for maritime trade perched at the very tip of
the Datca peninsula, between Bodrum and Marmaris. We sailed and
moored up in the city's old commercial harbour, just as merchants
from Athens, Rhodes, and cities right across the Mediterranean would
have done over 2,000 years ago. My fellow travellers and I gawped
in wonder, as we eased into the ancient port, and its monuments
took shape: the small theatre, the rows of houses, the miles of
fortifications climbing up a steep ridge. We anchored where countless
vessels had previously - large cargo ships, local fishing boats,
perhaps even some fighting triremes. Even today the ancient mooring
stones where they tied up are still visible, projecting out from
the harbour walls.
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Kayaking
is just one of the great pleasures of a gulet trip in Turkey
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The good life
One of the defining characteristics
of a gulet trip is the back to nature appreciation of the simple
things: the clean fresh air, the canopy of stars at night, the time
to lounge about and read. Swimming in the crystal waters of the
celebrated turquoise coast is of course one of the frequent highlights,
and there are usually windsurfers, kayaks, and snorkelling gear
available for the slightly more adventurous.
Turkish food: a culinary delight
Alongside the archaeology and the relaxed atmosphere, one of the
greatest delights of a gulet cruise is the food. Turkish food is
justly famed, often ranked as one of the three pre-eminent cuisines
in the world alongside French and Chinese. The focus is all about
simple but incredibly fresh local ingredients, often grown organically
or raised free range. You only have to taste a tomato in Turkey
to see the difference.
Dishes of the day
Turkey
is renowned for its abundance of tasty and fresh produce
It's surprising how even
on the smallest gulets, out of the tiniest of galleys, the boat's
cook can produce such a variety of fresh local delicacies. A Turkish
breakfast typically consists of bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives,
cheese, eggs, yoghurt and honey. Lunch and dinner are usually one
or two main courses, accompanied by salads and mezes, Turkey's speciality
starters, including cacik (a garlic and cucumber yoghurt), biber
dolma (stuffed peppers), and sigara borek (white cheese and herbs
in a cigarette shaped filo pastry wrap). Fruit is a mainstay item,
and ranges through the seasons from cherries and strawberries, to
melon and figs.
But with so many miles of coast where do you choose to sail?
Sailing the Lycian Shore
Three areas are particular favourites of mine. First is the ancient
region of Lycia, a giant bulge into the Mediterranean on Turkey's
underbelly. Situated between Fethiye and Antalya, it's an area oozing
with myths and brimming with archaeology. Here, behind the soaring
Taurus mountains, an extraordinary culture and a fiercely independent
people developed. Their funerary architecture, unlike anything else
in the world, still litters their once prosperous ports.
The Chimaera
This was the fabled land of the Chimaera, a dreaded monster from
Greek mythology, described as early as Homer:
"She was of divine race, not of men, in the fore part a lion,
at the rear a serpent, and in the middle a goat, breathing forth
in terrible manner the force of blazing fire."
The legend probably owes its origins to an extraordinary site high
up in the hills. Sacred since time immemorial, it was the main sanctuary
of the port city of Olympus. Here flames leap out of the ground,
a phenomenon arising from a subterranean pocket of natural gas which
spontaneously ignites on contact with the outside air.
Villages only accessible by sea
Not only is a gulet cruise the best way to explore such an essentially
maritime civilisation, sometimes it's the only way. Even now, there
are tiny coastal villages which are accessible only by sea. One
favourite is the sleepy hamlet of Kale, on the southern tip of Lycia.
Above a few piers where small fishing boats jostle, rises a ramshackle
series of houses made from ancient stones. Dominating the entire
scene is a mighty Ottoman fortress built 550 years ago to overpower
the Christian knights of Rhodes and secure the all important sea
lanes between Constantinople and Jerusalem. The castle, however,
was a latecomer. 1,800 years before, a small town called Simena
was perched here. Its small Greek style theatre sits slap in the
middle of the Ottoman castle, and all through the village are tombs
hewn into the rock, and sarcophagi standing ten feet tall.
Cruising the Carian Coast
Much
of the coast of southern Caria, in western Turkey, is completely
undeveloped
A second great area for
sailing is west of Lycia, the ancient region of Caria, between Bodrum
and Fethiye. This was the ancient realm of Mausolus, a powerful
dynast 2,400 years ago. A strategically vital region, densely pack
in antiquity with rich cities, it was jealously guarded and sought
after. Alexander the Great liberated it from Persia, Rhodes sought
to annexe it into her own empire, and the legacy of Crusader castles
still speaks of the epic battle that raged along this coast between
rival religions, Christianity and Islam.
Today, there remains a wonderful blend of architectural and historic
marvels. The exquisite temple tombs of Caunos, carved into a cliff
face by masons dangling from ropes; the monumental city of Knidos,
famed for Praxiteles' infamous statue of Aphrodite, the first female
nude in history; and Halicarnassus itself, site of the fabled mausoleum
and the mighty fortress of St. Peter.
From Halicarnassus to Ephesus
A third glorious area for gulet cruising, is ancient Ionia, to the
north of Bodrum. Along this stretch of coast developed a civilisation
of quite exceptional brilliance. In the centuries before Alexander
the Great, the dynamic cities of Ionia helped lay the foundations
of Greek literature, science, and philosophy, nevermind architecture.
Under Rome, these cities became ever more rich, prosperous, and
beautiful - full of the finest temples, theatres and markets that
money could buy.
The highlights are plentiful: from the pretty little harbour of
Myndos, where Cassius fled after murdering Julius Caesar; to the
marvellously preserved Hellenistic city of Priene, where the  houses,
streets, and public buildings are laid out across a hillside in
a perfect grid; and of course, Ephesus, capital of Roman Asia. This
was one of the very first cities in the world to have street lighting.
The site is magnificent, a cornucopia of colonnaded streets, agoras,
baths, private villas, a theatre for 28,000, and an extraordinary
library.
When to go
If you fancy exploring some of the world's finest ancient wonders,
spring or autumn is the best time to go. April and early May sees
Turkey decked out with a stunning display of wild flowers. From
the end of May through the start of June the sea becomes swimmable
before the summer heat scorches, while September through October
is perfect for leisurely bathing.
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