Paid the customary £10 visa and walked past the swine flu camera and out to the waiting coach and off to Icmeler.
During the approx. 2 hour journey to Icmeler we stopped as usual at a place, probably owned by the coach driver's mother-in-law where you inevitably get stung for a 5 Lira ice cream.
Arrived at the Bal Apartments at approx 4.30pm to be greeted by Eddie the owner of the hotel who gave us a few of his local rules before showing us to the room.
I have to say that the Bal apartments have got to be the cleanest apartments we have ever stayed in, the rooms were spotless, cleaned every day and the towels and bed linen changed every two days by Eddie's mum and Aunty.
It is a small family run hotel that consists of about 15 apartments on three floors, a small bar that serves breakfasts and snack food through the day and a small pool in the shape of an 8.
The pool area was also spotless and cleaned every day, including washing down and drying every sunbed!
Eddie takes a bit of getting used to and I can see why some people might consider him a bit paranoid, with his constant shouts of "calm down" if the kids got a bit over excited with water pistols round the pool. Eddie is assisted during the day by Mehmet and Soner runs the bar at night. (yes it's open 24 hours!!)
Bal apartments are located towards the back of Icmeler (NOT where the Thomson map shows they are!!) and about 5 mins walk to the nearest bars and restaurants, 10-15 mins walk to the centre of Icmeler and 20 mins walk to the beach.
We had already made a list of the most popular restaurants in the resort thanks to the experience of other HT members so tried most of them with the following being our top 5
1) Wayside (great menu, great service)
2) Titanic (great steaks)
3) Lighthouse (very good food)
4) Chef (good pizza!)
5) Three Bells (Great Roast Beef and HUGE Yorkshire!!)
But to be honest, as one member said to me, "Been many times and never had a bad meal""¦"¦.. never a truer word spoken.
Icmeler is a lovely resort with genuinely friendly people who will pass the time of day with you without just being interested in your money. Set against the backdrop of pine mountains it is a very pleasant place to stroll round in the day, stopping at one of the many bars for a coffee or cold drink or just sitting on the beach watching the locals busying around.
Much different to Marmaris, 2 miles up the coast, which did seem like Blackpool with sunshine, only went there once to the water park (Aqua Dream, on top of hill) and to be honest thought it was the worst waterpark we have ever been to. It had a total of about 7 slides of which only 5 were open and both my son and I cut our arms on the seams of the tubes while going down them.
Only other times we left Icmeler during our 2 week stay, was to go on the jeep safari, great day out but be prepared to get soaked.
And scuba diving with European Seasports. A word of warning here, there are several places that claim to be PADI 5* dive centre's in Icmeler and Marmaris, most of them are not and probably couldn't tell you what PADI stands for, let alone take you diving safely! John and his team at European Seasports looked after us well and will give you a discount if you book in advance on their web site.
This was our first holiday to Icmeler, but not our first to Turkey, and I can say for certain we will be back there next year and almost definitely at the Bal Apartments.
Just hope it doesn't get too big and too commercialized as small is beautiful.
Try it, you won't be disappointed!!
Julian
