Lovely, lovely place! Spent a week there in late May at my mates villa. Sadly the weather wasn't brilliant for 3 out of the 5 days we were there but I'm assured it's normally a lot hotter. The locals are some of the friendliest people I've met and they couldn't do enough for us. One day we were in a restaurant/bar and my mate asked the restaurant owner if he could borrow a hammer to hang some pictures in the villa, the next thing, the restaurant owner is at the villa drilling holes in each room and plugging them! Refused to take any payment either.

I'll put down a few mini reviews of the places I can remember the names of in the hope that it will help any of you planning a trip there.

Captains restaurant, on the main road into Hisaronu.

This was the place where the owner came from to hang the pictures, it a king of semi open air bar/restaurant. The main part of the roof is actually grape vines which they give you when they are in season, sadly they were just starting to grow when we were there. The food is excellent and they offer a wide variety. It's all very cheap too. There don't seem to be any set opening times, it's a case of if you're in they're open!

In the centre of Hisaronu itself (2 mins Dolmus ride from Ovacik) there are some lovely restaurants. The 2 best we went in are The Sunset and the Sun Trap. Both offer fantastic Turkish and English cuisine. We always tried to eat Turkish but it's nice to have the English option sometimes. It seems every restaurant in this area offers both types of food but it is not an England abroad type of place, I hate that!

Prices everywhere are very reasonable although my mates had been out to their villa the previous month and the prices had risen as the season was starting up. Some places were dearer than other so it pays to check the menus (usually displayed outside) first.

For people unfamiliar with Turkey (as I was) the easiest way to get about is by Dolmus, this is their bus service but it works quite differently and far more efficiently to ours! The Dolmus vehicles themselves are normally large white mini buses. If you are walking along the pavement they will beep their horns to see if you want to be picked up, alternatively, you just stand and watch for one coming and hold you hand up and they will stop for you. Anywhere! When you want to get off you just shout, anything really but I found Stop! or Yes Please! worked best. The price depends on how far you've gone but I never paid more than 2 lira. If you stick your hand up and they flash their lights it normally means they are full. There will be another one in a few seconds usually.

The lagoon in Olu Deniz and it's surrounding scenery is simply stunning and has to be seen to be appreciated. We hired a Pedalo and went across, had a bottle of Efes (local lager, strong stuff but you'll never get a hangover from it and believe me we tried!) then we came back. This was another thing where my mates noted the price had risen from the previous month.

I'll ad to this if people find it useful. I'm going back to the villa in October, can't wait!

p.s. one week is not enough!