And to be brutally honest Turkey has lost it for me.We were in the Ilge hotel,courtesy of Goldtrail and it was a dump!(report to follow).
The turks are having a bad tourist season this year because of the world cup/bird flu/imminent war with Iran etc. and wherever we went we felt they were trying to get every last penny out of you.We`ve been 4 times before and always took the hassle with quite good humour but you literally couldn`t look in any shops without being manhandled into trying things on.Little tip if any of you have small children take their hats off before you go in the shops because the favourite trick was to pinch one of the kids hats and virtually hold it to ransom!gumbet in my opinion has gone to look really shabby and was quite dear.Its ok if you drink lager because you could get an efes for 1.5 ytl but anything else is really dear.The one highlight of our trip was discovering Turgutreis which we thought was a lovely little place..places to eat,The Garden Restaurant at Bag Evleri was fabulous with impeccable service and The Golden Plate in Bodrum was by far the best meal we have ever had in Turkey.All these opinions are of course my own and I hope it doesn`t put anyone off but i`m going to try somewhere new next year..is there a Bulgaria forum?!!!..................Alan.