The Daily Diary of a Wandering Restaurateur
Beautiful Downtown Gulluk
Today was just a lazy day. We've done enough driving that the prospect of getting out early and exploring far afield held
no particular allure. So we took our time. Margene did some reading, I got caught up on yesterday's trip report and we
finally headed down into town for lunch around 2pm. Now THAT is a civilized schedule!f
Gulluk is a small harbor town and growing holiday destination, pleasantly developed with a range of tourist amenities.
There are dozens of condo developments up the hills on both sides of town but the town center is still typically Turkish.
A wide range of restaurants are strung along the waterfront, a yachting marina is being developed, and there are a number
of beaches, although not typically of the broad sandy sort.
Despite the condo developments creeping up the hills on both sides of town, Gulluk fortunately still remains predominantly
a Turkish fishing village, accepting the influx of visitors without selling out it's identity ... at least yet. Tomorrow we
will drive half an hour down the coast to Bodrum, a much more developed "action center" and see what the differences may be.
But for today the mission was only to check out the town center a bit and find a light lunch, preferably somewhere with
a view of the water ... and that we did.
Gulluk is a working port with fishing boats outnumbering the pleasure craft. There are bars and
restaurants all along the waterfront, one even hanging rather precariously over the sea. Some of the buildings in the
center of town look quite old. Whether that is true age or just minimal maintenance, it still gives the area a unique
texture. You can see the developments creeping up the hills, though. I wonder if (when?) that will start to destroy the
ambience that caused people to buy them in the first place.
But where to eat? When we stopped to check out a posted menu in front of the Kucuk Ev restaurant,
the owner immediately came out to talk with us and answer questions. Having established a bit of personal connection, it
was hard to say no to the man ... and that turned out to be a good choice. Margene ordered a small pizza and I went for the
kofte (meatballs). The presentation was more of a meal than I expected, including fries, rice, grilled onion,
grilled tomato and a grilled sweet pepper. Genie's pizza was roughly US$5.50 and my meatballs ran about US$7. Food in
restaurants seems to be reasonably-priced and generously portioned. Combine all that with a couple of icy cold 500ml
bottles of Efes Pilsner, the tasty local beer, and we were pretty much full for the rest of the day.
As we were coming up the walk to the apartment, we saw our neighbors out on their balcony. After
a bit of chitchat, they invited us over for tea and some local orientation. Phil and Lynn Cliff are from north of
Manchester, England. They bought here about five years ago and now that Phil has retired from teaching, are spending about
half their time in Turkey. They gave us a lot of good insights into the area and were most gracious hosts. Hopefully there
will be a chance to reciprocate before we leave on Wednesday.
The day always seems to end so serenely ...
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