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| Indoor swimming pool at Mandarin Oriental |
Friday saw me digging out a dress and trying to remember how to put on tights for the annual Ladies' Lunch. A great time was had by all 37 attendees and as usual, the mix of new and old faces made for great conversation. "I can't believe you've lived here all this time and we've never bumped into each other" or "So you are the "insert name" who "insert another name" met in "insert place".... you get the idea. Numbers were down on past years due to the December rather than November date and the controversial choice of venue - The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Göltürkbükü.
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| Simple but well-executed lunch - sea bass and spinach |
You'll find this hotel in
Cennet Koyu - Paradise Bay, a beautiful inlet on the Bodrum peninsula, favourite mooring spot for day-tour boats and a local picnic area, a bay which we had all assumed to be protected as a designated area of natural beauty. Many friends witnessing the destruction/construction underway vowed never to return. The international price of a simple lunch put off several others. Nosy by nature, I was keen to have a look around. My monthly budget wouldn't even cover one night at list price so this would be the only time I would be crossing their threshold.
I left the hotel with the impression that very well-off folk must get fed up with seeing bamboo sticks in vases, rolled towels, flowers heads without their stalks and their own reflection in the floor. The staff were very friendly and attentive but the building sterile and characterless, the only clues to the country we were in were the books about Turkey on a wall and newspapers on a table. It is a shame that luxury these days is defined by a lack of warm ambience and a denial or manipulation of everything natural.
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| Hamam with a view |
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| Cennet (Paradise) Bay |
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| Regimented landscaping |
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To mis-quote Joni Mitchell "They turfed Paradise and put in
some garden pots" |
Lunching with Ladies 2013
Ladies's lunch 2012
Posts
Rather makes me glad that I can't afford luxury.....
ReplyDeleteMe too.
ReplyDelete. . detest these places with considerable venom! Wherever they are! Give me the personal and, ideally, family touch every time. As for tarting about with food . .
ReplyDeleteThe food was very tasty and not too tarted about with. We were rather lost in the dining room and the chairs looked like the ones we had in the village hall in Sussex that the Parish council didn't have the dosh to replace.
DeletePerhaps people like to feel insulated from anything that might be different from their previous experience. Not the point of travel, from my point of view. But people differ.
ReplyDeleteIn the past I have stayed in real old fashioned 'grand' hotels - including a wonderful, faded and run down example in Gran Canaria where General Franco stayed and the Art Deco Hotel Provencal in Juan les Pins (which I see is now being converted into a luxury condominium. No doubt with garden pots) when it was rather past the Marilyn Munroe/Frank Sinatra heydey. They don't make them like that any more...
They should make them like that - that is why we travel.
DeleteI laughed out loud at your take on Joni Mitchell lyrics. I also like the descriptive "international price." Really good, witty piece of writing.
ReplyDeleteWe had to pay considerably more than a dollar and a half to see the trees.
DeleteHamam? I thought it was a picture of a cemetery until I saw those towels. No empty, modern designer stuff for me, ta. I much prefer B&B with out-dated frilly chairs, mismatching curtains, flowery wallpaper and a cooked English breakfast dripping in fat. Sounds like you filled it all with the sound of the living and the human contact made it worth putting up with.
ReplyDeleteYou've hit the nail again as usual . Mausoleum rather than accommodation.
DeleteWe went to Göltürkbükü just the once. We decided it wasn't for us when we have to take out a personal loan for a glass of Efes. At least you got decent service. Ours was rather snotty!
ReplyDeleteThe service was charming and there were lots and lots of them.
DeleteI remember passing in front of it this summer on our TK bus; such a shame they missed out on the character, and so plenty of it out there.. the sea bass looked good though. Give me small, charming, full of character B&Bs anytime : )
ReplyDeleteThe sea bass was very tasty, couldn't fault the food or service
DeleteDid you go there by a big yellow taxi :-)
ReplyDeleteNice quote..
Touché , Levent.
Deletemmm
ReplyDeletemmm good? mmm not sure or mmm so so?
ReplyDeleteLife could get rather monotonous if you're very rich. What our kids used to mock as: "What? Roast swan again?"
ReplyDelete