Sunday 18 January 2015

Mandarin Festival

It's Sunday. It's Bodrum. It's Festival time.


This week-end it was the turn of citrus fruit to be fêted, specifically the mandarin. Ortakent, Bitez and Turgutreis all held events to honour this tasty fruit. 

Mandarin candles

Once an important crop, mandarins have lost out in the popularity stakes to their seedless cousins, so a yearly festival reminds folk how tasty these local fruit are and provides an excuse for stalls bursting with colour to brighten up a winter day. 

Fertility spoons

Olive oil soaps

Painted ceramics

Bits and Bobs under a parasol

Lemon, orange and mandarin preserves with fruit teas

Massive bergamots and mandarin flower jam

Festival = balloons


20 comments:

  1. We have a couple of mandarins in the garden here...but I would love to have bergamots.Have to find a mule to smuggle in some seed...

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    1. If I ever manage to get to your part of the world, Ill make sure I have a few seeds in my pocket.

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  2. really do not like towns but have to admit that I miss the colours

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  3. Love the fact there is actually a festival in their honour!!!

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    1. So many mandarins were being left on the trees, something was needed to get folk eating them again

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  4. I don't remember this festival. We must have been drunk!

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  5. How much fun, B to B. Looks like lovely weather, perfect for a fruity festival. Thanks for the lift to the spirits.

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    1. So far we've been lucky with Sunday weather.

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  6. I am really going to have to visit one day... this looks wonderful and I did a close up on those fertility spoons. Looks very like Zentangle to me. And I've never ever seems bergamot before! Great post. Axxx

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  7. It all looks very colourful, a great day out and I love the fertility spoons.

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  8. Loved each and every photo, so wonderful to see this gorgeous fruit is well celebrated, another tick for Bodrum - enjoy these all for us : ) Ozlem x

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    1. The spoons would look good at your demonstrations.

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  9. This looks so fun! Everything is so colorful and inviting. That is one of the things I miss about Turkey the liveliness of the people. I love those mandarin candles too.

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  10. What a feast of colour and I'm sure tastes and smells too. I love mandarins, despite the pips. :-)

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