Sevgili Günü (Lovers/Valentine’s Day) drawing near? Then here are some ideas for a romantic weekend break away from the noise and crush of İstanbul. Time was when Turkey was a little low on hotels that rose above brown-and-mustard blankets and utilitarian lighting. These days, however, you’ll be spoilt for choice when it comes to great places to stay. Here are ten superb possibilities. Don’t leave booking until the last minute though.
Kaikias Hotel
Beautiful hotel on a beautiful island, its spacious, modern rooms filled with light. It’s a stone’s throw from the sea and from Bozcaada’s magnificent medieval castle. Meals are served in a light-filled dining room just across the road – the breakfasts are superb, the wines to go with the meals often locally made.
√√√ Peace, quiet and history
X Bozcaada is a little tricky to get to
Kale Arkası, Bozcaada Tel: 0532-363 2697, www.kaikias.com
Nişanyan Hotel
This hotel is perched like an eagle’s nest right at the top of the exquisite village of Şirince. Views are magnificent and the rooms, with copies of frescoes from the Terraced Houses at Ephesus, are luxurious and full of character. Everything down to the soft drinks has been carefully thought through to ensure a comfortable stay.
√√√ Views and wonderful location
X Not easy to get there and back in same weekend
Şirince, Selçuk. Tel: 0232-898 3208, www.nisanyan.com
Alaçatı Taş Otel
Zeynep Öziş’ wonderful stone-built hotel with a pool in the garden was the first to put Alaçatı on the map. It’s a spacious, inviting oasis, serving excellent meals in a small town now renowned for its gourmet cuisine. Drapes over the beds are reminiscent of bridal veils. With a blazing fire in the grate, the sitting room invites you to linger for one last nightcap.
√√√ Easy to get to, professionally run and visually stunning
X Out of season Alaçatı virtually closes down
Kemalpaşa Caddesi 132, Alaçatı, Çeşme. Tel: 0232-716 7772, www.tasotel.com
4reasons hotel & bistro
A curiously-named haven set amid the hills above the small fishing harbour of Yalıkavak, the 4reasons has sleek modern fittings and beds ringed with small cobbles to massage the feet. Centrepiece is a fine outdoor pool which will still look good even if it’s too cold for a dip. Meals are reputedly excellent, ‘bistro’ suggesting something much less upscale than what is actually on offer.
√√√ Serenity guaranteed (it’s one of the four reasons)
X Isolated location for those without private transport
Bakan Caddesi 2, Yalıkavak, Bodrum Peninsula. Tel: 0252-385 3212, www.4reasonshotel.com
Mehmet Ali Ağa Konağı
A real romantics’ hangout in remote Reşadiye, the Mehmet Ali Ağa Konağı was, until recently, a crumbling wreck of an Ottoman governor’s house that has been painstakingly restored to the splendour of its 19th-century heyday. Not a place for lovers of minimalism, although the mod cons are all present and correct, just tastefully understated. Come here to wallow in history and play at being sultan and sultana for a day.
√√√ History writ as large as it comes
X Reşadiye is tiny and out on a limb
Reşadiye, Datça. Tel: 0252-712 9257, www.kocaev.com
Olympos Lodge
For beach bunnies, few places could have a more inviting location that this hotel discreetly set behind the stretch of sand that links Olympos and Çıralı. The twelve luxuriously equipped bungalows are set far apart from each other, ensuring total privacy. The ruins at Olympos are just a short walk away, the constant flames of the Chimaera a slightly longer trek. The stars at night are simply unbelievable.
√√√ Silence, privacy and the beach
X Bit of a rush to get there and back in a weekend
Çıralı, Kemer. Tel: 0242-825 7171, www.olymposlodge.com.tr
Minyon Town House
This exquisite restored townhouse in the back streets of Antalya’s busy and popular Kaleiçi is absolutely immaculate, with not a hidden shelf undusted or a pillowsheet creased. It’s far enough away from the busiest/noisiest parts of Kaleiçi and offers only seven rooms (one of them a suite), so it feels far more secluded than you might assume. There’s a small pool in the rear courtyard.
√√√ Stylishness writ large
X Town-centre location means absolute silence cannot be guaranteed
Tabakhan Sokak 31, Kaleiçi, Antalya. Tel: 0242-247 1147, www.minyonhotel.com
Gül Evi
Ottomania meets hip hotel in this restored Safranbolu townhouse whose old safe-room now houses a stylish bar – all bright whites, moulded bar stools and underfloor lighting – and whose dining room looks like a stray from Beyoğlu in İstanbul. Upstairs, however, modernity gives way to what most people expect of Safranbolu, namely Ottoman-style bedrooms with their sedirs (bench seats) intact and low-set beds. The bathrooms are as up-to-the-minute as the bar.
√√√ Easy access from İstanbul. Plenty to do to fill up a weekend
X Weekends are when Safranbolu is busiest and priciest
Çarşı Mahallesi, Hükümet Sokak 46, Safranbolu. Tel: 0370-725 4645, www.canbulat.com.tr
Argos in Cappadocia, Uçhisar
Right at the top of pretty Uçhisar in Cappadocia, the Argos is a dream of a hotel created out of a whole abandoned mahalle of houses, the external loveliness of the old gold walls and delicate door and window-frames paired with the very latest in interior design. In winter you can sit in the lounge by a log fire and gaze out at the view. In the summer you can relax around a pool and do ditto with the view. The Seki restaurant dishes up excellent city-style cuisine despite the rural setting. And the wine comes courtesy of the tunnels that run deep below the hotel. Concerts are sometimes held in the Bezirhane, a linseed-oil factory that now houses all manner of events on site. There’s even a garden for special occasions.
Kayabaşı Sokağı No 23, Uçhisar. Tel: 0384-219 3130, argosincappadocia.com
And finally…
Adam & Eve Hotel
What to say about the adults-only Adam and Eve? To call it a hotel is a bit like calling IKEA a shop – there’s a kernel of truth but a visit is likely to come as a shock. Instead, imagine a giant Rubik’s Cube of a building covered in artificial grass. Think minimalist hedonism. Think light and mirrors gone mad in an adult playground on the seashore.
Eren Talu’s latest hotel is take two on the longer established Hillside Su in Antalya. Inevitably, it bears his same trademark love of pristine white – here with splashes of lived red as a nod to Adam’s apple – and never-ending reflection. Lie on your bed and the sea behind your head swivels round and comes up reflected in front of you by the mirrors. Look up in the elevator and your own face (and that of your paramour) will be staring straight back down at you. The stupendous atrium, with its on-and-on-and-on bar and plentiful white loungers glitters like a frozen waterfall at the heart of the building, an effect created by the use of thousands of tiny mirror tiles.
The “rooms” are a miracle of ingenuity. The furnishings may be matt white but handsets allow you to fine-tune the lighting through a rainbow of colours. In the corner the Jacuzzi glimmers with its own separate lighting system, as well as a diadem-like ring of colours that dances across one side.
To find your way around even a standard room a map might be helpful, so it goes without saying that the separate villas (one with a platform bed big enough for an orgy) are like small townships, as is the main dining room where the choice of food on offer mixes Russian and German tidbits with standard Turkish fare. By the time you’re ready to try out the the spa you won’t be surprised to find that some of the blackened corridors are lit only by candles – you’ll need a helping hand quite literally to find your way around. But it’s well worth persevering because what’s on offer here defies the imagination – an Olympic-sized swimming pool with mirrored sides, an ultra-modern hamam, a choice of Finnish and Russian saunas (the latter heated to 110 degrees F) and endless darkened, candle-lit rooms for every kind of massage: Ayurvedic, hot stones, sand, you name it… Best of all is the extraordinary sound therapy room where you lie on a bed and let waves of sound ripple through your body.
What to say of the Adam and Eve, then? You don’t normally associate large size with romantic intimacy but here the hotel’s sheer enormousness means that you can easily lose yourself and your significant other with no trouble at all. Besides, what could be more conducive to romance than finding yourself and loved one reflected back at you everywhere you turn?
The Adam and Eve, then – not so much a hotel as an experience.
Belek, Tel: 0850-850 7070, www.adamevehotel.com
