Calis Beach

...from our third holiday in Calis (pronounced "Chalish").

WHERE IS IT?
The resort is in SW Turkey, in region of Fethiye. The town of Fethiye (pronounced fet-ee-ay) is 2 miles away and from Calis you can get the dolmus boat which runs every half hour (9am - midnight) and costs 2.5 Lira (approx £1) per person each way and takes almost half an hour.
It is 38 miles east of Dalaman airport by winding, often scenic ...
.../> The main roads in Calis are shaped like a T, with the top of the T being the beach front. There are hotels and shops along the T and mainly hotels and apartments on the unmade up side roads. Bars and restaurants line the beach front road, which is block paved and pedestrian only.

The resort itself is very flat, but is surrounded by mountains in the distance.

Calis is predominantly a family resort. There are a couple ... more

OK, I'm biased, having just got back from our third holiday in Calis (pronounced "Chalish").

WHERE IS IT?
The resort is in SW Turkey, in region of Fethiye. The town of Fethiye (pronounced fet-ee-ay) is 2 miles away and from Calis you can get the dolmus boat which runs every half hour (9am - midnight) and costs 2.5 Lira (approx £1) per person each way and takes almost half an hour.
It is 38 miles east of Dalaman airport by winding, often scenic road, although some of the fun has been taken from this journey by the opening this year of a toll tunnel under the mountains. It takes about an hour from the airport to the resort, depending on the speed of your driver.
Many airlines fly direct to Dalaman, including Excel Airways, British Airways, Thomas Cook and Monarch. With the opening of the new airport at Dalaman earlier this year I have heard rumours that there will be direct flights throughout the year. In previous years the airport was only open during the holiday season.

TEMPERATURES
August is the hottest month, with temperatures averaging 90 deg, although it did reach over 100 when we were there. In April the average is 65 deg, in October it is 75 deg. In August the sun rises about 6.30am, and sets about 7.30pm.

ABOUT THE RESORT
The main roads in Calis are shaped like a T, with the top of the T being the beach front. There are hotels and shops along the T and mainly hotels and apartments on the unmade up side roads. Bars and restaurants line the beach front road, which is block paved and pedestrian only.

The resort itself is very flat, but is surrounded by mountains in the distance.

Calis is predominantly a family resort. There are a couple of night clubs, but they kept trying to ask us in (we didn't go). There were two young lads staying in our hotel who looked very out of place amongst all the families around the pool. There is much more night life in Fethiye.

THE BEACH
The beach is long and narrow and made up of sand and shingle. There are sun loungers and umbrellas available for a small charge, but if you eat or buy drinks in the restaurants, (especially breakfast!) they will let you use their area FOC for the rest of the day.
Parts of the beach are also popular with the local turtle population, who come in to lay their eggs in the sand.

The sunsets across the bay each evening and the views from the beach are wonderful.

MONEY
The currency is Turkish Lira, which is about 2.65 to the £1. We have found it's not necessary to actually take any with you though. The Turkish love Sterling! We took cash and used it to pay in restaurants etc, generally getting a very favourable rate. They will give you change in Lira though. We also took Sterling Travelers Cheques which can be exchanged for Lira in a number of places.

HOTELS
There are numerous hotels in Calis, some along the beach front above the restaurants and many more along the myriad of dirt/gravel roads off the main road. The hotel we stayed in was about a five minute walk from the centre. It was good to be central, but not on the main road which can be noisy.

The hotel we stayed in for our first two holidays was also popular with Turkish holiday makers. The hotel we went to this year was also popular with many German guests.

Most hotels seem to have air conditioning, some include this in the price of the room, others charge extra for it when you arrive (usually £2 - £4 per day).

Searching the web comes up with plenty of companies with Villas to rent in Calis.

Lots of holiday companies use the resort, such as Thomas Cook, Thompsons, and First Choice. The first year we went we traveled with Goldtrail, who specialize in holidays to Turkey. We found the holiday through Teletext Holidays. Since then we have traveled independently - it's much cheaper. We booked flights through Cheapflights.com and used the hotels website to book our room.

RESTAURANTS
There are many many restaurants and eating out is very cheap. It would be quite possible to stay there for a couple of weeks and eat at a different place every night and still not sample them all.

You do get hassled by guys standing outside the restaurants, trying to get you inside, but they are usually very friendly and just saying "maybe later" or "not tonight" will make them give up pretty easily. As this was our third time in Calis it was quite nice to be greeted by people who actually recognized us from our last visits.

A lot of the restaurants serve a mixture of Turkish and English food, from things like meatballs to steak and chips. Chinese and Indian food is also very popular and there is also one specializing in Mexican food (their enchiladas were extremely hot).

The best Italian restaurant I've ever been to is Bella Mammas in Calis - we went there three times this year! They do all sorts of pizza, pasta, beef and chicken dishes. Two courses and two drinks for three of us cost between £25 -£30, which is slightly more expensive than some other restaurants, but the food is absolutely superb. This is one of the more expensive restaurants though, most nights we spent around £20.

All the restaurants are frequently visited by people trying to sell carpets, jackets, and most often roses. The principal "just say no" applies.

For lovely ice cream you must visit the ice cream stall outside the Hotel Simsek. The guy who sells it is in Turkish dress, complete with fez, and it only costs 2 Lira for a large scoop.

SHOPPING
Sunday is market day in Calis. The market in Calis is a little way out of the town, about 5 Lira in a taxi. In August it was too hot to walk there.

I love the markets! If you accept the fact that all the goods are fake, it's great fun to haggle and feel you've got a bargain.

This year I added to my handbag collection with a Dolce and Gabbana dark red leather bag for about £30. I know it's fake, but it's really lovely leather and I would be hard pressed to buy a leather handbag in the UK for £30. The Prada bag I bought three years ago is still doing wonderful service and is my most favourite of any handbag I've ever bought in my life!

We also bought Ray Ban and Nike sunglasses (about £6 and £8 each), Gucci watches for £5 each, Gameboy games for £5, a backgammon set for about £7.

There are lots of cheap T Shirts and clothes, but we have heard from others that they aren't always very good quality so we avoid buying these.

The food section of the market is very good. We usually stock up on cashew nuts (5 lira a kilo) honey coated cashews, pepper corns, paprika, saffron and so on. The lady we bought from this year gave me a free sample of "meatball spice", but I haven't had a chance to use it yet. The Turkish delight stalls also let you sample their goods, and often give away drinks of fruit teas which are very popular over there. The turkish delight you get in Turkey is not like the stuff you get here, it's much nicer.

Tuesday is market day in Fethiye, just a short ride on the dolmus from Calis. From Fethiye you can also get a boat to Gocek for their Sunday market, but we haven't done this.

WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO DO?
Being on the coast there are lots of sea based activities. I expect it's like most resorts, if you book through your rep the trips will cost you more than if you book locally. In Calis and Fethiye there are lots of places where you can arrange trips much cheaper.

The "12 Islands" boat trip is always good. There are usually six or seven stops where you can get of the boat (down the ladder or by jumping!) and swim in the beautifully warm sea. Places they often stop include Tersane Island, Yassica Island, Flat Island and Kleopatra's Bay, legend having it that if you swim in the latter you will be blessed with eternal youth. Lunch is usually a barbeque, with a choice of chicken or fish, and can be served with rice or spaghetti and French bread. This trip cost us £8 each.

We also did a boat trip from Oludeniz this time which is further along the coast and takes you to different places. You can go ashore at Butterfly valley, but unfortunately because of the time of year there were no butterflies when we went. They also took us to Cold Spring Bay (guess why it's called that?) where the sea was really cold! You could also pay 5 Lira to climb to the top of St Nicholas Island where there are spectacular views, but we decided it was too hot and we just stayed in the sea. On this trip our boat was approached by speedboat drivers with those doughnut type rings on the back, offering rides around the bay for 10 Lira - I was too scared! This trip cost us £7 each.

If you are with a large group most of the boat owners will be happy to arrange your own private excursion.

For the more energetic, it's also possible to participate in scuba diving, para gliding, horse riding, quad biking, rafting, canoeing, truck or jeep safaris, ride a micro light and hire a speed boat.

BEST MEMORY
Sitting in Bella Mammas eating panzarotti e spinaci (it's like a ravioli with spinach and potatoes), watching the sun go down and feeling that tingling you get on your skin when you've been out in the sun all day…

CONCLUSION
Calis Beach is primarily a family orientated resort. There is plenty to do if you want an active holiday; otherwise lying by the pool is an excellent option during the summer months. The prices are very cheap when compared to England and we've always found the Turkish people to be very friendly. Will we go back next year? It's more than likely!
 

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