Kemer, Turkey

Bologna, Italy & Kemer, Turkey

Alan's Log:
Joan's Log:

April 11th 2009

Bologna (March 7-8 2009)

The Last Pig-Out!

In order to keep from spending a fortune on airfare, we traveled by train from Florence to Bologna. Flights are complicated and pricey these days and our best deal was to fly from Bologna to London to Antalya, Turkey (about 45 miles from our marina in Kemer). We were excited at the prospect of visiting Bologna for several reasons, one; being that Bologna is the gastronomic heart of Italy, the people there are called Il Grasso (the fat). This is where Mario Batali (famous American/Italian mega chef and restaurateur) brought his team of chefs to research menus for a new restaurant. This is the region that produces the wonderful silky parma ham and prosciutto and the home of parmigianno-reggiano cheese; and is where you will find home-made tortellini pasta freshly made daily in every trattoria kitchen. I know…I promise this is my last food entry for a while (maybe).

We arrived in the late morning and were leaving early the following morning, less then twenty-four hours to experience all we could. Our hotel was just on the edge of the medieval center. What I hadn’t expected was what a beautiful city Bologna is, on the same par as Florence, in some ways even more so. Where Florence had magnificent piazzas, Bologna’s beautiful trademark is that all the streets are elegantly porticoed, what a lovely way to stay dry on a rainy day! Not that it was rainy when we were there, it was a gorgeous early spring day.

As an aside Bologna has the best Tourism/Visitors Information office of any city we have visited! And we have visited at least a hundred in the past three years. It is located on a principal piazza, in a beautiful building and in addition to the normal information and pamphlets etc. It had 4 or 5 mini-shops within the space, all elegantly laid-out and featuring local products and activities (Ferrari and Ducati books, memorabilia and sportswear for example). An innovative means of attracting interest to local sights and possibly some revenue too.

We spent the day just strolling the old city center. We bypassed the churches and museums, to spend our last hours in Italy just soaking up the local color and flavors. It was Saturday and everyone was out enjoying the beautiful weather, crowding into the open-air cafes, drinking prosecco and espresso with chocolate brioches. We found the fruit and vegetable market in a long narrow back street, fringed with butchers and bakeries. We window-shopped, marveling at the artfully presented cured meats and cheeses. Darn…we’re going to miss Italy! On our way back to the hotel after lunch we walked into the most fantastic open-air antiques market I’ve ever experienced, every table was laden with something fabulous and unique! But all I could do was drool, since our bags were already stuffed to the limit. Pure torture for me, but a good lesson in restraint. That night we had dinner in a little trattoria called Meloncello, which we found by scouring the food blogs. It was the right thing to do, I won’t bore you with the menu but it was absolutely perfect, no regrets, not even after polishing off the tiramisu! The time had come to leave it all behind and go on a serious diet, and there is no better place for that than Kemer where there are no pork products, no fine pasta and terrible wine - but an abundance of healthy fresh vegetables.

Kemer (March 8 - April 9 2009)

We returned to Kemer and Moonstruck on March 8th. Moonstruck had been well looked after during our absence. After a couple of days our suitcases were packed away and we were ready to party!

It turned out so were the cruisers that had remained through the winter in Kemer. We learned that the weather had been uncharacteristically bad over the winter and with rainy days and long winter nights they were ready for sunshine and spring. We silently hailed our decision to spend the winter in Florence. It would have been a long quiet winter in Kemer....

Kemer is a place of astounding natural beauty. The marina is blessed with a backdrop of gorgeous craggy, snow-capped mountains that would rival those of Colorado or Wyoming in the US. On a clear day, you felt as though you could reach out and touch them. I can honestly say that we have never been in a marina with a more scenic setting. We were discussing this over lunch with another cruising couple, who agreed that if it were in America it would be completely overcrowded and the local real estate would be astronomical, instead here in early April, it’s a quiet little place existing in relative obscurity, a perfect place to winter over.

The town of Kemer on the other hand is a different story, twenty years ago it was a sleepy sea-side village, now it is a concrete jungle of ugly holiday package resorts and charmless shops mostly catering to Russian package tourists, who arrive in droves as soon as the weather gets warm. It does have a great fresh market every Monday, which provided us with a clean, healthy diet. In the marina there is a colony of about thirty live-aboard boats (mostly British and American) attracted by the gorgeous setting and by the marina’s legendary reputation for it’s well organized social atmosphere. There is a daily radio net with weather and the extensive daily schedule of events, such as tennis, aerobics, shopping trips, movie nights, quiz nights, arts and crafts, language classes, nightly happy hour and parties galore for birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and for no reason at all!  It could be a little overwhelming at times, since I’m not endowed with the ability to make small talk, which comes so easy for Alan. If you are considering wintering in Kemer, you’ll be guaranteed a fun time and make friends with a lot of really nice people, you’ll just so happen to have a lot in common with. A very good thing.

One of the best things about our Kemer stay was the level of organization and activities planned by the cruiser group. Of particular interest to us were the weekly hikes. These were put on by Dick & Ginger of ALCHEMY, Ian & Cynthia of CYNIAN'S QUEST and Cindy & Bob of GODSPEED. Many thanks to all of them for the great itinerary. One such hike took us to Termessos, a mountain-top city built before 334BC and graced with probably the world's most spectacularly sited amphitheater. It is literally at the top of the mountain with precipitous drops and mountain peaks all around.




By the beginning of April the weather seemed to change into summer gear, the winter gales departed and left rain in their wake. We spent a few days on the hard painting and changing zincs before heading out. We had the hull polished for the first time. Moonstruck has not looked this good since we unwrapped her in Florida!