Luxury accommodation in the Aegean countryside

Tag: olives

House is nearly a house

First: thank you to everyone who has reached out to express their concern due to the recent fires here in Turkey. Fortunately for us, the big fires have been well to the south, with nothing closer than about 50 kilometres.

Satellite image of fires in Turkey
Satellite photo showing smoke from the fires on 3rd August 2021. We’re the red circle in the top left.

Certainly there has been an ominous haze and smoke in the air on some days. And there was a small fire in a local olive grove a few days ago that gave everyone a scare but thankfully the fire brigade quickly got it under control.

It could easily have been so much worse. Very sad scenes on the news from around Bodrum, Marmaris, and Antalya. And more recently the tragedy seems to have moved over to the Greek islands. Tough times all round.

On a more optimistic note, we’re finally getting there with our house. The plaster is on at last and there are only minor details left to do. You know, things like windows, doors, floor tiles, bathroom fixtures, etc…

Winter sunset
December 2020 sunset.

Our last update was back in December 2020. At that point we were deep in the process of putting up the straw bale walls, as in the photo below. The next stage after that would be putting in the electrical wiring. Then covering the straw walls with chicken-wire mesh inside and out, and tying both meshes together with baling twine pushed through the walls every 30 cm. Only then can the plastering itself begin. (Of course all of those phases take longer than you think they are going to take!)

Straw bale room
Completing the straw bale walls last winter.

The coronavirus era has been a very mixed bag for us, as I’m sure it has for most of you. For long stretches it has meant we’ve had no guests at all, and that’s been hard on our budget but good for making time to get work done. In 2020 we had a team of geothermal engineers who stayed with us often, and effectively kept our business going during a grim period when tourist visitors were non-existent. In early 2021, though, the team’s work took them elsewhere in the region and things were again very quiet for us.

At least we could work on the house! Nothing is ever simple though and in January we had some disturbing news that one of our immediate neighbours was selling their olive grove to a farmer who wanted to cut down the trees and build a cow-shed on the land. We weren’t particularly thrilled about this development, and were frankly a bit surprised because in Turkey it’s very bad form to cut down olive trees. But what really made it into a potential nightmare was that there was some ambiguity in the title deeds about exactly how this farmer was going to get access to the land. He certainly believed that he was going to be entitled to use our driveway. We weren’t so sure about that.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, we had the choice of either fighting about the access issue in court (which wouldn’t really be good for anyone except the lawyers) or just pre-empting the whole thing by buying the land ourselves. So we scraped some money together and by February we were the proud owners of another half-acre or so.

Olive trees
Some of the olive trees on our new plot of land.

There are about 35 trees on the plot which is fantastic news for our goal to be self-sufficient with olives and olive oil. The new land is just behind our old farmhouse, and across the drive and downhill from the cafe. About a third of it is quite a steep slope, but the rest is flat which gives some possibilities for the future. No plans to do anything for now except harvest the olives, but Sirem is thinking we could do luxury camping among the trees down there one day.

View from the new plot of land, looking uphill and east towards the cafe veranda.

So with that distraction sorted, you’d think we would have pushed on with the plastering, right? Instead we engaged in some really advanced-level procrastination and decided that the front entrance of the hotel wasn’t looking good enough and we needed to finally lay some long-neglected paving stones, and build some short brick walls to improve things.

Hotel entrance as it was a couple of years ago.

In the shot above you can see the problems. The drainage canal, running down and to the left, was doing a great job of getting rid of water, but it was wider and uglier and more dangerous than it needed to be. (People were forever at risk of tripping and falling into it, particularly after a few drinks.) Also we hated the ugly concrete bridge at the lower left, and wanted something more appealing than the simple concrete path that led up to the cafe terrace area.

Stage one of the new plan: low walls to hide the drainage canal, PVC pipes under the walkways.

So we built some low brick walls to contain and disguise the drainage canal. We smashed the ugly concrete bridge with a sledgehammer: it took all of five minutes which doesn’t say much for its build quality!

We also shrank the canal quite a bit, which meant the driveway gained some useful width but we had to lay new paving stones in the reclaimed parts. We made a brand new entrance to the terrace at one spot where people were always jumping over the wall. And we ran PVC pipes under each walkway so the rainwater could flow unimpeded.

Putting grout between the new paving stones on the driveway.
Overview of the work in progress. Note helpful dogs.

The little walls look really ugly in basic red brick but once you render them it all starts to look a bit nicer. Sirem and Şehnaz (a woman from the village who’s been working with us and is good at everything) did lovely work setting tile fragments into mortar on top of the walls to make it all look amazing.

Close-up of helpful dog #1 (Zeytin).
Close-up of helpful dog #2 (Zeliş).

The next step was doing a smoother second coat of render, with really fine sand, and then limewashing all of the new walls (and the old ones too) to get the Mediterranean look we were after. I should take a moment to thank our poor old cement mixer which is soldiering on after much abuse from us.

Very hard-working and long-suffering cement mixer.
That’s more like it: limewashed walls looking a lot better. The driveway has gained some space which helps with parking and turning, too.
Moving up towards the cafe entrance. You can just see the new walkway on the left.
Cafe entrance looking much friendlier and safer!
Close-up of some of the decorative work on top of the new wall.
Night-time overview, job not quite finished, ignore ugly bits lower left.
Last part of the job: laying paving stones on the old concrete path and grouting around them.
Reverse view of the newly paved path.

And that was that. Almost. We still have one thing left to do here: in that final photo, try to imagine three pairs of timber posts, left and right of the path. One pair in the foreground, one in the middle-ground, and one pair right at the back near the ramp up from the driveway. Then we’ll use these posts to build a nice pergola, about nine metres by four metres, and grow grape vines and wisteria and honeysuckle all over it. That would really help with the amount of late afternoon sun we get on the terrace.

I have already gone on a bit, and I know that some readers will be getting antsy that there haven’t been enough animal photos. So, without further ado, I give you some cats, Zorro, and a tortoise, just to keep you going.

Pringles, also known as Tubby, enjoying the sun lounge.
Panini on the prowl.
Zorro being lovable.
Tortoise by the pool.

Now comes one of those moments when I have to confess that we don’t always do every single thing ourselves. We were busy enough with our other jobs that we decided to get some professionals in to plaster the house. I really do enjoy working with plaster, but we met a team of local guys who had been doing solid work in Sirem’s parent’s street, and the temptation to use their services was too great. In the photo below, you can see my sole contribution to plastering the house. That white mess near the front door was my effort to demonstrate how to do the first coat of lime plaster onto straw, which the guys had not worked with before.

Very first plaster going on to the house.
First coat of plaster going on in the kitchen area. Note all the electrical cabling about to be hidden behind the plaster.
First coat of plaster, bedroom.
First coat of plaster, north-east corner exterior.
First and second coats, upstairs studio/bedroom.
Kitchen area viewed from the bridge above.
Second coat completed, southwest corner.
Second coat complete, kitchen area. Our home-made scaffolding still stands!
Second coat complete, entrance area.
Lounge room windows, looking down the driveway.
Niche near the stairs, rough plaster coat.
View from the southeast showing the final coat of plaster, done with smooth sand.

And that’s where we are with the house. The plastering team did a great job. As mentioned earlier, all that remains for us is to make windows, doors, etc., etc. Our plan is to start with our bedroom and the ensuite bathroom, to at least get that part of the house clean and weatherproof, and then move in as soon as we can. That would free up room three for guests, and we could then finish off the house interior piece by piece.

Pool as it was until recently…

The year had one more surprise for us: about six weeks ago we got a visit from a man with a clipboard who explained to us that we had apparently been running an unlicensed swimming pool all this time. So we’ve had to make some changes. Compulsory pool-water lab tests once a month, for example. (I’m pleased to say we passed the first one with flying colours.) There were also a few safety-related things we had to do.

Flotation device for emergencies. Looks very nautical.
Depth in centimetres labelled at each side of the pool. This is the shallow end.

I don’t have any photos of this one, but I also had to go and get my bronze life-saving certificate under the tutelage of Osman, a local dive instructor. (Great guy and we 100% recommend him if any of our guests ever want to go diving.) The course was pretty intense but being comfortable in the water helped a lot. So, a big thank-you to the Australian custom of throwing your children into the pool very young, I guess.

We’re well into summer now, and have suffered through a bit of a heat-wave these past few weeks. But the hot weather, increasing vaccination rates, and the end of a long covid-lockdown in Turkey have combined to bring us a flood of guests recently, so we really cannot complain about that. Starting to see some intrepid foreign tourists returning too. Having been fully vaccinated ourselves, we’re OK with being around new people, although we’re still taking some basic precautions.

Deck chairs ready for visitors.
Gardens have just about made it through the hot summer, with plenty of extra watering.
August means figs.

Here’s hoping that this is at least the beginning of the end of the covid era. For any readers who are planning to come and visit, we’ll totally understand if you need to wait until you feel safer. Or indeed wait until you can fly home without quarantining! But nevertheless we hope to see you before too long.

View of the project from a neighbouring hill.

Hello again

Well that was quite a gap between updates. Sorry! Not that it’s any excuse, but I was ill with a mystery bug and didn’t feel like making blog posts or doing anything much else for a while. Feeling better now though, cheers for asking.

We were also busy with guests, which is a good problem to have. Thanks especially to the growing group of people who’ve stayed with us more than once. It’s a fantastic vote of confidence when people want to come back.

Pool still looking inviting in November.

Or sit, have a drink, and watch the sun set.

Latest news on the construction front is that, by mutual agreement, Koray is no longer working with us. He was on the job for over two years, he did a huge amount of work, and we’ll always be grateful for his contribution. We wish him all the best in his new worm-compost business.

Of course there’s still a lot to do before rooms three and four are guest-ready and before we have a new house. And now it’s all on us (with some help from family and friends). Exciting but also a little scary. For example, lifting the big beams into place on previous buildings was always a job for Koray and me. With half of that team gone, it pushed us to think about how on earth we were going to get the beams and rafters into place on the new house.

So we went out and bought rope and pulleys in order to set up a block-and-tackle system. Probably should have done it years ago actually. Three pulley wheels at the top and three at the bottom makes for a six-times mechanical advantage, not counting friction on the rope. And they work really well. I know this is not exactly new technology but it does feel very cool to be able to lift a 180kg beam a couple of metres into the air with one hand.

Lifting one of our largest beams with the new block and tackle.

In fact it was Sirem and Çisem who did the actual lifting when it came time to put up the heaviest two beams in the whole project. I had the easy job of shepherding each end into place and getting some safety screws in to hold them there.

Here’s a shot of both beams in place. The one on the left is down the spine of the house and has the important job of holding up a column that will support the ridge beam for the roof. The one on the right is to make a pair of them so we can build a catwalk upstairs, heading out over the double-height space of the main room. All just so people can appreciate the view from the south window up there. Anyway, I’m sure the cats will enjoy it one day.

Support for the roof beams and a catwalk.

Catwalk completed!

The catwalk is not the safest place to be right now, particularly after it’s been raining, as there are no railings yet. The view is worth it though. And it provides some much-needed scaffolding for the roof work that’s coming soon. Currently we’ve put up the upstairs columns, so the next step is to get the ridge beam up. After that it’s the 48 rafters, then planks, membrane, tiles, and voilà, we’ll have a roof.

Upper-level columns going up with plenty of temporary diagonal bracing.

You can just about see what the roof line will be like.

We’re rushing to get the roof onto our house right now because it would be great to get the timber frame protected (parts of it have been up for about a year) and a covered space would be very handy for storing equipment and straw bales. Before that, though, we did get room three to a habitable condition: here’s the bathroom looking a lot more civilized than the last time you saw it.

Bathroom looking better now.

Room three front door. Changed the design a little.

Room three feels so habitable now that we are in fact inhabiting it. Such is life. It’s good to no longer be competing with our own guests for winter accommodation in rooms one and two. And getting back to work on room four (which is currently plastered but doesn’t have windows) is the next big part of the project once the house has a roof. We’ll get there.

We took time out from house-building the other day for a minor safety improvement to building one: we have this loft space above the kitchen (which will be even more useful once we put some better shelving in). It’s been dangerous to be up there as there was nothing to stop you from falling down the ladder back into the kitchen. So, some angle iron, a bit of welding, a bit of painting, and we have a safety railing. Backing down the ladder doesn’t feel nearly so weird now.

New safety railing for the kitchen loft; should stop us breaking our necks.

It hasn’t all been work. My old friend Richard came to visit, and to celebrate we all went to the beach in Dilek National Park. I’ve known Richard since 1995 and have missed a few important developments in his life since moving here, so it was great to be able to catch up.

Richard came to visit. Wow, I really need a haircut.

Candid shot of Sirem and me. (Thanks, Krista, for both of these photos.)

And the national park is always a relaxing place to be. Plenty of things to point a camera at certainly.

Still good beach weather in late September. Well, maybe not for actual swimming.

Finally got a good shot of the wild pigs that live in the park.

What else has happened?

Because we are such publicity hounds, we said “yes” last summer when CNN Türk asked if they could come and film the crazy straw-bale people. Their program aired a few weeks ago and they did a fantastic job with only a couple of hours of raw footage to work with. In particular they took some great drone shots that showed our work from an angle we’d never seen before. The program is available on YouTube if anyone is curious. Obviously you’ll get more out of it if you speak Turkish, but the drone shots go beyond language. :)

Also in the publicity department: a week ago I finally made a “hey, we built a straw-bale hotel!” post to reddit/diy. And then sat at the computer for 11 hours answering people’s questions and comments. It’s nice to get feedback though and the feedback was almost entirely nice.

And, déjà vu, the olive harvesting season has come around again, a little early this time as it was a dry summer. I admit I did absolutely no work on this important job, because I was building the catwalk. Or something. The hard-working olive pickers were Sirem, Çisem, their mum Nadire, and local farmer Mustafa who was our hired expert.

Gently shaking the olives from one of our trees onto a sheet.

Sirem and Çisem doing it old-school: picking up fallen olives from the hillside.

Shaking the trees and gathering the olives is the hard part. It gets a lot easier and more rewarding when you take your crop to the local factory to be pressed into olive oil.

Rainy day at the olive oil factory. Each pile of bags is from someone’s olive farm. Our pile was very small compared to these!

Our olives going into the system.

Leaves and branches blown away, only the olives remain.

Recently the factory has brought in fancy new pressing equipment from Italy to make cold-pressed olive oil possible. This gives nicer oil but a lower yield than the standard warm-pressed method. Decided to give it a try and we couldn’t be happier; the oil is really magnificent.

Where the (cold-pressed) magic happens.

You might remember from last time that we adopted a little white puppy called Nina. She has turned out to be all-labrador, or we’re pretty sure she is anyway. She is wonderful and beautiful and extremely naughty and likes to chew on things that she shouldn’t. And she grew so quickly! I should never have given her all those eggs and all that milk…

Nina a few months ago.

Nina now: huge!

And just for some dog-cat balance, here is a photo of Suzie. She’s been with us for ages but you don’t get to see pictures of her very often as sometimes she decides she is shy, and disappears for a week or two.

Suzie looking soulfully into the distance.

And finally a couple of photos to try to show you how nice the light gets around here as the days get shorter and the air hazier.

I know, I know, like the world needs another sunset photo. But look at those rays!

View of distant hills.

Will try not to go quiet for so long this time!

Ground-breaking news

Since the last post a lot has happened. So many months of planning, waiting and worrying have finally started to bear fruit. Such a relief!

For some reason the council insists on the entire plan being printed on one long sheet.  This leads to much slapstick comedy when the wind is blowing.

The first job was heartbreaking but necessary: we had to cut down some fig trees.  :(  We lost about fifteen of them and had to relocate three olive trees.  Olive trees, we were told, are very tough and will tolerate relocation as long as you prune them hard and give them lots of water afterwards.  Time will tell whether this advice is correct.

Looking up the block at some of the lost fig trees that had to go in order to make way for the foundation slabs.

The second job was improving the driveway.  With last winter’s rains we had some erosion and it had become more like a goat track than a road.

Our driveway: the “before” photo.

We needed to do something if we were going to get heavy machinery, cement mixers, and delivery trucks up there.

Starting to dig

Excavator starting on the driveway.  Jason really wanted a turn but was not seen as responsible enough.

Gravel to make a nice compacted base

One of twelve truckloads of gravel to make a nice compacted base for the drive.

The “after” photo: from goat-track to motorway.  We like it a lot and it’s so wide that it immediately solves some of our future parking problems.

A view from the top, showing how the drive curves around to allow access to the cafe.  This was about halfway through.  More truckloads of gravel were dumped on the right side of this picture.

Then the excavator moved up the hill to start digging out the soil for the three buildings’ foundations and the pool.

Digging out the base for the cafe and first two rooms.

We had mountains of soil that we didn’t know what to do with.  At first it just got pushed over the edge of our hillside, but there was so much of it we were in danger of causing an avalanche onto the road.  So we had about 20 lorry loads worth of soil taken away, and lots of neighbours turned up with tractors and helped themselves to a bit.  We did keep some, though, for the mud plaster.

“And you could have it all, my empire of dirt…”

Battling machines

Rise of the machines.

The guys worked incredibly fast and before we knew it they were putting formwork, steel reinforcement, and the first loads of concrete in.

Early layer of concrete.  This not the real slab, just a bottom layer to make a good surface for the concrete formwork.

Early layer of concrete. This not the real foundation slab, just a bottom layer to make a good surface for the concrete formwork.

Pool starting to take shape.

Pool starting to take shape.

Formwork for the second bungalow.  One day this will be rooms three and four.

Formwork for the second bungalow. One day this will be rooms three and four.

Underlay slab for our house, right at the top of the hill.

Underlay slab for our house, right at the top of the hill.

Solid reinforced concrete beams that will support the restaurant.  The step up in the slab is so that rooms one and two will sit a little higher and not cut too deeply into the hillside.

Reinforced concrete beams that will support the restaurant. The step up in the slab is so that rooms one and two will sit a little higher and not cut too deeply into the hillside.

Improvised tent so there's somewhere dry to store gear and make tea on rainy days.

Improvised tent so there’s somewhere dry to store gear and make tea on rainy days.  The workers were sceptical of Jason’s plan to build this out of scrap wood but so far it is holding up.

Panorama from the top of the orchard, looking west.  Click for full size.

Another big job that is now done was to lay 66 metres of concrete pipe in the ditch next to the main road and then cover it over.  The idea is to carry away the rain water that comes down the hill, and also to stop our new driveway from acting as a dam.  Each pipe section was 1.5 metres long and 80 cm in diameter.  I am so glad that this job is over now as it was the scariest and most dangerous of all the work done so far. Watching the excavator lift and swing a very heavy concrete pipe in the air, hanging from a chain,  44 times in succession while traffic was still passing on the road was very nerve-racking!  I don’t think we remembered to take a photo of this job because we were so busy watching it nervously.

“Before” photo, taken in March 2014.

After: you can’t see it, but there’s 66 metres of 80 cm concrete pipe buried on the right-hand side of the road there.  Smoothing it over afterwards makes more handy parking spaces.

During these exciting times we had my parents and Jason’s uncle John and aunt Marg staying with us.   In the evenings one or two drinks were had in order to celebrate the start of the building work.

John and Marg inspecting the site.

Jason tells me I have to add cat photos to a blog post or people will complain.  So, here they are.  The kittens are getting bigger every day.  They have names now, but we are still trying to adopt them out.

Panda.

Panda.

Pablo.

Pablo.

Panini.

Panini.

Coco.

Coco.

All together.

All together.

And finally, a big thanks to JP who sent us a wonderful 24mm lens that took most of the photos above.  Cheers, JP, we love it!

Olive oil update

Just some quick details on the process of turning our recent olive harvest into olive oil…

It turns out we picked over 400 kg of olives.  We kept about 50 kg of the biggest and best for eating, and those are in the process of being repeatedly washed and salted and weighted down. There were seven sacks (323 kg) of normal-quality olives to be pressed into oil. And finally a small sack (38 kg) of poor-quality olives that we took from the ground beneath the trees.

Our local olive-oil factory.

Our local olive-oil factory.

We took our eight sacks just around the corner to the Yıldırım olive processing factory. We sold the one bag of lower-quality olives to the factory, and the money we got for that was enough to pay for processing all the rest. This seemed like a good deal.

Sacks of olives in the factory yard, waiting their turn to be pressed.

Sacks of olives in the factory yard, waiting their turn to be pressed.

The olives are washed and the leaves are filtered out.

The olives are washed and any remaining leaves are filtered out before pressing.

A line of machines for crushing the olives and filtering the oil.

Machines for crushing the olives and filtering the oil.

The guys at the factory are incredibly busy right now, as everyone brings in their olives around the same time. So we had to come back the next day to see the results.

A tough and slippery job. (Our batch was a little over one of these containers.)

A tough and slippery job. (Our batch was a little over one of these containers.)

The juice, the precious juice, was hidden in the vehicles.

The juice, the precious juice, was hidden in the vehicles.

Our 323 kg turned into 67 litres of beautiful cloudy green oil. We’re told it has good, low acidity levels. I would try to describe the taste but I don’t have the adjectives. I can tell you that it is very, very good for dipping fresh bread into.

Testing began immediately.

Testing began immediately.

 

Harvesting olives for Christmas

Winter is really here now, and with it has come the rain. Christmas has come and gone. We hope you are all having a relaxing break, wherever you are. We plan to give ourselves the next few days off, but right up until Christmas Eve we’ve been busy with the olive harvest, and also painting and tiling one more bedroom in time for a visit from Sirem’s dad.

Winter sunset looking towards Mount Mycale.

Winter sunset looking towards Mount Mycale.

Every month I learn something new about Mediterranean agriculture. Previously, I had no idea olives were harvested so late in the year. Apparently it’s all about leaving them on the tree for long enough to produce a lot of oil, but not leaving them so long that they start to fall off. From early December onwards, all the hillsides around the village are dotted with the white nylon sheets used to catch the olives when the trees are beaten with sticks.

Olives on the tree.

Olives on the tree.

We have about 15 trees, which is not many by local standards. But being non-experts, we decided to get some professional help in anyway. Thanks to Mustafa and Leyla we got our olives down from the trees in a single (long, tiring, back-breaking) day. And then another day to sort them and get them all into sacks.

Freshly harvested olives.

Freshly harvested olives.

Sirem choosing the biggest and best olives for eating: the rest become olive oil.

Sirem choosing the biggest and best olives for eating: the rest become olive oil.

I couldn’t believe that only 15 trees produced about 350 kg of olives. We can’t possibly eat that many, so most of them are going to be pressed into olive oil at one of the local processing plants. It takes about 5 kg of olives to make one litre of oil, which means we should be set up for olive oil for the foreseeable future.

Most of our olive harvest (a few more sacks added later).

Most of our olive harvest (a few more sacks added later).

The biggest and juiciest olives are put aside for eating, but you have to pick them out manually and that takes some time. Right now our best olives have been washed and salted and are sitting in sacks under the weight of some bricks: it will take a month or more before they’re ready to eat. We know they’re going to taste good though, because we’ve already tried some early-harvest olives we picked a few weeks back.

Here's some we made earlier: pressed, salted olives in oil and oregano.

Here’s some we made earlier: pressed, salted olives in oil and oregano.

We also made time for a trip to the nursery. We love our orchard, but we don’t want to grow only figs and olives up there. We bought all sorts of things: a cherry tree, some oleander bushes and trees, different kinds of cypresses, a bay tree, rosemary, lavender, and more. Currently they’re all sitting in pots in the courtyard, but we need to get them into the ground and start the long job of landscaping what we hope will be a wonderful garden some day.

A selection of trees and shrubs.

A selection of trees and shrubs.

I’m in two minds about mentioning our progress on the kitchen, because I’m a bit embarrassed about how long it’s all taking. But things are progressing and we will get there eventually. We’re very proud of having made our own drawers, and people who’ve visited us already will know how much of a big deal it was to finally have a sink in the kitchen.

Drawers! Actual working drawers!

Drawers! Actual working drawers!

Our long-awaited kitchen sink.

Our long-awaited kitchen sink. (Ignore the worktop: that’s just plywood and will get tiled soon.)

Christmas Eve was exhausting, because we had to grout the new tiles in the oldest bedroom before Sirem’s dad arrived on the 25th. This came after a day of olive harvesting, of course. It was worth it, because now we have another warm and welcoming bedroom — but we don’t want to do it again in a hurry. It was nice to relax by the fire on Christmas Day, watching our dinner cook in the coals, and enjoying a few glasses of distinctively named Turkish wine.

Christmas dinner cooking in a clay oven.

Christmas dinner cooking in a clay oven.

Cheers!

Cheers!

Moving to Turkey

Photo of us Hi, and welcome to our blog. Some of you will already know us, and will have heard about our crazy project in great detail.  For those who haven’t met us before, we’re Jason and Sirem.  We’ve had enough of our jobs in the UK and are about to move to rural Turkey to build a hotel.

Semi-detached Southampton house This is the house in Southampton we’ll be leaving behind. We’ve been here for seven years and it’s been a great place to live, but it’s time to go.

And here are some photos of where we’re going.  We bought a small farmhouse and about an acre of fig orchard on a hillside near the village of Hıdırbeyli.  Which is near the town of Germencik, just inland from Turkey’s Aegean coast.

The orchard as it looked in March 2014.

Sunset from the orchard, looking towards Mount Mycale.

Looking out across the olive groves.

We’ll be about half an hour from ruins of Ephesus, with many other archaeological sites only a short drive away (e.g., Priene, Magnesia, Miletus, Didyma, and Aphrodisia). We’re also about half an hour from the beach.

All that archaeology gave us the idea for what to call the hotel.  We’re right in the middle of what was once Ionia, one of the colonies of ancient Greece.  So our place will be the Ionia Guest House.

The plan is to build a small hotel with about six rooms around a central garden courtyard and pool.  We want it to work as a base for visiting the attractions of the Aegean coast, and at the same time give people a taste of the Turkish countryside. We plan to grow our own fruit and vegetables, to use great local food, and to raise chickens for eggs.  We want to build the place in a sustainable way (timber-frame straw bale construction, covered in local clay plaster). It’s going to take us a couple of years to get it all up and running, so the blog is for keeping people up to date on our progress.

Thanks for stopping by.

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