I can’t believe that this is going to be our last pretend visit for a while. Of course, it is for the best of reasons – we are actually going around the world for real! So we let Penny choose where she wanted to go this weekend and she chose Turkey.
Turkey was one of Penny’s favourite ever holidays, we went last October and she loved every minute of it. We all did; It was fun and interesting, warm and friendly and it far exceeded our expectations in every way. We are all desperate to go back!
Breakfast
One of our favourite meals in Turkey was in a strange local cafe by the side of a road which had only a ghost town on it, in which they made amazing pancakes in a wood burning fire. You could watch as the owners wife shaped, moulded and filled your pancake and then put it into the fire. It felt strangely timeless and we all loved watching her. To recreate this, I couldn’t provide a wood burning fire sadly, but I did make yummy pancakes and filled them with honey – just like we had when we were there. Yum!
The Beach
I had my birthday in Turkey last year and we spent it on the beach. Turkey has stunning beaches – but so do we here, and so we headed to our local beach in the spirit of our holiday. It wasn’t quite as warm as we would have liked (maybe we should move to Turkey) but we had a thoroughly lovely family time.
Penny bought her friend James from school with her and he said he felt like he was in Cyprus – which is close enough for me! Our local beach is so lovely and I was glad to be there; if we hadn’t been pretending to be in Turkey then we wouldn’t have bothered and our day would have been less magical for it.
Carpets
When we were in the Turkish Bizarre’s, there were so many rug shops and Turkey is very famous for producing stunning rugs and carpets made of silk. In the spirit of this, Penny and I wove carpets for Freddie’s little dolls house. Penny loved doing the weaving – she was really proud that she could make something so good for her little brother.
I also liked the connection to Classics as the Greek queen, Penelope, weaves while she waits for her husband to return from Troy (which of course is in Turkey). Classics, crafting and geography achieved all in five minutes!
Turkish Delight and Turkish Tea
I have always loved Turkish Delight – it reminds me of my sister who loved anything that tasted of flowers.
When I visited to North Cyprus I also got very obsessed with Turkish tea – it truly is the best tea in the world. You do need a special kettle to make Turkish tea sadly, but I found a really yummy instant apple tea that I loved. Penny doesn’t like real tea, but she loved the apple one (probably because its so sweet) and so we had a pretty major sugar high mid afternoon. Penny doesn’t really like Turkish delight though – she just licks off the icing sugar!
Turkish Barbers
Freddie has his hair cut at a fantastic Turkish style barbers and so this seemed like the perfect day for a pre-holiday haircut. He is so so funny when he gets his haircut. He takes it very seriously and sits very very still. I love his hair when it’s just been cut – it’s so sniffable.
Dinner
Just 15 minutes down the road from us is a yummy Turkish restaurant which had a great Groupon deal! So we grabbed granny and grandad and headed off for a feast, still with Penny’s little friend in tow.
The food was delicious and I especially loved the starter I had with melted feta cheese, while the kids ate their body weights in chocolate cake (they had definitely earned it at the beach!). The restaurant was warm and friendly just like real Turkey, the food was delicious and they even had Turkish beer.
Mini Disco
In our hotel in Turkey they had a mini Disco every night. It’s certainly not authentically Turkish… but, this adventure ended to the tune of Baby Shark!
We loved Turkey as it’s a gateway to Asia! You can read about more of our Asian pretend adventures here.
