Family Vacation to Alanya

We just returned last night from a family vacation to Alanya. Alanya is 360 kilometers from here so it should only take about 3 hours to get there, but the road is very curvy and winds around the mountains along the seaside so the trip takes 6 hours. We left on Tuesday afternoon and stayed in a beautiful all inclusive resort. We only left the hotel once to go and visit the Alanya castle which is in the picture above. We stayed at the Bera hotel, a place we stayed this summer as well. It's a hotel that caters to Muslim families and nearly all of the women wear scarves. Everyone eats together for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Because last week was a holiday, they had concerts 3 of the 5 nights we were there as well. During the day, the girls and Atakan, usually, went swimming in the indoor women's pool and relaxed in the sauna, steam room, and hamam. Fecir and I even did the kese, kopuk, and massage package! Kese is when you go into the hamam, lay on the hot stone and the woman basically exfoliates your skin by scrubbing the heck out of you! Then they cover you in bubbles (kopuk) and wash you off before taking you for a massage. It was wonderful! The guys and Ilkan spent their days in the men's indoor pool and hamam as well. Kaan and his dad did the same massage program as us as well one afternoon. We usually took naps in the afternoon and spent the evenings in the arcade and bowling alley downstairs. We drank lots of tea and Turkish coffee as well at the bars in the lobby!