Christmas in Marmaris

Hiking in Marmaris

How is it to celebrate Christmas away from home, away from your traditions and your family? I will tell you in this post. But first I will tell you about the days before Christmas.

There are mountains around Marmaris, but it is really hard to find if there are trails to walk. We found some on wikiloc.com, but there are no comments about the trails, only photos and how far/how high. So we decided to take the nearest one, up to the communication masts close to city center.

On the way we stopped by at a boat shop to ask about something, and I found a cat in the shelves.

We had to walk up to the main road and cross the road to the other side. The sign says that it is not allowed to enter the forrest, but the road was open so we hoped that forrest ment forrest…

It is a gravel road all the way, you can`t drive here with a normal car. We also saw two wild boars but they were more afraid of us than the other way so we didn`t manage to take a photo of them.

A nice view to Marmaris up in the hill

A full marina

The view to the forrest

the masts

We tried to find a place to take photos on the top, but there were masts and trees all over. We had a plan to go further up in the forrest, but it was a fence there so we couldn`t go through.

First Sail company came visiting us to check the measurements for a new cockpit enclosure.

They also put new windows in the sprayhood. Earlier we couldn`t see through them

Check the differents!

A sunny afternoon

Beautiful sunset

And beautiful sunrise

Christmas Eve

Christmas breakfast. In Norway we celebrate Christmas at the 24th in the evening (holiday after 5 pm), so this breakfast here is at the 24th. Beautiful day.

We should have taken a swim for Christmas, but the ocean here is not very clean.

But instead of a swim we took a run on the promade. There is a great flock of pigeons on the beach and I wanted to have some nice photo of them one day.

Some days ago I went to a hairdresser to do permanent curls. It cost me 350 NOK, which is very little compared to home…

We had ordered a table at Felix this evening. They had an English Christmas menue.

First it was onion soup with garlic bread

For main course it was roast beef, potatoes, vegetables and yorkshire pudding.

For dessert it was applepai. What do I think about the menue? Well… in retrospect, I would probably just as well have eaten Turkish dinner. We have celebrate Christmas abroad twice, once in Türkiye, and once in Spain. In Türkiye we had a normal turkish dinner, while we in Spain had Norwegian dishes.

Because it is winter in Norway it is totally different to celebrate Christmas when it is sun and 20 degrees. And specially in Türkiye because they are muslims, but they also have some Christmas decoration here. For next year we will not be in Türkiye for Christmas, maybe Greece. Not for the food, but all the nice photos of all the decorations they have.

In the evening I had a phonecall to my mum who was celebrating with my sister and her family. Yes, we have a lot of traditions around Christmas, and we can miss baking, conserts, snow, food, and all the rest, but for us it is not any problem to celebrate Christmas away from home. We can bake if we want (we don`t), we can put on some Christmas music at the radio, and we have seen many Christmas movies. So it is this type of Christmas this year. We wouldn`t have changed it!

Christmas Day

Both Christmas eve and Christmas day it was dinghy sailing here, and it was fun following them around the bay.

One thing which is hard to find here is bacon. But we met a swedish speaking woman on MM Migros and asked her about it. And she recommend us to check out MMM Migros or Migros at the marina (are used to people/guests from different countries). So we went to MMM Migros on Christmas day. MMM is the biggest one and it was a nice supermarket. We found only one packet of bacon and it cost 140 NOK for 400 gram. It is double price (or more) from home, where we think it is expensive… But when you need it you have to buy it.

And typically on sundays it is a lot of people on the beach, enjoying the day!

Here is the dinghy parking. This day we met a local guy who was very interesting in talking to us.

Sunday we went to Sevgiyolu restaurant to have dinner. I had Chicken with mushroom (or was it Mushroom with chicken.. )

And Astor had lamb kebab. Excellent food as always! If you are travelling to Marmaris I will really recommend to go to this restaurant!

On monday we went to do some shopping and had a plan to have a look for mattress topper and cushions. Both are really hard to find here. We found one shop for beds, but they couldn`t give us anything until 6 weeks. But on the way out of the shop Astor saw some big cushions which could fit on the boat deck.

Huge for our dinghy but Astor managed to take them over to the boat

The perfect deck cushions! I will give you more photos later!

It was also hard to find normal cushions to our saloon, but at the end I found a lady in a shop who could help me. She had cushions but it was one of every type. But then I asked her if she could make some for me. After 40 minuts I had 4 new cushions!

I had them first in the saloon before the cockpit enclosure was ready. I paid around 500 NOK for all 4 together. We also made carpet for the floor, both inside in the saloon and outside in the cockpit. We paid about 500 NOK for all, perfect fitted for the space.

While First Sail was at the boat making the cockpit encloser, I went ashore to have a walk along the promenade.

I went 3 km to see the “cat point” and found this boss there. Don`t try cuddle with other cats!

But even if he is the boss he is pritty cute 🙂

This black cat also wanted some cuddle

Back to the dinghy after 6 km I had to wait for Astor to pick me up

And what a job they have done! We have been waiting for this over 10 years (we also missed this at our old boat), and we are now very satisfied.

When the sun is shining it is so nice and warm here, much warmer than in the saloon.

This is so great!

***

And we had our first dinner – tacos – having the view to the city