Today’s stroll was also through the back, though it was a much more epic one. Instead of turning right towards the sea, we turned left and really just followed the paths that seemed most promising. This direction is not yet in the eyes of developers, so it was all farms and marshland, with some heathy ground higher up. We came to the waterworks and the pretty little village of Isakoy around it, including a mosque with a playground filled with cherry blossoms and a truly spectacular graveyard on the side of a hill, with a few marble gravestones amidst emerald green grass and covered in buttercups.
Past the village we followed the road for a bit where it met the river, far upstream of our hotel. Here, again, it was very quiet despite being a main road and there were a few places we could go down to near the water, including one where there was a small hut on stilts looking over the water, and a boat that I itched to commandeer.
Our return was through another hilltop village, quite an old one, and dominated by what looked like the local mansion, an Addams family style building of at least three or four stories behind heavy walls, a mouldering funicular train, and surrounded by small orchards and chicken runs. Along the way we climbed a really quite steep hill, and when we got to the top realised that the white gravel path was one we had seen from the other side, running away up a hill with a definitely ‘over the hills and faraway’ sort of feel.
For dinner we decided on something different, and strolled up the river until we found, on spec, another hotel. The menu turned out to be identical but we had a nice seat in their outdoor pavilion, and there was no one else there as we watched a fish leap out of the water and flop back ungracefully on its side. I know it was probably catching mosquitos or something, but it really did look like play.
Dinner, unfortunately, was poor and the fish was undercooked. We tried to convey this to the waiter and ask him to have it cooked a little more, but he misunderstood and brought it back filetted instead.
I started a new book, the memoirs of a man born in Ottoman times.