Beside the Sea Side, Beside the Sea...

Side, Turkey, is very appropriately pronounced sea-day as it an eastern Mediterranean seaside resort that appeals to the egg and chips and "Kiss-me-quick" brigade and their German equivalents. The coastline is crammed with all-inclusive resorts and the narrow streets of the 'old' city are jammed with glitzy shops falling over themselves with flashy jewellery, swanky leather and more flavours of Turkish delight than Baskin Robbins...

This once was a quaint little harbour, but now it's awash in beer parlours and excursion boats masquerading as old Turkish gulets...

Somethings don't change; this Temple of Athena has withstood the test of time and the weighty crush of northerners...

There are still quite a few tourists topping up their tans for Christmas, but the big spenders left more than a month ago and the hotels and restaurants are scrabbling to squeeze the last drop out of this year's harvest. But it is a harvest of another kind that interests us. As regular readers will know, we love wandering the markets - meeting locals as they go about their daily lives - and Selcuk market was an absolute treat...

These cabbages were gargantuan, (though nowhere near the mammoth world record of127lb).

The stalls bowed under the weight of all manner of local produce, but it's harvest time and truck loads of pomegranates, melons, olives, bananas, figs and grapes are being hauled in before the wintry sun ripens the oranges and lemons and dries the dates. This is truly a fruitful land...

For market lovers, Selcuk had it all. Stalls laden with everything, including the kitchen sink, spread throughout the town and we could have shipped a container full of Turkish delights home. The only thing missing was carpets. In fact we've seen relatively few carpets and, despite warnings about the persistence of Turkish rug purveyors, we've had no hassle at all - not even from this guy....