The Sunday Times November 14, 2021 9warms the deck. The chilly
British autumn never felt
further away.Oliver Shah was a guest of
D Resorts, which has B&B
Deluxe Sea View rooms at
D Maris Bay from £567 (dmaris
bay.com); and B&B Deluxe
rooms at D-Resort Gocek from
£200 (dresortgocek.com).
Carrier offers seven nights’ B&B
at both hotels from £1,655pp
and £1,205pp respectively,
including flights (carrier.co.uk).
Oliver Shah travelled
independently to Villa Mahal,
which has B&B doubles from
£265 and yacht charters from
£428 a day (villamahal.com)a sushi restaurant overlooking
the beach and designed by the
same team behind Zuma. The
sleek, tastefully lit interior
gives way to a wooden balcony
and a panoramic view of the
seafront. We watch the lights
of little boats zip around across
the dark water as we savour
sashimi and black cod.
Gocek town offers a few
decent restaurants serving
fresh fish, although there are
also such neon-lit culinary
delights as Kebab Hospital
(really). On our last night
there, we opt for a seafood
joint called Guverte, which has
candlelit tables on a pier in the
marina. I make the tourist’s
mistake of asking for the best
fish they have: we’re rewarded
with a delicious, flaky grouper
that takes a hefty bite out of
my credit card.
The third and final stop in
our search for autumn sun is
Hotel Villa Mahal, two hours’There are chubby
young blokes who
look like trainee
Middle Eastern
dictators
farms-cum-restaurants serving
the fish they cultivate.
Chartering a yacht is not
something I’m in the habit of
doing. But if ever there was a
place to push the boat out, it’s
at Villa Mahal: its own vessel is
available with a couple of
crew for guests to take out,
with a fish lunch included.
As we clamber on board
in Kalkan’s marina, a
turtle pops up to wave
us off, bobbing up and
diving down like a
good omen.
Then we are
heading out into the
glittering expanse as
the late-season sundrive southeast of Dalaman
by the town of Kalkan. A
family-owned hotel with 13
whitewashed villas, it offers a
simple combination of warm
service and beautiful setting,
wedged into a hillside
overlooking the bay. We’re
dropped off down a gravel
path by an uncertain taxi
driver; relief arrives when we
round a corner and find the
smart reception.
The villas sprawl down the
slope towards an infinity pool,
a restaurant shaded by olive
trees and a rocky beach. As
evening draws in, staff dash
around replacing sunloungers
with candlelit tables. We
devour hummus, lamb and
prawns as the sea slaps against
the rocks and music drifts
across from Kalkan. This,
we agree with a smug toast,
is the pick of the lot.
Within easy reach are the
ancient and (very) ruined
Lycian city of Patara, and
the mountain village of
Islamar, where you can
lie low amid olive
groves and vineyards.
Islamar is like a
postcard from a
simpler life: the
flour for the bakery
is still ground using
a water-powered
millstone; there are troutThe infinity pool at Hotel
Villa Mahal; mountain
goats and sheep, belowAXEL KULL; STUART BLACK, TRAVEL GUY, PHOTO-COLOGNE/ALAMY