Hugh Pope

After years of hesitation, in September 2019 we finally started letting out our mountain escape in Olympos, Turkey. What were we waiting for? It’s so nice to know it is being enjoyed, and when I saw our first guest’s feedback on AirBNB I was as happy as when I got my first book review! Five stars, compliments on everything and what comments! “We felt ourselves unbelievably good, really enjoyed every second … Great to be cooked for, the food was fantastic … A real paradise in the mountains!”

It really made me wish I could be there too, but I am stuck most of the time working away in Brussels. So if you’d like to try it, you can find more here on AirBNB or here on homeaway.com. Or if you’d like a more virtual experience, I am in the process of preparing an account of the adventures we had building it, so watch this space.

If had to count the reasons that draw me and other there, I’d start with the expansive sense of silence, or rather absence of urban noise and shudders, apart, of course, from the frogs croaking in spring or the pulse of cicadas in high summer. Then there’s the swimming in our unique, soft natural pool, a wonder of the world built by my wife Jessica JJ Lutz and probably the first anyone tried to build in Turkey. Then there’s the seclusion, since the nearest paved road is a mile (2km) away. We love the delicious village food, and you can engage our housekeeper to cook for you.

Favourite expeditions include sparkling days out on the water, inexpensively chartering a small boat or joining a group leaving from a nearby beach (Adrasan or Cirali). There’s also much classical antiquity to enjoy, with the ruins of many ancient and beautiful Lycian cities within range (Olympos 10 minutes, Phaselis 25 minutes, Myra 1 hour, Arykanda 1-1/2 hours, Termessos/Aspendos/Perge 2 hours, not to mention the fine museums in Antalya and Demre). There are also, naturally, long dinners to be in restaurants on the various nearby beaches. But above all, there’s the two acres all to oneself to enjoy, your own Olympian Heights in the midst of the Bey Mountains National Park.