There is no doubt that summer in Antalya is beautiful and lovely, when the sun is high, you can splash around in the warm water and sit out late without wearing a sweater. Some might say that summer is a bit too much, that is a little too hot and humid to cope it. It probably depends on who you are. In my family, we are equally devided in both camps – some are like it hot, somedo’nt. Therefore, a compromise is to travel in autumn.
But autumn in Antalya is also really charming. The weather is beginning to turn in late October / start November – a bit like home, just a month or two later. There are so beautiful and green again after the summer sun-scorching, with flowers everywhere, new fruits and berries reappears (some for the second or third time in the season) and you can actually survive a whole day outside and inside without the air conditioning turned on. The leaves take all sorts of beautiful colors, as we know it here at home, and it’s time to harvest fruits, conserve them and make jams (something most Turks are real happy with). There may need to be made crushed paprika of the sun-dried peppers, tomato puree of the many matured tomatoes, pickled olives, so next years supply is secured, vine leaves has to be assembled and pickled, so Sarma (stuffed vinblads-dolma – recipe will come later) can be made in the coming year, beans has to be harvested etc etc ….
2 years ago we went to Antalya in the autumn holidays (something you can read about here) and it was a truly wonderful experience. Enough sun and heat to soak up ( especially compared to home) and room for good experiences ( one of the nice things, when it gets a bit colder than summer, is, that you can actually get around without any hassle). But one of the experiences was also to see, how much the landscape is changing compared to the summer – how the leaves are changing and the mature fruit hanging ready on the trees.
My father in law (at whom we often stay with) has the most beautiful and huge garden, where there is a lot of fruit trees. He is quite clever to water in the summer, so the garden are rarely skinny and ugly (it would then just be, if there has been a swarm of locust or other insects by). But in the autumn trees are bursting with their fruits and the garden is full of things ready to be picked. And when you are a northerner like me, it just becomes extra exotic to see the collected lemons and colorful pomegranates from the garden piled up in the storage room.
It never gets really cold in Antalya – a few times there may be a little frost in a few days and a little snowfall, but it is quite unusual. My father in law called once called us and told enthusiastically, that now there was minus 5 degrees and the snow was beginning to fall. Lucky that there wasn’t more, because it is the maximum minus degrees, that citrus trees can tolerate, if they are to survive without too many injuries.
Once we were down there in March – Ouuuch that was cold !!Or, no, it wasn’t really cold – temperatures were around 10-15 degrees outside, but the houses are not isolated, as we are used to, so there are often really cold inside. That we hadn’t calculated. So wool sweaters and thick socks can be necessary, if you want to travel at this time of year (the hotels have often also heat on their air conditioning, so here it is not quite as bad). It rains, however, a great deal from December to March, so the holiday can quickly get a little sad touch, if you’re not that fond of rainshowers.
This whole post was really just one big excuse, so I could be allowed to show you some pictures of my father in laws beautiful garden, which I am so proud of. And then it’s a friendly call to travel to Antalya and to be curious and exploratory, although it is not in the middle of a hot and sunny summer.
