Salmakis Villas

You need to understand that if you book to stay here, that the nearest market or food shop is the File Market which is approximately a mile away, and downhill - which leaves you carrying everything uphill on the way back. That being said, the staff at the File market were excellent, and will ring a taxi for you, so make sure you have the property address when you go shopping. The File market does not sell alcohol or tobacco, and so if you didn't buy enough at the airport, your best option is to ask the staff at the shop to communicate to the taxi driver that you need to call into the alcohol/tobacco shop on the way home. You will need suncream, and I highly recommend mosquito repellant or spray. I would bring traps as well because you will need them. The nearest Eczane or chemist we could find was almost 5 miles away at the Migros shopping centre, so bring these things with you to make your life much easier. There may be one nearer but we couldn't find one. We took a photo of the restauarant sign across the road from the property, as every local taxi driver knew where it was. The transfer from the airport was difficult, because apparently there are several Salmakis Villas, and this one is secluded and difficult to find. The owner of the property was on hand to answer the phone though, even at 11.30pm, and spoke to the taxi driver in order to give him directions. The owner of the property messaged me the day prior to our stay to leave me his WhatsApp details for messages and calls. The pool at the property was clean and well maintained, the property itself is very private, and the upstairs balcony was very spacious and a real sun trap. The kitchen was pretty well equipped in comparison to other places we've stayed in Turkey, but there was no corkscrew or wine bottle opener, so again, you'll need to bring one to save an awful lot of stress!

When we booked the property, we took time to look at the pictures and read the description of the property, and when we arrived, it was nothing like the pictures we saw of the property online. It was as though one of the four villas on the street had been done to a high spec, and we were put in the one that hadn't been considered for renovation yet. There were a couple of red flags as went through the booking process. When we booked, we were sent a confirmation email which contained pictures of a different house (after we'd paid), but we were still confident of getting the house that we'd seen online, as we were sent an electronic door PIN code for the property, which would indicate that it had been renovated to a high standard. As we set off, I received a message saying that a man who didn't speak English would meet me at the property at midnight to take our security deposit. I asked if the PIN code for the door was still the same, and was told that we would be given a key instead when we arrived, and this was when we realised that we weren't getting the house that was advertised in the pictures online. From the outside it looks exactly the same as the pictures on the website, but the inside of the house was a very different story indeed. Now, my biggest issue by a long way. When you've spent 18 hours travelling over 3,000 miles to arrive at a property at midnight, it's bad enough not getting what was advertised, and being asked to pay a security deposit for it, but to find out that there isn't even a bottle of water in the house for you to drink, or some basic food, even some bread and cheese, or a cup of coffee, is the worst possible way to start a holiday. The tap water in Turkey isn't drinkable, and so to be hungry and thirsty after a long journey when there was someone at the property who could easily have provided this for a very small amount of Lira, is rather unwelcoming to say the least.