I went to Altinkum for the first week of November after an absence of seven years due to ill health. To be honest I was a bit worried about what I would find, but I loved it just as much as I used to .... For a start the weather was great ... really warm and sunny, which surprised me a bit. I prefer to be in a normal Turkish town and not just a holiday resort, and Altinkum-Didim provides this ... there is a lot to see just walking up Ataturk Boulevard, many more different shops than you would ever find in a town in England, were it is same old, same old chain stores. The plants and trees are fantastic and very different from in England, which was enough to keep me occupied and interested, as I am quite a keen gardener. Another thing which is great is the fact that the streets are so clean, they still actually have street sweepers, nobody from the council has been to sweep our road at all this autumn in England, the leaves are just slippery and dangerous. We have to sweep up ourselves, I don't really even mind that, but people do dump their rubbish and again the council says there is no money to empty the bins more than once a fortnight. I found that the town has moved on in a good way, and there are certainly some very smart apartments going up in the second line to the beach beside Poseidon, these apparently cost 500,000 YTL so people with money must be coming to the resort. Not that I want it to become too flashy, some of the flats actually have gold on the facades, you don't get that in South Shields!!
If you want to do other things starting from Altinkum, there are many opportunities to fly from Izmir now, and the transfer to the airport is only around 35 YTL with internal flights very cheap. I will certainly not be selling my apartment as I feel completely at home there, I have already picked up old friendships and started new ones, and the people are wonderful.... I like mixing with Turkish people ... the whole atmosphere is happy and friendly, the lifestyle is less hectic than here, you can live simply, the town is not too big so everything you need is quite near by, and so I would say it is still my little heaven on earth. Do not believe the doomsayers!
I hope these impressions are of interest! Love also to Lyn if you read this!!
eliza