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By Ashley Hiemenz

The port city of Marmaris, set in southwest Turkey, is one of many of the country’s summer hotspots. Although little remains of the quiet fishing village that survived until a building boom in the 1980s, further down the Datça Peninsula is a place that has little to do with the hubbub of the resort city, a place where the community has come together in opposition to mass-tourism gigantism and instead opted to take a more holistic approach.

A traditional Turkish-village bread oven is the unlikely but excellent focus of a community-led responsible-tourism project on the Datça Peninsula to preserve the master crafts of both oven-building and bread-baking.

Going Local

There are nine traditional villages found on the peninsula, all inhabited by people whose livelihoods depend on local resources like almonds, olives, honey, fruit and vegetables, as well as, more recently, tourism. There are no large holiday resorts, however; here travellers turn to small, family-owned guesthouses and pensions, which, in an effort to preserve their natural environment, are pleasantly integrated into the surroundings. Many of these accommodations, like the Eski Datça Everli, even have their own gardens that provide for the meals served in the hotel.

A broad view of the Knidia Country Estate

Alternative travellers in the area seeking something truly different should consider staying at the Knidia Country Estate, a prime example of a responsible accommodation at the vanguard of efforts to respect the area’s environment and traditions. This 400-acre eco-farm welcomes guests to simple but comfortable huts and encourages them to learn directly about ecological agriculture. Far from the ‘civilized world’ in lodging without electricity, travellers discover starry nights, swim in pristine waters, relax to the sound of a watermill and partake of delicious organic food and wine.

Using What’s There

Grassroots projects are now also bringing travellers together with the local community, connections that are helping to preserve local traditions. One such initiative, the Village Bread-Baking Project, launched to help breathe life back into the local bread-baking customs slowly losing ground to so-called ‘city-bread’. Travellers are taken to a small village and engage with the local women in the social activity of baking bread, including gathering firewood, heating stones and preparing the dough. Although these women only speak Turkish, travellers communicate using ‘tarzanca’ – talking with a few words and lot of hand and feet gestures, much the way Tarzan and Jane did!

Experience is an important part of the bread-baking process. The colour of the bread changes gradually and only a practiced bread baker knows which loaves are ready or which ones need to be placed closer to the fire (out of sight on the left side of the pictured oven). The bread is flat with a hole in the middle to shorten the baking time and assure that it is well cooked on the inside. Each bread requires about 15 minutes of baking.

Unlike elsewhere in most of Turkey, agricultural methods in Datça are highly organic, making no use of pesticides or chemical fertilizer. With this in mind, the OWAHO Project came together as a means of attracting travellers to the area 12 months a year. Through this endeavour, travellers participate in the production of organic wine, almonds, honey and olive oil, working for either half or full days side by side with locals. On top of sharing ideas about green farming methods, travellers and locals live an incomparable experience of the cross-pollination of thoughts and culture.

Two Insider Tips

1. Local Ruins: Just 15 miles from Datça are the remains of a 200-year-old Greek Orthodox church dating from about 1880, which is unknown even to locals of the peninsula. Visitors can stroll about freely and take pictures, but remember it’s a graveyard: no alcoholic beverages or picnicking on the graves. One special feature of the region is that people put long texts – often poems – on the gravestones.

In the middle of the main doorway is a Muslim grave- stone with a typical long text of the region. On some columns crucifixes have been scratched away. One may also wonder where the original graveyard was or how it completely disappeared.

Coming from Datça, take the road to Knidos. After passing Yakaköy, continue toward Knidos for 1km, until you see a sign for Çeşmeköy. This takes you to the village if Çesme, where you can stop for a tea in one of the teahouses and chat with the friendly locals who enjoy joking with visitors. Return to the main road to Knidos, where, after 50 metres, there is a small road going left. The church is on the left 100 metres ahead.

2. The Village of the Hundred Weeping Wells: Seekers of the archaic and untouched should head to the village of Taslica. Although the village is very dry, its inhabitants found it nearby in abundance and built hundreds of wells – at least one for each family. This is the ‘secret’ that accounts for the village’s survival. During sunrise or sunset, travellers can see the local women dressed in traditional clothing gather the water in this peaceful, yet rather social place. No different from a biblical scene, the women drop buckets on long lines into the wells and then pull them up again to fill plastic barrels strapped to their donkeys or mules.

To get to Taslica from Marmaris turn to the left at Hisaronu from which you then follow the road to Bozburun, Selimiye and further to the south to Sogut and Taslica. From Taslica, head toward Sergeliman. After 500 metres, you’ll see the field filled with wells.

For more information about Marmaris-Datça and its surrounding region, including accommodations, tours, activities and lots of insider tips, contact your local whl.travel connection: Gerard Oude Hergelink and the team from Titco Tours.