Glenn Maffia

NO doubt this will long be remembered as ‘the season to forget’ for the traders of Didim, for it has been comprehensively woeful.

Will more affluent times be awaiting us upon the next corner into the future? I am sure it shall, especially if this town begins to realize that there is an alternative to the usual tourist bastion, which both absconded and abandoned Didim this year.

Local thinking must expand

You will know, I am sure, my conviction that developing the area surrounding the Temple of Apollo would bring to Didim both intelligent and wealthy people to delight in the absolute splendour of what resides merely a metre beneath the surface.

The school which sits atop the recently discovered Temple of (probably) Artemis is no longer operational.

Therefore why not excavate it and arrange for the German archaeologists to do something similar to what they have done in the Mosque; install Perspex flooring which protects and gives us the opportunity to view the fabulous ancient foundations.

I am sure they would be more than accommodating to do so.

A change in the zeitgeist?

Though are the facilities in Didim ready to cater for such a distinguished quality of visitor?

That too, I’ve noticed, if only occasionally, has shown promise in that there have been some enlightened establishments using this dead year to experiment in offering a more conducive atmosphere which pays no heed to the quiz and karaoke brigade.

Those Q&K tourists, and residents, who demand so much from an establishment, but are not willing to pay any extra for those services, are an abject embarrassment; they attest to a poverty of thought without any semblance of humanism.

Some oases remain

There have been, and remain, reputable restaurants where we can find an ambiance of genteel grace and manners, though all too few, for far too long.

We do not all enjoy the brash crassness of the Workingmen’s Club, and the noise that drunken voices carry into the night air (ask the locals).

And these idiots are precisely the one’s whom complain about the mosque calling the faithful to the early Morning Prayer! For someone who proclaims his/her working class background and socialist ethics they sound alarming like Nigel Farage!

A new discovery

Fortunately I can point to a new restaurant which has prevailed against this tide of vainglory posturing. It has been a tremendous success with tables full each night since word has spread that we can eat and talk in comfort, sat upon tables professionally placed so one can have their own space without being overheard, and interrupted, by others.

Not a difficult concept is it? Yet so diverse from those elbow to elbow places where one can hear some uncouth glutton masticating as a pig at a trough.

I am not here to advertise (this restaurant doesn’t need it), but it is situated on Adnan Menderes Bulvari (Marina Road) opposite a fairly major road called Koca Mustafa Caddesi.

So if you want a taste of the promising future you will know where to go.