Datça Vineyard – 14th October

I got up to watch the sunrise at 7am, on Friday 14th October, which was very pretty. Unusually, I was out of bed before Captain Caveman so he missed what I saw.
Today was my parents’ Golden wedding anniversary, I went down to the car to collect a gift for my parents; a snazzy bottle of champagne in a gold bottle. Captain Caveman had managed to locate this in Dalyan, which was fortunate as it’s not easy to get decent champagne here.
I took a few photos of Datça Vineyard and it really is very beautiful, I loved the tunnel from reception to the rooms.

Once I could tell my parents were up, we went next door to their room to wish them a happy anniversary and give them their card and present. There’s also less choice on greetings cards in Dalyan so I had bought a handmade card from a lady called Faye, who lives in Dalyan. She sells her cards in Maisie Moo and Books & Cookies and they are very nicely made. I chose one with owls on as I know they like owls and my mom once rescued one in Dalyan. The 4 of us went downstairs for breakfast in the lovely dining area with views over the vineyard. A Turkish lady serving the eggs was very friendly and the choice of food was excellent. I really enjoyed my breakfast and there was so much of it, too.

After breakfast, I went to reception where we booked a wine tasting in for 12.30pm. We had a bit of a rest but by 11.30am Dad was in their whirlpool telling mom it was ‘fine once you’re in’ and to get her swimmers on! It took Mom 15 minutes to investigate and then get in the whirlpool where I took some photos of them. Captain Caveman and I came to the conclusion that the water was freezing so we didn’t go in.

We got ready for wine tasting and went down to the main garden, it seemed chilly because of the wind so we sat at a table with a perspex windshield – a real sun trap. We sampled a white, a blush and 2 reds in the warm sun, Ma and I were getting quite hot. I wasn’t expecting the wine to be up to much as the prices were not expensive so we were all quite impressed.
We went inside when the wind got up and I thought we might order some nibbles but no one was hungry after so much breakfast. Instead, we decided to wait until dinner and take a walk through the vineyard.

Back up the stairs, it was very sunny outside of our rooms and we were hot after our walk. By 2pm Captain Caveman had his swimmers on and was testing our whirlpool out, Ma & Pa were in their’s shortly after. I joined Captain Caveman and it was freezing so I didn’t stay in long. I got us all a gin and tonic (bitter lemon for me as I don’t like tonic) and we chilled out before dinner. Captain Caveman and I shared the remaining pizza from yesterday’s lunch and we got the remaining nibbles out of the fridge.

I thought I’d make an effort that evening, with it being a special celebration, so I wore a black dress with my gorgeous silk scarf. Chung and Uy, in Vietnam, had bought me the scarf as a gift and I was wanting somewhere nice to wear it to. We were the only ones in the dining room and ordered a bottle of red and a bottle of white wine with a cheese and meat platter to share for starter. For mains we ordered a selection and shared between each couple; pizzas, pasta, salad, and steak. We had a lovely meal, Datça Vineyard is very simple and has a small menu to go with the wine but we all found something we liked. After dinner, we retired to the bar to taste more wine and we were chilled out when we got a message from our friend, Julio. There had been an explosion in a northern Turkish mine where quite a few miners were dead and lots more were trapped underground. Captain Caveman and Julio’s help and expertise may be called upon, as part of the rescue volunteers, so they took some time to get the necessary people on standby. I, selfishly, was concerned this may put a bit of a dampener on the celebrations but there was further concerning news. The bar was closing at 9.30pm – crikey!
Back in our room, Captain Caveman went in to the bedroom to liaise with Julio and other potential volunteers so that details could be prepared for if they were needed.
Once that was sorted my Mom insisted we open their champagne and share it. I’d tried to object, to say they should keep it for themselves to drink. It turned in to quite a boozy day and night and, as we were safely tucked up in bed that night, 300 miners had started to be rescued.