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We've just got back from a fantastic week in Turkey, staying at the Club Teos with Neilson. We got up to loads, including sailing, diving, kayaking, water-skiing, mountain biking, and tennis. Carry on reading to find out more...
Check out our Photos From Teos.
Club Teos is Neilson's newest resort, on the Eastern coast of Turkey, about an hour from Izmir airport or an hour from Cesme, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Several miles away lies the town of Sigacek (pronounced SyCheck); we were reliably informed it was a 40 minute walk away, we decided not to check. We went in the first week, always a risky venture with a new resort, but the staff held it together well and made their way through the first week with only a few bumps and bruises.
Our holiday started in Gatwick airport, which after a few delays on the motorways we reached on time - unfortunately, our plane didn't. Due to planes being swapped around, our flight was delayed for two hours (thank god for the Jack Daniels' stand and the Animal shop!), so we finally arrived in Izmir after a cramped flight at about midnight. After purchasing a visa (entry tax?) and the quickest baggage pickup ever (ours were the first suitcases off), we stumbled through arrivals, met the Neilson rep who directed us towards the waiting coaches. However, a porter was in our way, insistently helped us with our suitcases onto a trolley for a 100 metre walk, then helped himself to a 5 Lira tip (let that be a warning to anyone else going to Turkey soon!).
We arrived at the resort at half past 1 in the morning, had a quick sandwich, checked in, then zonked out. Roll on Sunday morning! We had a quick look around the resort. Based largely on a steep hill, it used to be an old coach house, and has a marvellous white walled courtyard at the top of the hill, all completely renovated to its new 3 star status. The rooms were clean (bordering on spotless) although spartan (but let's face it, you want to spend your time outside not in). The grounds are immaculate (with an interesting array of English bedding plants already suffering). The restaurant where all the meals were served was large and spacious, with very friendly and helpful staff. All meals apart from three evening meals were included too, so not so much money needed to spend on meals.
After breakfast, we had the obligatory briefings on activities available for the week, then a beach safety briefing. After that we decided to lie around in hammocks for most of the morning, and take it easy. It's difficult to take it easy with so much kit lying around though!
So, onto the activities... and what they have! Four brand new tennis courts, with umpteen brand new Head titanium rackets. A bike shed with about 30 brand new Gary Fisher mountain bikes. Two water skiing tow boats (more on that later in the week), and then the beach. They had somewhere in the region of 70 windsurfing rigs (check the Neilson website for exact numbers), but the boats... thats where our interest lies.
Starting out with several Laser Funboats (not just for kids, we saw a 6 ft plus Scottish chap and his wife sailing one), a bunch of Laser Picos, a large fleet of Laser 1s (standard, radial and 4.7 rigs available), 4 Laser Bahia's, 6 Laser Dart 16s, and 6 Laser SB3 sportboats.
So, naturally, us being us, we made a beeline straight for the biggest boats, the Laser SB3s, and along with two other seasoned sailors, Giles and Caroline, joined onto an "intermediate" session on the Five Essentials with a great guy called Nick. We learnt a huge amount about the Five Essentials in the hour and a half we spend just sailing aimlessly around the bay in these boats. We were quite wary of the Laser SB3s to start with, being a high performance 18 foot long sports boat with keel, but it was unfounded. Neilson don't allow them out without an instructor, but thats more to do with the £20,000 cost of each one (apparently the instructors have a beer bet on who can capsize one first, as with the huge keel they are virtually uncapsizeable). They're an absolute dream to sail, almost fingertip control on the rudder, 10:1 mainsheet making sheeting in pretty easy - and with a three man crew, pretty good division of labour. Anyway, our five essentials are better than ever before now...
We decided to finish the day with a bike ride, as it was the easiest guided tour available that day. Geoff, the bike guide, was fantastic, taking fifteen people on the first trip. It was a nice easy 6km, even for me who doesn't bike much, with a couple of uphill sections, and one turn into a dirt track, at which point Bec decided to christen the accident log by coming off her bike (don't worry, she only got minor gravel rash). Another short ride later, we ended up at a Turkish cafe for a drink, then back to the hotel. We think at this point the instructors were doing a leaderboard of causing trouble, as Geoff decided to have fifteen people bike cruise down a steep hill straight into the pool bar in full bike gear. Unfortunately we had to go back up after...
Next up, the wind picks up...
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