Here are our holiday snaps.

First, no Turkish resort seems to be able to avoid littering the place with freakishly kitsch ancient Greek-style statues. Try this one of Harvest Goddess, with a creepy white head seemingly stuck on a couple of inches out:

Not to forget two examples worthy of a place in Lileks’ next book of Utterly Regrettable Food: the plastic Eiffel Smoked Salmon Death Tower, and the Pink Dessert Thing from the Swamp.

 

The two smirking animals add a gratuitously random touch.

We stuck to as much of the terrific baklava and watermelon as was left after hordes of Russians and Kazakhs had attacked the buffet. But we made the mistake of trying the à la carte Mexican dinner.

Other than all that, the large resort did a v good job in looking after hundreds of guests and keeping the place clean and tidy (although the chances of the facility decaying in a few years look good – disciplined maintenance is always the problem). Lots of cheap alcohol was included, but Muslim aversion to bacon prevailed.

The nearby ancient port of Side, where Antony is said to have proposed to Cleopatra, is an impressive mass of grand ruins attached to a gruelling little area of gift shops where the proprietors try to charge you too much, then contrive to look hurt and resentful when you aren’t impressed.

All in all, a pleasant and very hot break, with a dab of splashy rafting and paragliding to break things up.

And then came the flight home…