20th - 26th May
On our first week of retreat, every morning we will start our day with some gentle stretches by the pool overlooking the gorgeous pine clad mountains. Afterwards we will enjoy a special village breakfast with home grown olives, fruits, vegetables and also home made jams, cheeses and breads.
The mornings will then be spent starting to learn about all the alternative therapies from our expert teachers. Tegan Wallis will talk us through Holistic Nutrition, Herbal and Ayurvedic Medicines. While Susan Reilly will teach us about Reiki, massage and colour therapy. The aim will be to have the lessons in smaller intimate groups to give you a relaxed atmosphere to absorb and learn.
After lunch will be your time to indulge in one of your free treatments to choose from over the week. You may want to have a massage, reflexology session, a pedicure or you may like to escape into the mountains for your own personal time out.
Throughout the week we will combine our time of learning while also taking in some of the local attractions to the area. We will visit Kayakoy, the abandoned old Greek Village. Dating back to the 1920's when Turkey and Greece had their population swap, this village, which was Greek populated packed up and left and the village has remained empty since. We will have time to wander through the many churches and abandoned homes or to trek up to the look out for an impressive view over the Mediterranean.
We will also visit Saklikent Gorge, which is the second largest gorge in all of Europe. There will be time for you to escape the heat of the day and trek through the icy cold waters that run through the gorge. We will also stop for lunch at one of the near by river side cafes.
There are a few local markets in Fethiye, which we will get to enjoy. We will visit the local produce market, where we will shop up on all the deliciously locally grown produce needed to cook up a healthy feast. Our teachers will assist us with the purchases and then take us back to teach us how to cook the food into a a delicious Turkish meal for us all to enjoy.
There will also be a visit to the lively Fethiye Fish Markets for dinner one night. There will be locally caught fish to choose from, prawns and calamari. We will get to eat al fresco in the ambience of the gypsies selling flowers, playing music and the local maitre-d's all vying for our attention.
Our last day of our wellness week, we will visit Fethiye's oldest hamam for a traditional Turkish bath. We will spend the afternoon being scrubbed down, washed and massaged till we are squeaky clean, ready to move onto our next phase of retreat. We will later be transferred to Pomegranate Yoga Retreat. The name itself has symbolic meaning to our week ahead as pomegranate, mythologically, is said to have associations with rebirth, natural cycles and renewal. These are some of the things that we hope to achieve in the coming week.
(B/L/D)
