Petrol stations in Turkey aren't like those in the UK. This is isn't just because you still get attendant service at the pumps - although in the UK this is a very distant memory. There are other things.
For example, when we visited some friends in a village near the resort we were staying one of our hosts said "Don't walk back. It's hot. Anyway I have to go to the garage". Thinking the car needed petrol we were surprised when she went past the pumps and pulled out outside a little shop attatched to the station. It was a bakery. "Come on in" she said "This is the best baklava bakery in the whole district. People come here from miles around". We were offered a taste, tried a few, and bought a box-full. They were rather expensive but, my word, they were bloody delicious.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. One year we landed at Dalaman in the early hours of the morning and picked up our taxi for Kalkan. Not all that much further than Fethiye we pulled into a petrol station for refuelling. It had a restaurant. No surprise. It also had a swimming pool; and not a very small one either. You possibly know the place I mean. They don't have petrol stations like that in the UK.
Do you know some interesting petrol stations?
P.S. We crested the coastal mountains above Kalkan just as dawn was breaking. We stopped and the taxi-man and we two sat by the roadside and watched the day begin over that lovely bay with its Snake and Mouse islands. Now that's how to arrive for your holiday!
