Word: turkeys
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Idyllic cruising in clear waters, stunning sights and bargain prices make Turkey Europe' s freshest destination for tourists...
Twenty years ago, Bodrum, Turkey, seemed like a town that time had forgotten. "It was a small fishing village," remembers Atlantic Records Chairman Ahmet Ertegun. "The main activities were fishing and sponge diving, as well as work in agriculture -- citrus trees, olive trees." There were a few foreigners to be found haggling over prices with merchants at the bazaar, and a handful of tourists viewing the city's ancient ruins...
...from ports as distant as Oslo and Southampton. On the other side of the harbor, near the 15th century Crusader castle that dominates the town, about 200 gulets -- motor-equipped sailboats built by local craftsmen -- take tourists out for a week or a month in the unspoiled waters off Turkey's Aegean and Mediterranean coasts. Halicarnas, an enormous open-air disco, pumps music and shoots lasers until dawn. Ertegun, who was born in Istanbul and came to the U.S. as a boy, now owns a sumptuous villa in Bodrum where he entertains such glitterati as Mick Jagger and Oscar...
Bodrum is at the center of a tourism explosion that has taken Turkey by surprise. Over the past several years the country has evolved from a quiet, almost isolated land into one of the hottest tourist spots in Europe. Veteran pleasure seekers from all over the world are targeting the country for its gorgeous azure water, unparalleled archaeology and bargain-basement prices. "It was a white spot on the map," says Heinrich Aken, a medical researcher from Bonn. "Everyone has already seen Greece, Italy, Spain, Morocco and Algeria. Turkey is the only thing left in the Mediterranean." Explains a Japanese...
Only a few years ago, "no one knew anything about Turkey," says Gordon Roberts, a Briton who retired from the publishing industry two years ago, and now spends nine months each year sailing off the Turkish coast with his wife. "It used to be an absolute backwater. Midnight Express was the only thing that people knew about the place." (Turkey does have stringent drug laws, and travelers caught with even one gram of hashish risk a heavy jail term...