[LIVING IN ANTALYA] The many colors of Antalya

Red

Red is the principal color of Antalya’s soccer team and is impossible to miss if you live in the vicinity of the town center soccer ground, especially if you are around on the day of a home game. The club’s shop, neatly positioned at the entrance to Karaalioğlu Park, stocks a typical array of scarves, T-shirts, mugs and other such essentials in, of course, red. Before important games, the red and white flashings on the side of Atatürk Caddesi are given a fresh coat, red bunting appears above the street and from early in the morning, the local youth are draped in as much red as possible. I went to a match, just the once, but beat a hasty retreat after the first 20 minutes, fearing that my life was about to be brought to an abrupt end by a ripped-up chair, stone or one of the other missiles flung by the visiting Bursaspor fanatics. Red is also the color of the traffic signal that in most countries indicates the need for vehicles to stop. Here in Antalya it’s “green” for go, “amber” for go a bit faster and “red” for cross your fingers, put your foot to the floor and screech through the lights at top speed.

Blue

Blue is often uppermost in my mind when I think of Antalya, as both sky and sea here are invariably some shade of this color. It often takes visiting family to remind me of the pleasure of waking each morning to a clear, bright blue sky promising yet another perfect day. The sea, of course, is an ever-changing spectrum of colors, from grey to green, but usually consists of a whole color chart of blues. Looking out over the bay of Antalya, it is possible to see the water divided into different sections by the variegated blue tones. No two days are ever the same, and over the course of the year, the sheer beauty of the glittering colors continues to thrill me each time I look. On early summer mornings, the sea is often millpond calm, and I love to swim in the sea from a little known spot in the cliffs. However, blue also represents the locally infamous belediye (municipality) buses. Predominantly white, they are enlivened by striking blue stripes -- that’s if you are quick enough to see them at all, as they hurtle recklessly around the city’s roads at breakneck speeds, usually in utter disregard of the aforementioned red lights.

Yellow

Yellow is a natural compliment to blue (and not just for fans of Fenerbahçe) as it symbolizes the sun, which, according to all the tourism literature, shines here 300 days of the year. I can’t deny that I love the sun, particularly when it shines in November, December, January, February and March, as I remember all too well the short, grey and wet days of an English winter. But yellow is also the color of the taxis that ply their trade from every street corner. I sometimes wonder why they feel the need to shout “taxi” as I stroll past them, when I am clearly taking my dog for her twice daily constitutional. However, there are many times (carrying shopping back from the market, journeys to work when the heavens open, lifts home from friend’s houses) when the services of a taxi are invaluable and its great that they are so readily available. The only time I resent their use is when I arrive back at Antalya international airport and in the absence of any public transport (why couldn’t the recently built tram have extended that far?) am forced to pay their exorbitant prices.

Orange

Winter is the season for the region’s citrus fruits to ripen, and even in the middle of Antalya’s vast sea of concrete tower blocks, there are many thousands of orange trees, all bulging with their orange fruit. Watch out if it’s windy, as they are easily dislodged. The local kids in our street pick up oranges and use them to practice their ball skills. If their partners miss the catch, there are plenty more to be found. Fresh orange juice is sold all over Antalya: in cafes, from hole in the wall shops and from hand carts in the middle of the sanayı (Antalya’s industrial estate) and is always as delicious as it is nutritious. Then, of course, there’s my favorite week in Antalya, the annual Altın Portakal (Golden Orange) Film Festival, last year advertised by posters of a huge eye with a disturbing, though very effective, orange pupil.

Green

Visit any market in Antalya, and there is always a huge variety of fresh green salad crops available. I love salad and take enormous pleasure in buying different types of lettuce, rocket, tere (cress), spinach, mint, flat-leaf parsley and the like. These green vegetables are also a welcome sight when, walking home late through the Kaleiçi (the old town), I fancy a snack. In England this would traditionally be chips with curry sauce. Here, from an all night stand called Son Care, it’s possible to buy a freshly barbequed köfte sandwich, which you can load up with as much green stuff as you can manage. It’s not hard to work out which is the healthier option. Green now also reminds me of my garden, which from spring though to autumn produces more green leaves than is imaginable and requires constant monitoring and mammoth pruning sessions.

Pink, purple

Strangely, these were the first colors to catch my attention when I first moved to Antalya. I was thrown straight into the deep end work-wise, dealing with a class of multinational 3-year-olds, all with names very different from those I was used to. I’m a reasonably experienced teacher, and in the UK I soon worked out strategies for learning their names as quickly as possible. Here though, what I hadn’t anticipated was that all the girls looked so similar, mainly because so many wore pink and purple outfits each and every day.