Hotel & Restaurant Club Caravanserail, Kusadasi: Original Boutique Hotel in the Heart of Kusadasi

To be honest I am not a huge fan of Kusadasi. For me it embodies some of the worst aspects of summer bazaar tourism in Turkey - pushy salesperson, countless shops without much soul or character, all selling counterfeit designer footwears, T-shirts and fake Made-in-China Gucci bags, and over-priced carpet and jewellery shops. For that reason I had had a rather unfavourable impression of this seaside resort town.

Last year I had to stop at Kusadasi for one day, and  I was at first reluctant to do so until someone recommended this boutique hotel to me. It is a small hotel located just 100 meter away from Kusadasi's international ferry terminal, where ferries connecting Kusadasi with Samos arrive and depart on a daily basis during the summer months.

The hotel Club Caravanserail turns out to be quite a relevation. It is housed in the original building of a former caravansaray (Kervansarayi) built by Okuz Mehmet Pasa in 1618. There is at least one such 'han' or inn in many turkish towns located on the major trade routes, and many of them have now been converted into trendy boutique hotels and restaurants. It has become a kind of passion of mine to visit each and every of these former caravansarays and stay overnight on the premises if the budget allows. The rooms of such caravansaray are usually quite elegantly decorated, with heavy wooden antique furnitures, carpets with classical motifs, and other artifacts from the Ottoman times. It is certainly much more interesting to stay in such a place with a continuous heritage than one of those modern concrete-steel-and-glass high rise blocks of hotels and holiday flats.

I was there on a windy February winter morning, and the hotel was kind of empty, as was the case of most hotels on the Aegean and the Mediterranean coast of Turkey during the winter low seasons. During the summer, however, the pleasant leafy courtyard of the hotel acts as the venue of the local Turkish Night, with live belly dance performance, whirling ervish dance and other folkdances of Anatolian origins.

 

The hotel rooms are located on the first floor of the rectangular shaped han, accessible by stairs from each side of the building. No elevator or lift is available, so those with heavy suitcases should be prepared to drag the bags up the stone staircases.

Recently renovated, all rooms are en-suite with modern amenities such as air-con, flat-screen TV, telephone, mini-bar and free wireless internets. In the summer months, breakfast buffet is served downstairs in the central courtyard, with al fresco dining available in the evenings.

To make up for the lack of balcony, a small table is arranged in front of each room to enable the residents to have their meal or their daily round of tea upstairs overlooking the inner courtyard.

During the winter months, breakfast is served inside the simple yet nicely decorated TV lounge immediately next to the reception area.

Apparently it was low season, so the variety of food available at breakfast was somewhat limited, in part because the ktichen was closed and only simple ready-to-eat items were in stock. I had a standard Turkish breakfast with freshly prepared fruits in the louge filled with natural lights. Although the breakfast does appear a little bit rustic, the quantity was more than sufficient and you can ask for extra portion should the need arise.

All in all, it is a nice experience to stay at this caravansaray. Not as commercialised or as overtly kitschy as many other places in Kusaasi, the Club Caravansary in Kusadasi is a quiet place of refuge from the bitter cold, stormy winter day in Kusadasi. It is like a little oasis suitable for those who care less about swimming pool or animation, who instead have set their priorities in finding some peace and transquility in the midst of an annoyingly touristic resort town. Certainly worth a try, especially in the busy summer months. 

HOTEL CARAVANSERAIL
 Atatürk Bulvarı No : 2  
TR- 09400 Kusadasi,
Turkey

Tel:  +90 256 614 4115
Fax: +90 256 614 2423
caravanserail@kusadasi.net
http://www.kusadasihotelcaravanserail.com/

Copyrights@2011. All text and photos by YC Cheng. All Rights Reserved.