Usually I do not recommend hotels or accommodations in Turkey, as it is not uncommon in Turkey's tourism sectors that ownerships or managements of hotels change hands fairly frequently - in some extreme cases, almost on a annual basis - which means what I find nice and wonderful this year might turn out to be awful and impolite the next. In addition, more often than not young single females travelling around Turkey receive 'preferential treatments' when it comes to room upgrading, special on-the-spot price, room discounts, as well as extra service such as free breakfast/dinner/drinks/tea/snacks etc., which makes it even more difficult to judge if the service of the hotel personnel is genuinely friendly or has other ulterior motives.
But after two visits to this well-run family hotel by the name of 'White Garden Pansion' in the old town of Antalya, I can safely vouch for its standards of accomodation and service. The best thing about this place is, the owner and the people who work there are not pushy at all. They are sincerely interested in running and promoting their own hotel, and not interested in selling you as many tours or other sight-seeing programmes as possible. This makes it a very relaxing experience to stay at this place, as one of the nightmares of staying in hotels in Turkey's top tourist spots is the fear of having to say almost on a daily basis 'sorry, we don't want to book any excursions' to the owners. As a regular visitor to Turkey in the previous ten years, all I want now when I am in Turkey is to relax in a nice atmosphere, and visit some less well-known sights and archaeological digs on my own if I feel like it. After all, once I had been to some of the most remote and unheard of corners of Turkey all by myself over the last decade, it is very difficult for me to return to the modus of joining a day excursion with 20 other tourists.
The lobby of the hotel is small but nicely decorated with antique furnitures. The whole ambience is spotlessly clean, bright and sunny.
The hotel consists of two separate buildings: this unassuming Ottoman style timber-framed house, and a beautifully restored traditional Ottoman house in the centre of the courtyard garden, next to the swimming pool. According to the guy who works at the reception, during the winter months the hotel will first try to put the customers in the traditional Ottoman house in the garden, which, in my opinion, is the more atmospheric and more memorable of the two buildings.
This is the nice little swimming inside the garden compound of the hotel. A wonderful place for a quick swim in the burning summer heat if you happen to be in Antalya in June, July and August.
The lobby and ground floor of the hotel is connected by a French door to the courtyard surrounded by orange trees and roof shades, where breakfast, lunch and dinner are served.
Below is the interior of the traditional Ottoman style house located in the centre of the courtyard garden.
All rooms in this house are en-suite, decorated with period furnitures and radiates a very authentic charm.
The photo below is taken on the second floor of the main buildings, above the lobby. Some rooms are slightly bigger than the others, but all of them have views either of the streets outside the hotel or with views of the breakfast courtyard. All rooms in the main building are en-suite with air-condition and wireless internet.
Another good thing about the White Garden Pansion is their breakfast. This is probably one of the very few 2 star hotels in Turkey where they serve several kinds of fresh fruits for breakfast. During my stays I had fresh strawberries, fresh watermelons, fresh honeydew melons, fresh grapes, kiwi fruits, as well as canned pineapples for breakfast. Not even in some of the 5 stars hotels I had stayed at in Turkey do they offer so many different types of fresh fruits on their breakfast buffet table.
To top it off, the price for staying at this nice little place is very affordable, which makes the White Garden a much better value-for-money choice than other nearby family-run places popular with backpackers relying on the Lonely Planet for their travel, such as the rather unfriendly and pushy Sabah Pansion.
By the way, if you are interested in stayin at White Garden, make sure you make a reservation on one of the booking website instead of just calling them, as some people have complained about mix-ups in their reservations made by phone only. Better reserve the rooms on the website to avoid confusion!!
Copyrights@2012. All text and photos by YC Cheng. All Rights Reserved.
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