Dalyan is a true Turkish delight

Turkey is tops for a self-catering holiday and this year it’s especially great value.

Last summer £1 bought 3.20 Turkish lira, but now it can get you more than 3.60 lira, so filling your shopping basket will cost considerably less.

Pick your resort carefully and shopping for lovely fresh fruit and veg in local markets can be a lot of fun.

In the charming resort of Dalyan, there’s a twice-weekly market along the riverside and also in the town square where local farmers display great heaps of tomatoes, tatties, apples, watermelons, red and green peppers and fat bunches of juicy grapes.

There were good (and squeaky clean) fishmongers and butchers too. Making a selection involves a bit of creative sign-language, but it’s all very cheerful.

If you’re feeling less adventurous, you’ll find big, modern supermarkets where the shelves are stacked with pretty much everything you’d expect to find at home (fresh, frozen and tinned) so you can do a one-stop shop. But buying in the market is more fun.

Stay at the very stylish Dalyan River Suites and you’re just a 15 minute stroll from the town centre shops, the Migros supermarket and the market square, so shopping is a breeze.

You can make it even easier by renting a bike and cycling into town along the leafy, car-free riverside pathway.

Turkish supermarkets usually sell an assortment of freshly prepared dishes (including, of course, more kinds of kebab than you can shake a stick at) so you don’t need to do much chopping and peeling.

If you’ve had previous experience of poky self-catering apartments where the facilities are limited to an elderly electric ring, a mini-fridge, a drawer full of mismatched cutlery and a couple of battered old pans, you’re in for a happy surprise.

Rahmi Baser, owner of the nearby Aydos Club Hotel (which is just steps away and has a great restaurant), opened the Dalyan River Suites in 2012, so everything is gleaming.

The open-plan kitchens are new, with an easy-clean ceramic cooker and a grill, microwave, toaster, fridge-freezer, dishwasher and washing machine, and all the cutlery and kitchen utensils you could ask for.

The terrace looks out on a decent-sized pool that is shared by just 14 apartments, so it’s never crowded.

Self-catering doesn’t have to be a chore. You can brew a cup of tea, slap together a salad or a sandwich or make dinner at a time that suits you, instead of being restricted to hotel dining hours.

If you have kids in tow, it saves money on snacks and soft drinks. You can introduce them to some new taste sensations that may even woo them away from fizzy cola Turks love their serbetler (juices) and delight in inventing new flavours and combinations.

Pomegranate, of course, but also red grapes, cherries of all kinds, watermelon, apple, orange, tangerine, raspberry, carrot, apple, tomato, rose petal the list goes on. Another favourite is ice-cold ayran (diluted yoghurt).

And there’s no law that says you have to eat in every day.

There are dozens of restaurants in Dalyan (not all Turkish there’s at least one Chinese restaurant and several curry houses) and the Dalyan River Suites sister-property, the Aydos Club Hotel, has that restaurant next door.

A fun way to combine your shopping with a bit of sightseeing is to take a boat ride up the river and across a wide green lake to Koygeciz, a bustling market town which is at its busiest on Monday morning market.

The Dalyan River Suites has its own elegant Ottoman river-boat, which makes the shopping trip a doddle, and on the way home you can stop off for a dip in the lake, then get plastered (wait for it…) with the supposedly therapeutic mud at Sultaniye Kaplicalari.

The same boat shuttles up and down every day between the hotel and the fabulous Iztuzu beach, a 45-minute trip through tropical-looking channels and lagoons.

You can rent loungers and umbrellas on the beach and there are a couple of caf-bars serving cold drinks and snacks.

Iztuzu is a nesting site for endangered loggerhead turtles, and has been declared a conservation area, so for once the four-mile sweep of sand isn’t lined with hotels.

But don’t be fooled, the turtles are still endangered. Many are injured each year by the propellers of the hundreds of boats that carry tourists up and down the river.

Some local boatmen and riverside caf owners have taken to feeding turtles with titbits to make sure their clients get a good look. This not only lures the turtles into danger zones where they

are more likely to collide with boats it also encourages them to stay in the area longer than they should as winter sets in, instead of heading for warmer southern waters.

If you’re offered a “turtle watching” trip, turn it down. Scientists from Pamukkale University work to rescue injured turtles at a “turtle hospital” at the south end of the beach you can find out more at dalyanturtles.com

No Turkish resort is complete without some ancient ruins.

On the way to the beach, you can visit ancient Kaunos, which flourished some 2,400 years ago, and just across the river from Dalyan are the grand ‘rock tombs’, carved into the cliffs by the Lycians, who ruled here even longer ago.

You don’t go to Dalyan in search of the kind of full-on nightlife that rocks Turkish resorts like Marmaris and Bodrum.

But the bar at the Hotel Bob has become the top spot for live music last summer it hosted Baro Banda, a Turkish-Australian-gypsy band, and they could be back this year.