Life is suite in Turkey

Sarah Turner experiences the minimal luxury of the latest Aman resort to open — on the glamorous Bodrum Peninsula in Turkey

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Sarah Turner

13 June 2012

About five years ago, the most desirable item in a jet set wardrobe was an Aman Junkie T-shirt. Once you’d trotted around enough of Asia you’d be rewarded with a T-shirt that probably cost around $2 to make.

Oh, the delicious irony! Not least because if there’s a house uniform for both Aman staff and guests, it involves copious amounts of wafty linen.

Aman resorts, after all, are hotels where guests will pay a small fortune for architectural rigour, exclusivity and the chance to live like a very over-privileged hermit for a while.

Adrian Zecha, who opened Amanpuri in 1988, once described them to me as “anti-hotels” — specifically designed to be the polar opposite of the Hiltons and Marriotts of this world.

Fourteen years (and 25 hotels) later, Amanruya, the latest hotel, has now opened in the Turkish resort of Bodrum. Blingy Bodrum might not do irony but it does do glamour extremely well, especially when it comes to conspicuous consumption. It’s a peninsula that knows how to party — each summer wealthy Istanbul types decamp here, colonising beach clubs where Louboutins are near obligatory and the parties are unforgettable — part Mykonos, part St Tropez. What it lacks in sand (the beach clubs are mostly set on long wooden jetties), it makes up for in sheer energy and dedicated pleasure-seeking.

Plonking an Aman here — that notoriously cerebral of hotel chains — feels like a pointed intellectual smackdown.

At first glance, all is quietness, set around square infinity swimming pools and perfect pebbled paths. Olive groves and pine trees bring carefully graduated, sun-dappled greens into the equation, but ultimately nearly everything is about drawing your eyes to the blistering blue of the Aegean Sea.

The villas, just 36 of them, feature the usual 21st-century palette, perked up with Turkish carpets, a fireplace and French windows that lead out to a substantial buffet of 21st-century relaxants — daybeds, outdoor showers, sun loungers and another little pool. It’s exquisitely tasteful but given that every luxury resort has pillaged Aman design ethos since Amanpuri opened, it’s not that cutting edge any more. I wanted to be on my knees in admiration but, actually, it seems rather familiar (and I suspect I’m at least $10,000 away from getting my Aman Junkie T-shirt since it’s the first one I’ve visited).

Old Amanhands will retort that it’s the experience that counts, but initially this was a mixed bag. The food — in a country with a gluttony-inducing cuisine — didn’t quite hit the spot. This is the lushest, greenest part of Turkey, awash with a sense of abundance.

Turn up at a café, such as the gloriously relaxed Limon, nearby and amid the deckchairs, hammocks and pergolas, you’re bombarded with gorgeous local breads, honey, omelettes, olives, cheese and tomatoes. Breakfast at Amanruya, by contrast, felt like standard hotel fare and dinner felt uninspired. Elsewhere, however, there’s refinement upon refinement.

Not for us a trip to Ephesus, it being just too obvious and crowded an ancient site. Instead, we headed to Lambranda — high above Milas through twisty potholed tracks. A temple dedicated to Zeus built in the 5th century BC, it receives just 2,000 visits a year — despite its Roman baths and sarcophagi.

There are columns to coo over and rocks to clamber on, with added goats and geese, the latter belonging to the family who look after the site.

High above the mountains looking out to sea, the only sound was the constant hum of insects amid the camomile.

The family who live here provided lunch — glorious salads and meats (augmented by Aman’s tasteful cutlery, white napkins and a crisp rosé wine).

An expensive perfection perhaps (the excursion costs around 620 Turkish lira) but if luxury is experiencing something few others can do with little effort on your part, this was it. The same goes for a trip on Amanruya 1, the hotel’s yacht, which is poised to spend the summer hovering in hidden coves.

It being a little early in the season to swim, we took it around the coast to Türkbükü, past the villas and new hotels — a Mandarin Oriental is set to open in 2014 — until we reach Maçakizi, a small hotel and larger club. A fixture since the Seventies when Rudolf Nureyev and the Rolling Stones partied into the night, Maçakizi is the less cerebral Bodrum — a DJ-driven, fire-pitted party den, fun to drop anchor at — but it was a pleasure to return to my four-postered oasis of tranquillity of Amanruya.

The point at which I get the Aman concept is when I head off down one of the paths in search of Aman’s very own beach club. The size of the hotel grounds becomes clear — there’s a very real luxury of space. Through a forest with pine cones tumbling onto the path as I walk, I eventually arrive at Amanruya’s jetty and the small bar that is set back from the water.

I go and sit at the end of the daringly black jetty, watching the fish dart below me. Rather than a relentless Eurobeat, it’s safe to say that Amanruya’s beach club will be more about birdsong and the sound of waves lapping.

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Life is suite in Turkey

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