As we pulled into the Kempinski Hotel in the beautiful Turkish resort of Bodrum I knew we were going to have a great time. Set on a hillside overlooking its own private beach the hotel looked beautiful with it’s white Bodrum-style rooms covered in pink begonvillea and overlooking a massive swimming pool.
The staff welcomed us with cold water and a wet flannel which was very much appreciated as it was a very hot day in Bodrum. The hotel has 149 guest rooms and 24 suites, our room was a really good size with a nice double bed and a big balcony overlooking the azure Aegean sea.
There was a complimentary bottle of wine so we wasted no time on cracking it open to enjoy with this stunning view from our balcony…
As the hotel is located on the side of a hill, the beach is about a 15 minute walk from the main hotel. If you don’t feel like doing any exercise, fear not – they have golf buggies that will take you down there and pick you up. We spent an afternoon down by the blue-flagged private sandy beach and it was so relaxing especially in the adults-only, silent beach area. So tranquil that I ended up having an hours nap.
You can either opt for a sunbed on the beach or a sunbed on the grassy area just above the beach which was cozy, secluded and obviously less sandy.
That leads me onto my next subject – food. They have a great restaurant at the beach called Barbarossa Restaurant. Please try the calamari and the Shrimp saganaki as they were both so delicious that i’m drooling just remembering them.
The other restaurants are: La Luce a beautiful Italian restaurant, Saigon a Pan-Asian restaurant, Chill Out Lounge which serve pool side food such as pizza, lobster rolls and burgers and then you have Olives Restaurant where you’ll find the evening buffet meal and that’s also where breakfast is served.
We were lucky enough to experience the spa, which is one of the biggest (5,500 sq m to be exact!) i’ve ever been to. We had a 40 minute all over body couples massage which was the best i’ve ever had. The whole ambiance (music and scent) were so peaceful and calming, it was a very relaxing experience. The spa also houses an indoor pool, a whirlpool, Hammam (Turkish Bath), sauna and steam rooms.
My favourite area to chill out in was the pool. I’m a sucker for swimming pools, I spent my youth convincing my parents to book hotels purely based on what their pool looked like…and Kempinski Bodrum’s pool was a good’un! They had a lovely dock area with comfortable sunbeds, rolled up towels and staff would come round with ice cold flannels, cold spray bottles and one member of staff was even walking round with a cloth asking to clean your sunglasses. There was a button on the umbrella that you could push and within a few minutes a member of staff was standing there asking to take your order. It was pure, unadulterated relaxation.
It was a short but very sweet couple of days, we throughly enjoyed our stay at the Kempinski Hotel Barbaros Bay Bodrum, the staff were so helpful and welcoming (a special shoutout to Mert at reception for his help) the food, beach, pool, rooms..everything was wonderful and I really hope to return one day.
