Our secondary students took their finals at school last week, and everyone got the day off on Friday. With the long weekend, we wanted to find a cheap place nearby to escape the city. Fortunately, a cabin was available at a mountain retreat in Bolu. Bolu is a two-hour bus ride northwest of Ankara. Some of our friends visited there last year and loved it.
The place we stayed at is called Sakintepe. The eight of us shared one of their four-bedroom cabins. We spent most of the time chilling in the living room and kitchenette area. The heated floors made our stay extra warm and cozy!
The view of the snowcapped mountains was wonderful.
We also loved hanging out with Bear, their German Shepherd puppy and his mom Georgia and dad Montana.
It was a weekend of both rest and work. Our grades for the semester were due Saturday at midnight. Several of us had new classes for the spring semester and were able to get a good amount of prep work done. It was nice to work by the wood burning fireplace.
We were sure to take a break and walk around the forest.
The dogs loved having new friends to play with. The guys spent a lot of time throwing snowballs to Georgia and Montana.
Montana was a funny dog. He carried around rocks as though they were chew toys. He also had a game where he took a rock, rolled it around to create a snowball, then pawed at it till he got back down to the rock.
On our last night, the caretakers of Sakintepe let us borrow their projector. The ceiling was a perfectly slanted canvas. We kicked back and enjoyed a couple of movies.
We highly recommend the cabins at Sakintepe and hope to visit Bolu again.
But for now, it’s back to school and onto the spring semester!
3 Comments
The cabin looks great. You totally wouldn’t know that you were in Turkey from any of the pictures on their website. You could have been anywhere 😉
January 22, 2013 at 1:17 pmCan you give me the information of the place you guys stayed at? We are looking to take a trip in December as a Christmas get away!
November 3, 2014 at 5:13 amHi Danielle! Sakintepe is a great getaway spot. It would be PERFECT at Christmas with all the hills, snow, and heated floors. 🙂 They used to have a full website, but apparently they only have a Facebook page now:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sakintepe/176385147283
We took a bus from Ankara to there, and the owners picked us up from the bus station in Bolu and took us to Sakintepe. If you are taking your own car, try to go during daylight because the road is a little tricky. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!
November 3, 2014 at 8:13 am