Phases & Places

Burgazada has been part of my life for long enough that I rarely think about what makes it special while I’m there.

I know where I’m going without thinking about it. I know the familiar faces, the places we always end up, the summer routines and what the island looks like when winter comes and most of the crowds are gone.

That familiarity is probably my favourite thing about Burgazada.

In summer, much of life moves outside and towards the sea.

Going for a swim doesn’t need to become a plan for the day. You take a towel and go, stay longer than expected and walk back with wet hair. Sometimes swimming is the plan, sometimes it happens somewhere between everything else you were doing.

The sea works its way into the rest of the day too. Towels are hanging over chairs. Swimsuits are drying somewhere. People discuss where the water was better that morning as casually as they discuss what to eat later.

And later usually involves sitting somewhere.

A drink can easily become dinner, and dinner has no particular reason to finish early.

Rakı and fish by the sea is one of those things that belongs to summer here.

The table fills with small plates, glasses are refilled, and conversation carries on while the light disappears over the water. Tables can easily get crowded as the evening goes on, and nobody is in much of a hurry to ask for the bill.

Some evenings are planned.

A lot of them aren’t.

That is one of the things I like most about being here.

There are smaller rituals too.

There is a pastry shop on the island that we have been going to for years. I won’t turn it into a recommendation because that isn’t really the point. For us, there is strawberry cake.

Going there for a slice has become one of our little Burgazada rituals.

And Burgazada is full of things like that.

The same places. The same walks. Familiar faces. Swimming when it is hot. Sitting outside longer than planned. Going to buy something and coming back later because you stopped to talk to someone.

Summer makes everything busier.

The beaches fill up, tables by the water become harder to find and the streets stay busy later. Windows and balconies are open, and there are people outside long after the hottest part of the day has passed.

Then summer ends and Burgazada changes quite quickly.

Some houses close until the next season. Tables are suddenly easy to find again and the streets that were full a few weeks earlier can be almost empty.

I like this Burgazada too.

Winter makes the island feel much smaller. There are fewer people around, which also means the familiar faces become even more familiar. Coffee still turns into conversation, people still stop each other in the street, and the small routines carry on without the summer crowds around them.

The sea is still there, just no longer the centre of everyone’s plans.

I could make a list of what a visitor should see here, but it wouldn’t really be the Burgazada I wanted to write about.

Mine is much less organised.

It is swimming without making a plan of it, strawberry cake from the same pastry shop, rakı and fish by the water, dinners that last for hours and running into people I know when I only went out for five minutes.

It is a crowded August evening and a quiet winter afternoon.

The familiar faces, the sea, the little routines that are so ordinary when I’m here and somehow so easy to miss when I’m not.

I’ve missed all of this.

It’s good to be home.