Hell on the Mediterranean: Two nights in Turkey's most luxurious hotel

The view from my hotel room at the Mardan Palace

Author’s note: I wanted to give a special thank you and shoutout to my paid subscribers! After one month of Substacking, I’m thrilled with the response that FLANÖR has received. I launched it during a period of low motivation and financial woes, but thanks to your support, my morale has been boosted and I was even able to pay off some debts! This piece was originally published by Catapult in 2017. I wrote more than half a dozen articles for them, which are still on their website, but for some reason they took this one down. It’s one of my favorite things I’ve written, and I hope it will make you laugh.

In the spirit of embracing bizarre opportunities, I accepted an offer in June of 2015 to join a press convoy from İstanbul bound for the Mardan Palace in Turkey’s Mediterranean province of Antalya. We were to cover a fashion fair and show featuring Kendall Jenner. The following is my penance and therapy for being a spectator in this debacle:

If Jabba the Hutt was an Ottoman sultan living in the twenty-first century, he would have built the Mardan Palace hotel as his lavish, twisted lair. The Mardan Palace is widely considered to be the most luxurious hotel in a region packed with hedonistic resorts. My pupils rapidly constrict in protest upon setting foot in the lobby, where the glint of the wall-to-wall crystal-and-gold trim radiates from the impossibly spotless floors.