The Turkish Hotel's Pool

Guests will be able to dine 'au naturel' at beside the Turkish hotel's pool


British holidaymakers in Turkey are being invited to shed their inhibitions and their swimming costumes with the launch of the country’s first naturist hotel.

Visitors to the Adaburnu-Golmar hotel on the country's Aegean coast, set to open on May 1st, will be able to work on full-body tans in the resort grounds and will also be able to take advantage of the hotel’s private nudist beach, a short drive away.

Hotel guests will have to cover up indoors but can eat ‘au-naturel’ at the pool bar and outdoor dining terrace from 8am to 8pm.

The beach in front of the hotel, near the popular resorts of Marmaris and Bodrum, is a public area so off limits to nudists but the resort is offering guests the chance to sunbathe as nature intended on a private beach, located a 20-minute drive away.




The hotel's private naturist beach is located on the Aegean coast and will be open exclusively to foreigners


The private naturist beach will be open exclusively to foreigners and the hotel will spare any blushes by providing a free shuttle bus to and from the beach.

Facilities at the 600-metre beach include sunbeds, umbrellas, showers and a beach bar serving cocktails and food.

Nude sunbathers will, however, have to share their beach with the goats and chickens that belong to the hotel owners

Big-screen theme park Futuroscope lies in the Poitou

Big-screen theme park Futuroscope lies in the Poitou-Charentes region of western France and attracts 37 million visitors every year

The 'Travellers by Air and by Sea' attraction shows footage of killer whales on two screens; one in the eyeline and one beneath your feet.


Just two hours from Paris on the TGV or a direct flight into Poitiers with Ryanair means it's within easy reach too. There are a good handful of hotels within a ten-minute walk of the park or, if you want a serving of history to balance out the science on offer here, then medieval Poitiers has it in spades. And some nice shops to boot.

The last word goes to Luc Besson. Does he think he now has the best ride at Futuroscope? He's modest, but does eventually admit: "It will be very unfair to say that we're the best but I can say I've seen the attraction [that was there] before Arthur and I can honestly say that this one is much better."

Travel factsStandard class tickets from London to Poitiers start at £89 return with Rail Europe (0844 848 4070, www.raileurope.co.uk).

Entrance to Futuroscope costs €35 for adults and €26 for children aged 4-16 years (under fours go free). A two-day family break including entry to the park and two night's bed and breakfast in a local hotel costs from €93 per person for a family of four (€129 x 2 adults and €57 per child aged 5 to 16).

Big-screen theme park Futuroscope lies in the Poitou

Big-screen theme park Futuroscope lies in the Poitou-Charentes region of western France and attracts 37 million visitors every year

Big-screen theme park Futuroscope lies in the Poitou-Charentes region of western France and attracts 37 million visitors every year

Saccharine, hair-raising, stomach-flipping, exhausting...there are many words that can be grabbed at when thinking of ways to describe theme parks but 'stylish', in my experience at least, has never been one of them.

Yet, here I am, on a crisp winter's day watching an orange sun melt behind a skyline of gleaming geometric shapes. But then this particular theme park, Futuroscope, is French, which may go some way to explaining the sleek aesthetics.

Through anyone's eyes, it is a fascinating ensemble of architecture. There's a glass wedge of exhibition space topped with what looks like a giant cue ball; a mirrored jet-black theatre that rises from the earth like reflective Kryptonite and a cinema edged with thin black cylinders that look like giant liquorice sticks.

Futuroscope, near the small city of Poitiers in western France, is the country's second most popular theme park behind Disneyland Paris, yet is barely known on this side of the Channel.

Some 37 million visitors, most of them French, push through the turnstiles every year to immerse themselves in a park that manages to breathe life into science and nature with energetic, often interactive, attractions and a series of IMAX cinema screens.

A new crowd-puller is unveiled every two years and since 2007, almost half of the park has been rejuvenated. The hurdle of language can be easily jumped via a translation headset, available in English and Spanish.

The building currently with the sharpest glint is a 115-ft high 'hypercube' set in a north-eastern corner of the park. This new addition is Arthur, The 4D adventure, the fruit of a collaboration between Futuroscope and Luc Besson, one of France's most celebrated film directors and the man behind such blockbusters as The Fifth Element, The Big Blue and Léon.