Enjoy Diamond service at a gem of a hotel says ANDY LEA

THERE’S a huge downside to staying at the Diamond Hotel in the beautiful Turkish town of Bodrum. When you get home, life seems depressingly rubbish.

No one rushes to hand you a cocktail as you sit staring into the Aegean Sea, 3pm is no longer “free pizza time” and there are no tasty late-night snacks laid out before you go to bed.

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Plus everyone back home seems almost criminally rude. Because, even for Turkey, the hotel staff are amazingly friendly. Everything is delivered with a beaming smile and a chat.

There is an indoor and outdoor pool, a private beach  reachable by an underground tunnel, plus a beach bar – which means waitress service as you  lie in the sun watching the boats flit in and out of Bodrum Bay.

Meanwhile, the rooftop bar is great for sipping cold beers as the sun sets.

The great thing about the Diamond is its location.

It’s just a five-minute walk to “bar street” – a bustling seafront street filled with smart bars and restaurants.

The exchange rate for the Turkish lira isn’t as great as it once was but you can still pick up a pint of Stella for £1.50 and a cocktail for £2.50.

Another five minutes and you’re in the town centre.

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The only problem is that you have to walk through the bazaar. So if your girlfriend is as  obsessed with designer handbags as mine, it can take a lot longer than five minutes.

Turkey is the home of the  “genuine fake” – carbon copy designer clothes and handbags made supposedly from the same materials but at a tenth of the price.

To grab a real bargain you have to haggle. The trick is to offer half the original price, then argue like hell until they meet you at least halfway.

Once you’ve got the hang of it, it’s fun, especially when the vendors use half-baked English slang.

“Cheaper than ASDA price, lovely jubbly!” was one of my favourite pitches.

It’s great for posh leather goods but for real bargain clothes head to the weekly market by the bus station.

After some extended haggling, I bagged two fake Fred  Perry T-shirts, (which have survived several washes) for the princely sum of £8.

Once through the bazaar, you’re in Bodrum town  centre, which has the stunning  medieval Castle of St Peter as its centrepiece.

It was built in the 15th Century by the Knights Hospitallers – an order of warrior monks who fortified key Mediterranean sites during the Crusades.

Each tower was home to a different nationality of knights and the English-built one is the most  intact.

You can sit on the same stone chair where English knights perched while watching the  invading Muslim armies. They must have been on long shifts because they had time to carve their names in the walls.

At the other side of the castle is the upmarket Bodrum marina. At night, it really comes alive, with locals and tourists enjoying a relaxing bottle of Efes, the local lager, or a shotglass of lethal aniseed raki.

One of the trendiest places here is the Marina Yacht Club, a twinkly-lit bar and restaurant which has live jazz and latin music. The roof bar is the best place for views.

But to really let your hair down, try out the Halikarnas – a vast club right on the coast. This is Turkey’s crack at an Ibiza-style super-club and ranks alongside the White Isle’s best for a big night out.

Holding up to 5,000 people, it claims to be the biggest open-air club in Europe and coaches from neighbouring resorts rock up late
into the night. Built to look like a Greek temple, it has spectacular light shows and foam parties.

Just make sure you’ve had a few drinks beforehand, as it’s pricey. A vodka and mixer costs about £7.

We probably didn’t pick the best night to party until 3am as we had booked a coach trip to the ancient Roman city of Ephesus the next day.

Ephesus, one of the most important cities in the classical age, was abandoned after its bay began to silt up. So now it’s unbelievably intact.

You can stroll down an ancient Roman high street, gawp at a stunning 2,000-year-old library and even take in a concert at the
25,000-seater theatre. It’s like being in a scene from Gladiator.

The £50 tour from Bodrum took about 90 minutes and included a visit to Meryemana – a house supposed to have been the  retirement
home of the Virgin Mary.

There you can sip on water from a magical spring and write wishes on pieces of fabric that Jesus’ mum is supposed to grant the worthy.

I wasn’t convinced, particularly when our guide let slip that it was just one of three houses in Turkey that lay claim to being the Virgin’s final home.

Still, even without divine intervention I had found everything I wished for in Bodrum.

Great nightlife, all-year-round sun, lazy beaches and one of the best hotels I’ve ever stayed in.

Perhaps I should have wished I could stay forever!

FactFile
■ STAY for a week, all-inclusive, at the four-star Diamond Hotel in Bodrum from £495. Price includes flight from Gatwick. To book call 08 44 412 5970 or visit thomascook.com

■ Bookings made before January 31 will get an extra 10% off and until tomorrow there  is an extra £50 off all Thomas Cook bookings to Turkey.

■ Thomas Cook Publishing offers a travel guide on Turkey from £4.99. See thomascookpublishing.com