Sea, sun and yoga in remote Turkey

Stretch and relax with a yoga guru in Fethiye

Fenella Lindsell is big in the world of yoga. So big she’s stopped by strangers at airports, I discover on the first day of my yoga holiday with her.

She is taking 18 of us to the Lazy Lizard, a boutique hotel ensconced in the mountainous coastal fringes of south-west Turkey, when an exuberant stranger approaches her at the luggage carousel of Dalaman airport.

“Aren’t you Fenella Lindsell? The one who was on Dragon’s Den?”

She nods, half-embarrassed. In fact, the clip of her triumphant small-screen pitch can still be found on YouTube. As the founder of YogaBugs, which combines storytelling and movement and now the UKs biggest yoga provider for children, she appeared on the TV show in 2006, with her sparkling eyes and infectious smile, to demonstrate yoga postures in tight black trousers before she turned down all offers from the stunned panel.

A decade on, she is innovating at the other end of the spectrum; originally trained with the British Wheel of Yoga, she has devised a programme of Hatha flow yoga for people of a certain age. Fenella, 50, firmly believes that yoga for the middle-aged and elderly can transform daily lives, even for beginners. Teenage daughters have turned up to her retreats with mothers or grandmothers who have had anything from rheumatoid arthritis to Parkinson’s disease, and she finds ways to challenge them all. Alongside the ‘gentle yoga’, she’s also taught the mega-fit and famous, from Jemima Khan and the Latin American championship dancer, Barbara McColl.

The eldest on my trip is 78-years-old with the average age hovering around the 50 mark, and the injuries or age-related ailments range from high blood pressure, depression and sports damaged ankles to one elegant 68-year-old woman who has come with a Stage 4 melanoma. I’m nursing my own – comparatively piddling - complaints: sciatia and neck pain from years of sitting hunched at a desk.

The greatest benefit of going away to do yoga, Fenella says, is that you can work intensively at relieving your particular ailments in the two daily yoga sessions. But it’s not all downward dogs and sun salutations. It’s a holiday too, I’m told by many of my fellow yogis who have been on one of Fenella’s retreats before, and have come to swear by them.

After zig-zagging up precipitous mountain roads in a minibus, we arrive 2,000-metres above sea level to the Lazy Lizard hotel in the village of Faralya, in Fethiye county. Its 15 rooms range from the rustic to the majestic. One has a stunning stone interior, another is slickly modern with a flat-screen TV while I land a fabulous VIP suite with air conditioning, a period mosquito-netted bed for outdoor sleeping.

The sky is pitch black on arrival which, the following morning, opens up to a thrillingly remote naturescape of sea, sky and the glory of the Taurus mountains ahead of us. Closer to home, there is a pristine swimming pool just below my balcony, and innumerable look-out points, sun-set benches and beanbags conspiring to keep us from venturing much further out. It is all utterly bewitching, as are Sigi and Micky, the hotel owners who built the hotel brick-by-brick and planted every last one of the ample fruit tree that surrounds us. What’s more, Sigi turns out to be an extraordinary cook, and runs her kitchen more like a home than a hotel - fruit is picked daily off the trees, a house wine is made from the grape vines, and mouth-watering vegetarian buffets are served in wholesome mounds for traditional Turkish outdoor dining. It’s no wonder that that Kate Moss was among the first to stay here with her friends.

I discover, in poolside chats, sunset drinks and al fresco dinners, that I am with a group of high-achievers; Suzy is a super-trim yoga teacher from Seattle who runs her own studio; Liz Harold is a vivacious 68-year-old advertising guru who has been going on yoga retreats for a decade; Andrew Wright, 54, the only man on this trip, is Prince Charles’s treasurer and after a few of Fenella’s sessions, feels that yoga is “a very good thing to do as you get older”. His wife, Carey Wright, a bereavement counsellor, agrees, though she is sure it holds great emotional benefits too.

Flavella Fielding, a 49-year executive in talent management and Ashtanga veteran, is on her second retreat this year with Fenella, while Nicole Heath, 55, a shoe designer, began yoga to tackle her depression. Sue Fox, 68, who ran her own company and is now living with cancer, finds yoga - mixed with sea, sand and sun - to be a deeply uplifting experience.

The yoga incorporates meditation and deep stretching with a partner. My favourite moment comes with another of Fenella’s innovations which she calls ‘Yoga to a Beat’, which consists of a playful but robust dynamic flow to contemporary rock and pop music (including a Rolling Stones track!) on our final day in Turkey. It is only when I’m sitting pensively on the train back to North London that I realise I haven’t felt the slightest twinge of sciatic pain for the past week. Whatever it is, Fenella should bottle it and sell it to the Dragons all over again.

*Fenella Lindsell’s next yoga holiday is from 14 – 22 November 2014, to southern Sri Lanka at £1,250 including flights, transfers, accommodation with half-board and two daily yoga classes. For more information, you can ring Fenella on 07956 551 003, email at nelllindsell@gmail.com or go to www.yoga-forever.com

*Lazy Lizard boutique hotel in Faralya, Fethiye, Turkey, takes group bookings for yoga holidays, and music/art workshops, and individual bookings. There are 15 bedrooms, 2 apartments and 3 budget-priced cabins. Prices range from £50 to £130 per day full board. A ‘sister’ property, the Lotus House, is comprised of holiday apartments with 2 bedrooms at £500 each per week. For phone bookings, ring (0090) 252 642 1155. Email Sigi or Micky on info@lazylizardfaralya.com. More information can be found at www.lazylizardfaralya.com