Last few days in Turkey

[This entry was started while en route but serious fatigue set in and I completed it once home, safe & sound!]

As we are now on our way home (and have hours of 'hurry up and wait' time ahead of us), it seems like a good time to share some photos of our time in Selcuk, the last stop in our 18 day Turkey travels. We were excited to be spending 4 nights in one hotel (Urkmez Hotel).... that is, until we checked in on Monday and got slightly swindled on room allocation by the hotel manager. Do we look like people who will not complain when duped??! (apparently, yes) Since I reserved one of the better rooms at this hotel 3 months ago, I was not going to take this sitting down (ok, well, maybe Art and I did agree to sit down over apple tea to try to come to some agreement...). In the end, we did not get the room promised and so we stayed there only 2 nights and then checked into another hotel down the road... one that could be referred to as a 'boutique' hotel. It was just lovely there! See photos below...

Art in our fancy room

The courtyard of the hotel

Sunrise view of the castle from hotel rooftop terrace

While in Selcuk, we hit all the famous spots: Ephesus, St. John's Basillica, Sirince (wine making village), Ladies Beach, and various carpet, wine, spice, and olive oil shops for a few treats to bring home!

Kathy & Art in front of the library at Ephesus

Ephesus

Kathy (and a few others) at Ephesus

The library at Ephesus

Inside the theatre at Ephesus

Distant view of the theatre at Ephesus (is that Mosaic stadium??)

Art at Ladies beach, fully clothed and wondering "is this sand?"

Ladies Beach (near Selcuk)

The wine making village of Sirince

As with every other day during our time in Turkey, the day ended with a big decision: kebap or sis? beef or chicken? As you can see, the cats really enjoyed the time I selected fish!

Decision time

"This sea bream is tasty... more please!"

That's it for this trip! Thanks to everyone who followed us on this blog as we travelled in Turkey.

Til next time...

Things to blog home about

I thought this entry could be a more generic, less chronological, attempt to convey a few of our experiences here in Turkey... experiences that one might call the side story to all the main attractions!

1. Hotel bathrooms. Tiny, yes, but that's not the problem. The real issue is how to be small and agile enough to take a shower without flooding the bathroom yet still coming out clean. This is our shower at Erkmez Hotel, in Selchuk...

2. Turkish coins. I think I found Art's new (only?) weakness: he cannot resist spending coin on coin. He exchanged lots of present day moola for four Roman coins. When you see him next, ask to see them (please, it'll make him feel better!)

3. Crowds of shoppers and vendors at a bizarre. Need I say more?

4. Kathy in a mosque. It felt strange to be a non-Muslim tourist visiting a mosque. I did it just once.

5. Pomegranate juice. Quite a punch when it is freshly squeezed and no sugar added. Art did this just once.

6. Art gets a shave. He did this twice (so far). And he added in a mask and head massage. I'm thinking he'll be hitting a Regina spa when we get home.

7. Injuries from hot air ballon flights. It was a windy day and we had quite a bumpy balloon landing. I tweaked my lower back. I'm thinking of suing our pilot, Mustafa.

8. Catching the sunrise from a hot air balloon.

9.$5 cappuccinos. The turkish coffee just isn't my thing. Unfortunatley, expensive cappuccinos are.

10. Ancient church frescos.

11. Art carrying all his belongings in a plastic bag. Hello Pamukkale hot springs! Tee hee.

12. Turkish breakfasts. They're all about fruit (honeydew melon & watermelon) and vegetables (cucumber & tomato), with a side of bread, meat, and (of course) olives!

13. Sacrifices for language translation. It's a long story. One I could not tell in such a short space and do justice to this photo. Suffice it to say, this 'crafty' ankle bracelet was the price I paid for a woman to help us translate the Turkish word for aubergine into english. I just happened to be wearing my roughrider socks to top it all off (what can I say, it was game day!)

Maybe I'll just end with that one... 13 experiences from the 13th (wo)man... :-)

Kathy & Art signing off for now. We are on our way to Ephesus.

Busses, trains, and automobiles: On the move in Turkey

Well, we left Goreme, our cave hotel, and the great wine of the Cappadocia area

to take a 10 hour overnight bus to Denizli & Pamukkale (I can still hear Art saying "I just want the bus experience once..." when I suggested that maybe we should fly). We booked our tickets quite late so our seats were toward the back of the bus, which is even worse for me and my queasy stomach than a hot air balloon flight! I took a gravol and slept almost 6 hours, whereas Art was not quite so fortunate (he's still catching up on that night's sleep).

This is the part of our trip where we stay one night at four different places (with the long distance bus journey being the first of those 'places'), so it's a bit tiring. However, we were not sorry to have made our first one night stop to visit the ancient ruins of Hierapolis and Pamukkale. See a few photos below...

And that was just Friday!
The train and automobile came into the picture on Saturday, as we made our way to Cesme, on the Izmir Peninsula and on the beautiful Aegean Sea. We trained it to Izmir airport where we rented a car. Getting out of the airport nearly took longer than the entire drive ahead of us, but Art was very patient with the traffic and the several u-turns we had to make... though I think he was less patient with my inability to read road signs written in Turkish while passing them at high speed! Anyway, it was all worth it because I was thrilled to be on my way to getting an Aegean beach day!

The photos below picture Art at a small train station near Pamukkale, our fabulous 500 year old hotel in Cesme, me on our hotel rooftop, a sunset view looking out from Cesme waterfront, and a nearby beach where both Art and I had our dip in the Aegean.

Wow, there is so much more to write about and share in photos... but my Efes beer is getting warm.

We are now in Sigacuk, a small village off the beaten path, where we ate our way through a local village market! Yum.

Next stop is our last stop, and we're looking forward to our last 4 nights being in one place. Selcuk, here we come (that is, if we can find our way back to Izmir airport to return the car).

Reporting live from our cave in Goreme, Cappadocia

All is calm and quiet in our room carved out of rock face. I finally know now that I should request the 'cave' room in every hotel that I stay at! :-)

We've been here for three days now, and I would have created this blog entry much sooner but my unpredicatable computer and even more unpredictable internet signal (apparently stone walls aren't the best for wifi transmission!) have been slowing me down. Please note that blog entries will likely be few and far between for the rest of our trip due to these issues.

Anyway, we've been hiking through very scenic valleys in Goreme... Rose Valley, Red Valley and Love Valley... guess which one is Love Valley below :-)

A real highlight was the hot air balloon flight yesterday morning. Actually, for me, it was a highlight AFTER the fact. I was so nervous about the impending adventure that I slept less than 3 hours the night before, and couldn't even eat breakfast or drink coffee in the morning. I had to ask Art to be in charge of the camera because I knew that I'd either be holding the edge of the basket tightly with both hands or I'd be curled up on the floor of the basket afraid to look out!

Pictured with our balloon pilot Mustafa

I eventually calmed down and enjoyed the gentle gliding through the air at 500m above the wonderful valleys and rock formations. Art would like you to know that the balloon flight is his trip highlight so far. But then again, we have yet to rent the car and navigate the roads and drivers of Turkey! More on that (potential highlight) later.

Summarizing Istanbul

Before we head off to other destinations in Turkey, I thought I'd create an entry that attempts to capture and summarize a bit of our last two days sightseeing in Istanbul.

Yesterday began with a wander over to Taksim Square, just to see it with our own eyes (in the daylight). It was Friday the 13th in Taksim Square... what could go wrong?? Featured below is my "standing man of Taksim Square"...

We then packed up and left our fancy Nisantasi apartment, exchanging it for a smelly, dank, basement room in an Ottoman-style hotel in the Sultanahmet area. This hotel (Mataraci Konak) is exactly the reason I don't "put all of my eggs in one basket" when booking hotel rooms and locations; that is, I prefer to book a few nights here and there rather than a week (or more) in one place.... because the room could end up being like this! I did a lot of research on trip advisor before booking this hotel, but then got duped when we arrived. The hotel guy said there was 'something wrong' with our double room upstairs and so we were given this basement one. Yeah, right. Featured below is my "sitting man of smelly, dank hotel room" :-)

Anyway, outside of our hotel room, we are finding plenty of fine treasures: Topkapi Palace, Aya Sofya, Blue Mosque, Grand Bizarre, terrace restaurants with great views, roasted corn, and Efes beer!

Tomorrow is a travel day... I'm loooking forward to experiencing life outside of Istanbul and inside a cave hotel in Goreme, Capadoccia!

Talk to you in a couple of days...