Turkey days 4-6

Our first day out of Istanbul, we headed down the coast and took a short ferry ride to Canakkale. The archaeological site of Troy is about 22km below Canakkale. We drive to the site first, then back up to our hotel in Canakkale.

Troy is breathtaking. There is a huge replica wooden Trojan horse on site that we went up into, while Milan took our pictures from below. Then we walked arounf the site and marveled at its ancient feel. Its not the best preserved, but the stories behind it make up for all of that.

Canakkale is beautiful. We were very glad we stopped. We stayed in a little Ottoman period hotel called Kervansaray hotel. Their sultan suite was cute, and four small levels. The stairs were quite steep to the third level and the little guy needed some help traversing them. While I liked this hotel , I had two complaints. The first was the mains electricity box was right outside our door and kept clicking on and off all night. I'm a light sleeper to start with, so this woke me up a number of times. The second was the temperature of the water was either frigid or scalding, so it was a pain to shower the kids at night and myself in the morning.

Canakkale was a picturesque town, with a lovely walking shopping district and good food. We ate at a traditionsl turkish restaurant for dinner and the food was fabulous.

The next day we drove down to Selcuk where we stayed at the Richmond Ephesus resort hotel. The kids were happy because it had a swimming pool and a playground. It also was on the beach. Our drive from Canakkale to Selcuk took us through Pergamon (Bergama) one of the many, many ancient cities that lie on this land.

Pergamon housed the second largest library in ancient times, second only to Alexandria. The city is accesible by driving or by sky lift. We drove up, and the kids and I raced Milan down the mountain by sky lift. We all arrived at about the same time.

When we drove the rest of the way to Selcuk, the kids were eager to stretch their legs and play, so into their swim suits they went for a splash in the outdoor pool, followed by a turn in the indoor pool. Then we ate dinner, which was included in our stay. They had a huge buffet, with chefs making fresh food as well on the outside terrace. The food was superb, and we ate well!

The next morning, we were up early and the kids played on the playground and beach for a while after breakfast. Then we drove the short distance to Ephesus, where we took a horse drawn carriage to the upper side, and hired a guide to walk us through the site down to the bottom. This coty is amazingly well preserved, and housed the third largest library of ancient times. We even saw public latrines, (ancient ones) which was interesting to say the least! The amphitheater was intruiging, to know that St. Paul had given speaches there, and I finally put two and two together and realized that in the Bible when they talk of the Ephesians, THESE were the people rhey were talking about! Whst history there was here; if only the grounf could talk!

From here we drove the 7 km up the mountains to the serenly peaceful Virgin Mary's house. Here I lit candles for all my deceased relatives and said a prayer for God to watch over their souls. I'm not superbly religious, but I get overcome in places like this, and I think this was the first time my children had seen me pray.

In the afternoon we drove to Pumukkale. We expected this to be thermal springs only. The guidebook told us that there was a necropolis nearby, but oh my! This place was amazing! The necropolis was insanely extensive. Sadly it had all been pillaged, but many tombs remained intact, if devoid of occupants. There is a large amphitheatre there, and huge gates. Our daughter and I walked down into the travertines to the warm blue waters, and we got some fabulous pictures from that angle to. At the gates, there was a mommy stray dog and three adorable puppies. The kids stopped to play with them for a while, and had a blast.

We stayed the night in town at Hotel Apswana. The hotel was a little difficult to find, but worth it. Not for the room, but for the amazingly warm hospitality showed by the owner and his wife. She made us home made Turkish food that was delicious, and he kept bringing us blankets and such to help make our stay as comfortable as possible. The hotel was clean and comfortable, and the room had an attached bath with a cute little seated bathtub in it. It wad the first shower in two days where the water didnt fluctuate wildly on me! Thumbs up!

Day six had us up for breakfast and out of our hotel fairly early. We were trying to make to back to Istanbul for saturday night and figured we woul half the trip each of two days, as it was an 8 or 9 hour drive. We tried to stop in the Kaklik caves that are supposed to be like little pumukkale and have stalagtotes and stalagmites, but it was closed for renovation. We did stop several times along the way to checkout the ceramic and porcelain shops and to eat lunch. In the end we drove all the way to Iznik where we are staying at the Camlik hotel. The room is nice, and is similar to the Richmond hoyel in Ephesus in that there are bunkbeds for the children.

Turkey days 3 and 4

Yesterday we started the day by touring the Grand Bazaar. Its 4000 shops all inside, and boy is it a madhouse! While we enjoyed spending some time in there, the overwhelming number of people and the fear of losing our children amongst the throng, got to much for us and, without buying anything, we headed out a gate toward the Spice Bazaar. I figured from the guide books that the spice bazaar would be nearer to the Grand Bazaar, but it was a bit of a hike, all without signs. In hindsight, it was pretty much a straight shot, but we didnt know that at the time.

The spice bazaar was large, but smaller than I'd imagined. We managed to haggle our way into some fabulous pistachio and pomegranate turkish delight, and we even picked up some bowls and pottery.

From the bazaar, we went to a restaurant called Hamdi. The guidebook led us there, but we think there must've been two because the one we were in was a bit upscale and didn't have doner kebap's on the menu.

After we ate, we decided on a tour of the Bosphorous. It was a nice relaxing thing to do, and we really got a good look at the city. We met seversl other American tourists, and exchanged itineraries with them. The kids had a blast playing some imaginary porcupine game and a bunch of people smiled at them and took their photos.

We had realized the night before that my sd card to ipad connector wasnt working, so we needed to pickup a an adapter for sd to the computer. We stopped at several shops, but eventually had to get into a taksi ( taxi) to have him take us there.

Many, or most, of the people do not speak english here, so there is a lot of gesturing and pointing going on!

Once our misdion was accomplished, we headed back to the hotel to download pictures and bed down for the night.

Turkey -day 2

This morning we woke at our customary 7am, and promptly realized that it was 2 hours ahead here, and it was 9! After showering and dressing, we made our way down to the hotel's restaurant, where a nice buffet breakfast was taking place. We had made to order omlettes, and freshly squeezed orange juice.

Today we saw the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofia, Topkapi Palace and the Basilica Cistern. We were able to walk right into the Blue Mosque; which I thought was interesting, because to me, it was as beautiful as the Aya Sofia!   They provide head scarves for ladies, although I didnt find that out until we exited. What a beautiful mosque!

From there we tried Aya Sofia, but the line to get in was insane, so we went to the Basilica Cistern next. I would have never imagined the vastness of such an underground cavern! Oh my! Our daughter and I found a booth taking replica photos, and had ours taken. The cistern was an awesome thing to tour. We walked down and enjoyed looking at the fish in the water, as well as the inverted Medusa head.

Aya Sofia came next. Hubby found a way to skip the 2-3 hour line for tickets by purchasing the tickets through one of the street vendors selling guide books. We had to purchase a book that we didn't need, but we were able to get right through, and the tickets were valid!

We tried the line skipping thing again at Topkapi palace, but had to hire a guide for an hour. I would not recommend this if you at all are ok with line waiting. However, we did skip all the lines, and that was very nice! We found out that there are separate entry tickets to get into the harem part of the palace, and although children are free, they still require a ticket to get in. Our 8 year old had to purchase a ticket, so I think kids are free up to a certain age, we just dont know what that age is yet.

We tried to take the kids on a boat ride for the evening, but they weren't having any of it. So we settled on dinner only instead.  We went to a restaurant called Betyi's that is supposedly world famous, and is supposed to have the best kebab's around.  They had parking onsite and the attendant followed us to the door with an umbrella over our heads.  The restaurant was all decked out, fancy looking with waiters that stay on hand through your whole meal.  Talk about attentive!  The food was fabulous, and certainly lived up to its name.  I would recommend this restaurant to anyone looking for a great Turkish meal.

Ottoman candy from a street vendor.  It was as colourful as it was sweet and yummy!

After Topkapi palace, we walked around a bazaar.  Not the main one, but a nice one off to the left of the Blue Mosque.

In an effort to save space, I tried packing only the iPad, the new laptop and my camera.  However, the iPad's not reading the sd cards from my camera, and the new laptop doesn't have a way to connect to the camera (no sd card reader), so we are unable to pull the pictures off of my card.  The pictures on this blog I took with my phone, so that the blog wouldn't be blank!  We will upload photos when we get home and will update these pages with the photos.  On a sad note, one of my sd cards filled up and the one that I tried to switch it to in Topkapi palace created card issues on my camera; so the only pics we have from the second half of the palace are with our phones.  Oh well, at least we have those!  

Turkey-day 1.

We left London via Stanstead airport. It was very easy to get to from our place, and although its a small airport, it was very easy to navigate and I was happy because there was a Starbucks inside the security area!

We flew into a small airport on the outskirts of Istanbul and rented a car from Hertz. We flew on Pegasus airlines, which amused our daughter to no end. The flight was fine, with only a few incidents of turbulance. Our son had a blast with a little girl in the seat next to me.

Renting with Hertz was reasonably simple, and they asked for only the standard documentation, so that was fine. The toll roads work differently, though, and we had to purchase a special card to go through them. The tolls work on contactless payment methods through prepaid cards. Hertz charged us 40 turkish lira to buy one and put 20 lira on it!

We did not have our tom tom updated with Turkish maps ( this has since been rectified) and had to use our phone's google maps to find our way from the airport to our hotel. Luckily, this worked with only tiny kinks and we arrived to our hotel in Old City Istanbul in one piece.

We are renting a family suite in a hotel called the Garden House Hotel. The rooms are clean and well kept. Its not 5 star, but a solid 3, and its in a fabulous location! From here we are next door to the Topkapi palace and Aya Sofia.

We took the time to walk out and get dinner out of the hotel, which was nice. I think we all enjoyed the night air after being in the plane for a few hours. We had a good dinner at a little turkish kebap place where our daughter and I had meatballs on tomato lentils and the boys split some steak and aubergine dish. Yum!