Kaldera Guesthouse Assos

Got up and got a dolmus to the centre and had a walk around had to vısıt the pharmacy as not really well but after takıng some pılls felt a bıt more comfortable and had a wander round. Today ıs a holıday ın Ayvalık as ıts the day that they became ındependent from Greece and took theır town back not a very nıce story but they stıll celebrate ıt. Bought Danıelle a present ...

... hıs Englısh teacher who then spoke to Ian ın really bad englısh. Ian was sayıng that he was goıng to do great as an englısh teacher as at least he can actually speak englısh lol. So we went all the way back to the taxı place and pıcked up the englısh teacher and went off down some dırt tracks out of town. We got to thıs place now how to descıbe ıt best to look at the pıcs but ıt was 4 huts on a b ...

... off we certainly did - it was Baltic!<br><br>Another favourite stop became the covered market where during our stay we bought a 5 lira (£2) bottle of wine (not recommended!), admired the tomato wearing watermelons and enjoyed numerous cups of cay and bakery products - the guys there were so friendly they even gave us figs to accompany our beverages!<br><br>We really had to drag ourselves away from Ayvalik but our first ruins were calling...<br><br>

... out. Right in front of the entrance to the otogar was one of the larger inter-city coaches. Its destination card said Izmir--south, the direction I was headed. I inquired about a seat, and was gestured to get on. Ezine was about half way to my destination, so I only had about another 30 minutes on that bus, getting down to the next stop at the small town of Ayvac&#305;k (EYE-va-juk [a sort of French j, more like a z sound, actually. And the undotted &#305 ...

... annakale, but it stopped in ayvacýk). ayvacýk is a sleepy, dusty, town. from there i had to take a dolmuþ, a sort of minibus, to assos. except assos has two parts: the main part of the town is on the side of a big hill, the harbour (and where i was staying) is 2km down the hill. of course, the minibus only goes to the hill part of the town, so i had to walk 2ks down to the beach. the place is real different than anywhere i've been yet. since it was a ...

... now, keen to choose some accommodation. We decided to blow the budget a bit and stay in the nicest hotel in town, the Kervansaray. For 250 lira we got two rooms with dinner and breakfast included. Assos was an important Greek city. At one point Aristotle lived here and founded an academy. We will visit the ruins tomorrow, but in the meantime we explored the harbour, watched the men fixing the fishing nets and the ...

... feeling it! Pergamum was an ancient city founded by colonists on the Aegean coast of Anatolia at the site of the present-day city of Bergama. it was on a tributary of the Bakircay (Caicus River), enclosed by high mountains. Fertile, self-contained and easily defended, it provided the perfect setting for the maintenance of a city state. Once a great center of culture, survives as one of Turkey's finest arch aeological sites. Ýn the Acropolis ...

... been a long time!" I'm not completely sure if him remembering me is him putting his good capitalist customer service skills to use or just his memory. We got to Istanbul at 1:30 AM on Friday and took a cab to get our hostel where we immediately passed out after having a difficult climb to the top bunks. Saturday morning I woke to the sound of the Noon-time pray session for the Muslims. Turkey is 98% Islam and so there are mosques ...

... the other s&#305;de of the Bosphorus and topkapý and both were sýmply spectacular. Dolmabache had the room where Ataturk d&#305;ed and Topkap&#305; had an amaz&#305;ng set of jewels, ch&#305;nese porcela&#305;n, and armor and the l&#305;ke. If ý were to dýe and come back to lýfe, perhaps ýt would be as a sultan. HA. Chuck keeps on say&#305;ng he w&#305;shes he had a harem l&#305;ke they d&#305;d... The bazaars were a být overwhelmýng ...

... middle of the most giant bus station ever we set some tasks for ourselves. 1. Book accommodation for the next couple of days 2. Secure the 1st Kebab for the trip Ms Mari - had secured the 1st Travel Title for the trip (you can see that this travel thing was like a well oiled company) - "Head of Communications & International Relations". With copious hours of self-education of the Turkish language under her belt already (2 ...