Antik Beyazit Antakya

... conversıon of 'Daphne Prıncess Hotel' and Harbıye was where the legend of Daphne supposed to have taken place. The taxı costs 22 lıra and when I arrıved at the hotel I was told that ıt was already full. The receptıon was very apologetıc and explaıned that I wıll be put up at a nearby hotel for the nıght and that I can come back ın the mornıng. So they drove me to Harbıye Hotel not far away ...

... Arab Nations is smoking, you will welcome any relief you can get. To cap off our first evening in Turkey, we went for a fresh juice at one of the local juice stands. They bill themselves as "Vitamin Bars" - which we find humorous. The owner took it on himself to play his Turkish guitar and sing to us and regale us in conversation. It was a lovely evening. Now onward to Cappadocia....

March 15, Sunday A thunderstorm rolled through last night about 4 a.m. It is raining all this morning. We have breakfast at the hotel, they have bread, real bread, not pitas! When it clears up we go to the Tourist Information office and get a map and brochures on St. Peter's Church and the Museum. We decide to walk to the church since it is only a couple of kms away. It is getting warm and we are enjoying all the busses out with the election campaigns going down the ...

... because they used a smuggling route that "belonged" to a competing clan; drives an armoured Mercedes that belonged to Devlet Bahceli, a nationalist Turkish politician. A monkey had been trained to carry cigarettes to the Turkish-Syrian boarder and throw them into Turkey. Later, it was caught and caged in the local zoo. The monkey is a cigarette addict. Had salted chicken and Frig rice at the restaurant right by the lake in Reyhanli. We finished off this ...

... it. No ticket, no proof of payment nothing! The informal proceeding really did make me giggle and at 7am, I fell asleep on the bus waiting for it to depart for Aleppo. I had been travelling for a little under 24hrs...sleep came quick and fast. Turkey was -considering my stay was very short- a good place to start my trip. Because it is the gateway to Asia, the culture change was a gradual thing, the very Euro image of Istanbul fading out as I crossed ...

... were obviously ostracised when they invaded in 1974 and nothing has been done to the area since then. Hotels and apartment blocks are empty and dilapidated and the roads are closed to everyone except the military. It seems such a waste - only now are they trying to encourage tourists to the area. The centre of the island is very baron and due to the lack of rain, very little grows there. I did a "proper" night shift last night, sailing ...

... of wending through streets of the endless sameness of the Turkish town: shops, shops, shops. At the end of the line, with the sea just visible beyond, the neighborhood looked so dismal I didn't even get out of the dolumu&#351;. This, of course, gave everyone a confused laugh.Well, it was the driver's end run.<br><br>But, for half the fare that it took to come all the way out from Hatay he took me back a ways into Samanda&#287; and parked before a concrete mix shop. He jovially ...

... in Antakya).<br><br>Well, at the bus terminal at Antakya (I say at, not in, for most Turkish bus terminals are at the periphery of the towns, and one needs further transportation to get into the city or town), I quickly got my pack from the pest guy--he was unloading the bay-- ignorred the guys shouting for taxis and whatnot, and walked into the terminal with the idea of just sitting down, getting my Lonely Planet book out and figureing my next move.<br><br>But, a couple of ticket touts ...

Thursday (November 08) <br> <br>Well not too much to write about today except a day of travel. I thought it would only be a 4 hours bus ride to Antakya from Urfa but it ended up being 7.5. I also assumed that the otogar (bus station) was literally 50 metres from the hotel I planned to stay at, which is what both my guidebooks said. However it seems that a new otogar had been built well outside of town and I got dropped off in the middle of nowhere. Luckily I was able to ...

Antakya is the ancient site of Antioch, which sounds so romantic and full of history to me. Well, it's just another city - nothing too special. I stopped briefly to check out the famed mosaics in the Antakya Museum. They were mostly taken from nearby Harbiye (ancient Daphne ...