Grand Yazici Mares Hotel Icmeler

... There have been quite a few places I have been and been grateful for the big and small things I am used to - whether it be a well prepared meal, a western style toilet or even just people able to speak English. I think the problem starts when an area actively TRIES to be a tourist haven.

In this case the local shops all stop trying to be pleasant shops of whatever culture or vibe they might normally choose, but instead try ...

... I met the man of my dreams! . . .

. . . and his beautiful wife.

Even before I saw him I felt his presence. It was my heart who told me to turn around and look in the direction of the restaurant, even though I was heading in the other direction. And there he was, in his full stunning glory, beautiful beyond words, sitting at the table. His wife and two lovely kids by his side.

I don’t know what is it about him that got my heart beating ...

... around. I got to go in first while Chris and Damien watched, but the guard was too alert for any subterfuge. It wasn't really a problem, as the baths were also a giant waste of money. I barely noticed the warm water, so busy was I dodging swirls of green goo and flaccid pink Germans. We wandered around the ancient ruins and in the early afternoon made our way to the Marmaris peninsula on the south coast.

... do can just tell those who don't.' My dear guests, Aesop was not a popular man in Pergamum!"

Our guide also regailed us with a story about Hadrian requesting that a gorilla fight a bear on the stage at Pergamum, as he was showing us the chambers where the animals for entertainment were kept. Unable to find a gorilla the director of the theater dressed an actor in a gorilla costume to fight the bear. The actor was upset and dismayed and didn't want to do it, he ...

... this in the same small coach. EVERYTHING we saw belonged to Greeks going back to the times of Alexander the Great. A very nice archeological theatre we saw was built in the year of 500 BC.

By the time the tour is over we have become friends with our tour guide whose name is Zinet. She comes from Kos but she is half Turk and half Greek, with a Greek nationality.

We ask her to recommend a nice place to eat something originally Turkish ...

... renewal trip to the Greek island of Megisti (or in Turkish, Meis), off the coast of Kas, east of here, and which was related in the previous blog entry. Since I want to relate about the hike I took the following day, I'll make this entry look like I'm posting from Kas rather than Fethiye.

And, I didn't get to Kas by flying from Konya! I went from Konya to Ankara; then to Antalya, Olympos and Kas. Now there is no way--never mind an onerous way-- to document this journeying ...

Well, we finally have some free time to provide some updates. I'm hoping I can make these a bit faster as I know the layout of a Turkish keyboard now. Starting off with a laptop update - still no workey in Turkey. My initial suspicion of the dirty power supply was not correct. My next guess is the laptop AC adaptor says ýt requires 125V/7A whereas our adaptor will only provide up to 120V (make sense Ed?). As for what we have been ...

... us for a long time. Peter writes .... The past two weeks have been a bit of a blur. The boat was lifted out of the water at a marina not too far from Marmaris for routine maintenance which we expected would take about three or four days. Unfortunately things took a turn for the worse and we had to do a bit of surgery on the rudder. Wanting to make the most of the time out of the water we then decided to have some ...

... charges for anything. So I contacted my banking institution for a second replacement to be sent. That took additional weeks, this process now being begun late in the first week in April when I finally gave up on hope for the mail route.

By the 20th of April the new card arrived by commercial delivery, and the PIN number similarly a couple of days later. I don't know why I took an additional week, but I made plans to depart Ankara on the 28th of ...

... on the beach versus the wood huts ("no bug problems in the huts, but the only thing is is that the chickens sometimes come in") and were the only tourists there with the 8 guys who worked there getting ready for the season. In the morning I hiked up to the waterfall and Utkus flute playing freaked out the mountain goats - a good laugh! as we were contemplating our next move we saw a big sightseeing boat pull up * one of the ...