Guzel Izmir Oteli

Funny how perspectives are different. The LP guide says that Selcuk is not a 'tourist' town despite the ruins of Ephesus and that some travelers may be disappointed. To me, it was very touristy!

Here carpet salesmen (the first we've seen) woo you with cay, backgammon and pleasant conversation while trying to get you to buy a carpet.

Men in the street tell you stories of their archaeological career and try to sell you ancient ...

... days were Brian's turn and today it's mine. Best guess is that he picked up something in Athens or on the boat over to Turkey.

So we've been in Urla. Not a tourist town in the least. I did a little internet search that came up with nothing. Asking the guy at the hotel what there was to see in town came out with blank stares. But just watching the day to day workings of this little quarter of the city are interesting enough for me.
Urla, İzmir, Turkey 2totango

... lying on the mahoosive bed (and obviously writing this) and thinking about finally going to sleep. So now is the time for me to leave you and get the much required shut eye before we begin the travel saga again tomorrow - let's just hope it's a much simpler and shorter trip back to sunny Shoreham.

Until the next time...
Big love
Sam & Lisa xx

(ps please forgive all the typos and spelling mistakes, my brain is way too tired to worry about anything like that, teacher or not.)

... Information desk in the hope they could tell us what was going on, and 2 women in face masks told us to go to the Turkish Airlines check-in desk. There was a massive queue, so we took part in the Turkish queueing style - barge in so you can be seen - but refrained from the speak very loudly in Turkish as we were tired and didn't have the energy. We discovered, on reaching the woman at the desk, that we couldn't get on the flight that we were booked on as that plane ...

... the reason for the slowed traffic was an extensive mudslide turning a superhighway into a two lane road. Good thing I left extra time to make that flight, thinks I.
Time for the hiccup. The subway of Istanbul opens at six am, absolutely asinine for such a large city. Since I needed to get from the main bus station to the international airport in
the early morning, the guy who sold me the bus ticket wrote me a note to show the ...

Late start but a casual conversation with Michelle over breakfast resulted in a lazy plan to rent a scooter and visit a beach. Naturally the scooters at hostel were booked, so we went for scooters in town. By this time I was a bit nervous as Michelle was talking about going to a busy town for some shopping. But i persuaded her to visit the beach first and there after she agreed to continue up the coast ...

... top of the list favourites for us - the best ones are tomatoes, cucumbers and onions chopped fine, sometimes with local cheese and sometimes with rocket or lettuce, and with fresh herbs like mint and dill, all mixed with olive oil and lemon juice - yum, yum yum!!!! We didn't spend a huge amount of time walking around Sirince - it was just too nice sitting in the shady restaurant (it was a fairly hot day with no breeze!), drinking Efes and chatting to the young guy ...

... the national hero. This iconic status reminded me of another hero of a later revolution and has made me curious. The changes that the revolution brought about were a phenomenal achievement. The book I bought is enormous and quite daunting. Furthermore the print is rather small, so I think it will be read in small chunks sitting on the sofa. It is too big (despite being a paper back) to want to carry around. Now I am back in ...

... Mersin highway in rush hour traffic with heavy, stinking trucks and buses roaring closely by. I'd taken the precaution of equýpping myself with a big stick in Cappadocia in case I had any more trouble from snarling dogs. Fitted at one end with a cloth the stick also came in handy as a warning to passing motorists that I was sharing the road and required a wide berth. Having been unable to find a bike-stand strong enough to take the strain of a fully loaded Clara I found the stick had ...

Today is box lunch day, meaning we are on the road again. We drive through Karahayit and are on our way. Back to my journal notes about our drive: · Trash piled by the road · Flat river valley land, past irrigation canal · Women picking cotton · Man on moped stops on the side of the road to talk on his cellphone · Another cemetery · Lots of vineyards · Vineyard covered with bird netting? · Drive up into pine-covered hills · Sawmill, logs ...