Hotel Sezer Balikesir

... boat connection from Istanbul. The quarries here are pretty extensive and you can see sheer cliffs of marble spread across the hillside. The hotel has marble floors everywhere and even uses marble doorstops. The fast food place next door has put up a menu; I suspect this is for my benefit and very welcome it is too. Its strange that most restaurants don't have them and basically serve the same as everyone else. The corner shops ...

... then read some Zen/Pirsig then walked back and went for a dip. Only to retreat rapidly when the first jelly fish appeared. Sadly the experience also had a faint whiff of sewage and the beach has lots of litter. Which the Turks ignored. I noticed a piece of plastic which looked like the cover of a folding razor. On opening it turned out to be a folding comb covered in a sticky oil. Nice. Soon it was time to head back to Tekirdag. Thence to the ferry which was almost loaded by ...

Basically just knackered but not sleepy. Maybe my system isn't used to the different food yet. So puzzled over the ferry services but got a departure time out of tourist information and a boat name. Then I did a a bit more research on the net and considered going to the next Island to Marmara as there's more accommodation and its more holiday orientated. However actual information is rather scarce;maybe I wasn't using the right words but its ...

... to put it in! - Liz) That night we had a BBQ at the hotel with three other tours buses staying there. Unfortunately the weather turned and we had to abandon the poolside for the bar, which to be perfectly honest, wasn't such a bad thing! Our sensible tour company had scheduled a revisit to Gallipoli to see the museum and the cove without the crowds, but the compromise was it had to be slotted into a 13 hours drive back to Istanbul. We ...

... at the bottom of the pool. Feet appeased, we continue the trek up the hill, sloshing along rivulets of water heading downstream. Soon our footpath broadens, and we come to the main pedestrian thoroughfare cutting up the hillside, where artificial pools have been built by the municipality to allow visitors to soak while protecting the travertines from breakage or pollution. The heat is intense and the pools look inviting. So, with swimsuits at the ready, we wade into the ...

... fly into Nepal tomorrow and hope to find a room with a view of the Mountains and relax! (What we do best!!) The tour has been great but it was very regimented and they expected you to follow the sheep, where as Nazza and I like to try to get off the beaten track. Istanbul was good, Narelle had a Turkish bath (Narelle to insert story...) and we had some great pasta, Basically we waxed too much ...

... of the buildings here have been put back together like a giant marble jigsaw. Thankfully they do have a number of fullsize roman columns in place which are fantastic, and a few undercover alleyways. A 15,000 seat theatre has also stood up well, because it really doesn't have to stand as such. The theatres all lean in to the hillside. This one is super steep, looking down to the stage and the town of Bergama below. It is a fairly impressive place. Coming to the end of ...

... only by Alexandria. The people of Pergamum were famous for inventing goat skin parchment to rival the papyrus monopoly of Alexandria... that is, until Marc Antony took all the writings from Pergamum, made a gift of them to Cleopatra, and the library at Alexandria was destroyed during the battle of Actium in 31 BC. But that is neither here nor there. --Troy, the city of legend and pseudo-site of a Brad Pitt movie... was not as big as I thought it would be.

... i said hello rather than thank you when they passed me the bread. but i think i have a better understanding of young children who witness their parents fighting and dont know that it is not about them and feel they are personally responsible. ý heard serhan and his mother arguing before i left and i felt so badly; i just knew i had done something wrong or had been too much of a burden. i apologized for what ended up having nothing to ...

... and showed us all the fire exits and extinguishers. i think she has quite a future with OSHA. we went out to lunch where all our food came environmentally smoked. i had a delicious vegetable meal from the restaurant that claimed to serve "Slow Food" as opposed to fast food ý guess. then we went to visit the prison where the local Rotary Club had sponsored a work program. women were taught how to make wax candles in the shape of Venus DýMilo or bunny rabbit heads ...