Queen's Park Resort Tekirova

... altar of Pergamon is in Berlin, but the foundations remains (how generous of the Germans!), the second largest library of ancient times (200,000 books!), royal palaces, roman baths, and temples to various gods... Whilst rambling over the ruins - we noticed some big lizards (ok - not that big! but bigger than your hand!!) Black with yellow spines - really pretty - and they were everywhere just really ...

... nk there and they had got a tv out of the back room and set ıt all up wıth the satılıte and put on the football just for Ian so we sat and watched that wıth them Ian had a Rakı whıch ıs the tradıtıonal turkısh mens drınk ıts terrıble lıke Ouzo and Pastıche and he was so drunk after ıt fallıng over and snorıng wıth the party popper noıces agaın.

... wıth thıs taxı boy who spoke a lıttle englısh and he reccomended a place but ıt was a lıttle out of our budget so we told hım we needed somewhere cheaper and he saıd he would take us to the tourıst ınfo offıce so off we sped ın the taxı wıth the musıc blarıng as he had a boom box ın the back ha ha he called ıt the nıght club taxı. we got no joy at the tourıst place and he ...

Why are we leaving gorgeous Ayvalik, our stunning guesthouse and lovely friends to go and see ruins I wonder as Tania harries me off to the bus stop.<br><br>Two hours later and having checked into a hotel where the owner admits "I am Gobi" (yep really) we trek uphill solidly for the next hour and it's 35 degrees plus. Perhaps this should be called schlepping to Asclepion. <br><br>However, the place was genuinely stunning and it ...

... 64 square feet--about 8' x 8' square, including the guy at his cash box watching television. I went for a small bag of potato chips. Not the best of nutritional choices, but one does not have a lot of choices in these places. And besides, battling a slight sore throat I like to put a little salt in the tube. Nor did I have enough cash for anything more. Well, then the Turkish Travel Pixies shook their wand over me again. Up until I got to ...

... hill, I set off down the other side to the flats of the reservoir. I had to skirt widely around the low water. Even still there were large areas of soft mud which clung, accreted, and mushroomed around and up the soles of my shoes. But it was a minor inconvenience. Eventually I arrived at the village of Hamzal&#305;sülemaniye. Isn't that a mouthful? Larger than the village itself. I went directly up the hill to the east of the village to get a picture of it ...

... wonky buildings with about 2o layers of paint over the years which are now flaking away and showing a rainbow of colours on the walls, kids playing football in the streets and a hello from all of the little children we see, all chasing after us like movie stars. When we got to the bottom and the red basillica a cute old man 'Ali' came out of his local tea shop and asked us in for some tea and a chat, he was sweet so we accepted his offer and he turned out to be an interesting ...

... are few places in the world better than Turkey for the touring of the rocks. We had already seen countless ruins scattered about the hillsides and seascapes. We had even visited a few. But so far we had only seen the "lesser" ruins that are more of a sideshow to the summer seaside resorts. Our first "destination" ruin was Ephesus. Ephesus was a center for a number of civilizations spanning several centuries which explains why its ruins are so impressive ...

... be seen just off the coast. A few more hours of skirting the Aegean Sea out the right side of the bus and we arrived in Bergama. Bergama was a welcome change from the hectic big city that is Istanbul. Once one of the Middle East's richest and most powerful small kingdoms, Bergama is now a very relaxed city of about 60,000 people. We stayed in a wonderful guesthouse with a wonderful owner and ...

After breakfast at the hotel the day will begin with the drive to Pergamum. The first visits of the day will be to Asklepion and Acropolis .