Sunday, April 28 (continued)

We parted ways from Susan and Court at that point, since they were returning to Myanmar. We arrived at our assigned gate at boarding time, only to discover that the gate had been changed to a different concourse. So we rushed to that gate, only to be kept waiting before they would allow the bus to the airplane to be loaded.

We arrived in Tel Aviv, came through customs and acquired checked luggage pretty efficiently. First order of business was to acquire our rental car from Sixt, which was one floor up from international arrivals, which is on the ground floor. Besides the car and coverages, we rented a GPS like we had in Turkey. We were told, “There are two drivers in the garage who will show you your car and help set up the GPS.”

Then we decided to get SIM cards for our unlocked phones at the airport. Initially I had heard that we could get SIMs from the Post Office on the fourth floor, but was waved off by an information officer. We should have pursued it because she sent us to the ground floor again to a place which I have to say gave us a terrible deal. I ended up renting a SIM with one hour of call time and unlimited internet for something like $80 US. The big deal for us though was to get some call minutes because we needed to call up the apartment rental agency to come unlock our home for the week.  So I feel like I got ripped off because I really had to have that working SIM card before leaving the airport.

Later the next day, Deb would get an Orange SIM card with 1GB of data and no call minutes for about $35. Orange is a cell carrier popular in Europe. Advice to the international traveler: get your SIM card in town or at the Post Office in the airport, which likely is a better deal.

Here’s how it worked for Deb: We went to an Orange storefront in a mall in Tel Aviv which could sell us a SIM card with no credit on it for $10. The clerk makes sure the SIM card works in your phone and can receive calls. (In Israel, incoming calls and texts are free). Then you go to a kiosk (like a tobacco store) and request Orange credit for whatever you want – data, calls, etc. 1GB of data for one month cost about $15. If you run out of minutes or bytes, you can get more credit at a kiosk.

Once I had my incredibly overpriced rental SIM card, we found the Sixt garage area. But where was the attendant to find us our car? Finally he arrived, and unlike what we were told, had no idea how to set up the GPS. Now that we had a working phone and were sitting in the car, we called the number of the apartment rental agency, TLV2GO. But, no answer! There was a phone menu, but no idea how to get ahold of a real person. Multiple calls, trying every option, yielded no result. Without any other ideas, we started driving towards Tel Aviv. We were incredibly frustrated, but at least we had the address of our apartment, which we entered into the GPS.

Since we had unlimited data, I tethered my phone to Deb’s computer while we drove to the apartment in Tel  Aviv so she could look up her email from the rental agency and possibly send them an email. She sent off the email and then tried calling them again, and this time they picked up the phone. It’s as if we had to email them before they would answer their phone!

Following the GPS, we got off the Aylon Freeway and started into town. At about this time, our GPS started acting really strangely, changing directions spontaneously, taking us down minor roads. At one point, it sent us down a trash-strewn alley through open car repair garage lots. Shades of Jane, our errant GPS in Turkey!  Finally we abandoned the rental company GPS and switched to our phone, which seemed to get us to the apartment.

The next hurdle once we found 76 Bograshov was to figure out where to park! I dropped Deb off at the address and started hunting for a spot. Parking on the street in Tel Aviv is quite a challenge. Often you find people parking on the sidewalk if they can. Blue and white striped curbs require a permit to park and is for residents only, and they will tow your car if you park without a permit. I found a spot around the corner from our apartment and hoofed it back to the place where I hoped to find Deb.

Then we were let into the apartment by a young man from TLV2GO.  Deb paid for the place and the chap from TLV2GO was ready to give us the paperwork, when she noticed that the name on the receipt was wrong. In fact, the guy from TLV2GO had not only let us into the wrong apartment, he had brought the wrong keys and paperwork. He could let us into the proper apartment, which was next door, but we overpaid by $300. So he canceled the Visa payment and re-ran it. He also didn’t have information about area parking, but he did tell us it was a bad idea to park on the street. Fortunately there was a parking structure across the street associated with the Dizengoff Center shopping area. So I parked up about four floors and hiked back down to the apartment with the bags.

But what about keys to our apartment? The TLV2GO rep told us he would be back in about 10 minutes. After more than an hour and a half, we again called the agency and told them our plight. He promised that we would get our keys for sure. I think we were stranded there for at least three hours.

The apartment was functional though, with no washer-dryer and parking, but it had reasonable internet. The kitchen had a small fridge and a kettle and a single gas flame and a tiny microwave. This was enough really for what we needed. The rep also left us a bottle of cava and a bar of chocolate as a welcome gift.

Finally with keys and a place for our car and our stuff, we explored the area. Our first order of business was to get supplies for our apartment like coffee, fruit, yogurt and the like.

Bograshov runs from the main drag west to the ocean. It’s really hipster heaven – we felt like we were some of the oldest folks staying there, but there were a number of families with little kids walking around. The street was a string of retro hair and nail shops, old clothing and restaurants. Food included Mexican, Thai, two sushi places, a burger joint and a hipster bar. All of this with only a 10 minute walk to the beach. I’m glad we stayed there, it was more fun than a really stuffy place. And our apartment was usually home to a lot of cats. One time we counted five different cats waiting outside our apartment.

If you travel to Turkey and you want to spend some time outside of Istanbul (which you should), try to avoid Pegasus Air. If you can.

Our trip in April of 2013 was roughly a week in Istanbul, and then roughly a week-long drive from Izmir to Goreme in Cappadocia. I highly recommend that you take the extra time to see some of the amazing UNESCO World Heritage sites around the country. They are quite accessible by car.

But unless you want to take extra days driving or taking the trains into and out of Istanbul, you will likely want to fly one of the regional airlines to save some money.

Pegasus Air is a Turkish regional, and is generally the low price option. But if you can, you might want to try a higher-priced option. Their flights are cheap because they charge extra for nearly everything – food, drinks – and restricted us from carrying on our luggage so we had to check it.

The four of us made two separate journeys with them – one from Istanbul to Izmir and another from Kayseri (in Cappadocia) to Istanbul. On both flights, we had some serious issues with checked baggage and the airline seemed pretty unsympathetic to make things right.

• On the first flight, the security at the Istanbul airport would not allow my brother-in-law (Court) to carry his umbrella on to the airplane and forced him to check it. When we arrived in Izmir, the handle had been snapped off, leaving a very sharp point, and making the umbrella pretty much useless.
• On this same flight, my sister (Susan) checked a roll aboard type suitcase. The suitcase came back seriously abraded, like it had been dragged under a pile of heavier objects along the tarmac. She had checked this bag for years in flights all over Asia and the US and never seen this kind of damage before.
• On the flight from Kayseri to Istanbul, my sister again had to check her bag and when she received it, the stuff inside was soaking wet. Even though it was not raining that day, it looked like the bag had been left soaking in water for quite some time. (Hopefully it was only water, thankfully it didn’t smell worse).

Of course, had the airline staff been the least bit sympathetic or had the smallest intent to make things right, we would probably have been fine with this. After all, mistakes happen. People have bad days. But the ground staff at both airports simply showed us a form which indicated that they had no liability. After returning home we checked the airline’s web site and were only offered forms to fill out to document the damage and loss and make a claim.

I have long had the policy to avoid checking luggage if at all possible for just such stories of mishandling, theft, lost baggage and the like. But when an airline is trying to save so much money that they force you to check your stuff, you have no choice.

I will say that Pegasus is trying to be “cute” – their safety video is the funniest we have seen of any airline – but this doesn’t create a positive experience if you fail on the most basic values of service.

Friday, April 26

As Friday is the Muslim day of prayer, we actually didn’t have a lot planned for today. We visited the El Nazar church, another rock church quite close to Goreme, in fact it was closer than the Open Air Museum. It was built inside a single hollowed-out rock and was quite old.

After this, we went into Urgup to do some shopping (Debbie and Susan), walking (Court) and wine tasting (me). We met up at lunch time and ate a simple schwarma sandwich on the street corner. After this, Susan did more hiking, Deb walked all around the town of Goreme, I went for a run and we got back together again before dinner. Both Deb and I had actually found the Seten Restaurant – the lost place! So we ate there and we loved it. It was a more expensive dinner, but it was very special since we celebrated Susan and Court’s 10 year anniversary.

Saturday, April 27

Taking off from Kayseri, Turkey on Pegasus Airlines

This was mostly a travel day back to Istanbul. We awoke early, ate a quick breakfast, and then cleared out of the hotel by 7:30AM. We had a one hour drive to Kayseri to return our rental car. Then a 1.5 hour flight to Istanbul’s smaller, domestic airport. Finally a torturous 2.5 hour drive from the domestic airport back our our hotel, the Side, in Sultanameht. The drive hit a massive traffic jam, complete with salespeople passing out drinks and simits on the road to stopped cars. This so drained us, that our planned last afternoon in Istanbul turned out to be fairly limited.

We did work on things like shopping for some meds for Court to use in airplane emergencies and hanging out and talking. At the end of the day, we ate at a place with a pretty terrific view of the city, although they seemed pretty maxed out with a tour group there and the service was pretty poor.

Sunday, April 28

Our final morning in Istanbul, we had breakfast at the Side and climbed in a car we had reserved for the trip to Ataturk airport. The problem was that a nation multi-stage bike race was finishing in Istanbul on the same day. This tournament had a stage in Izmir, which forced us to restructure our time in Turkey to hit Izmir earlier in our trip rather than later.  But instead of missing the race, it had caught up with us again back in Istanbul.  When we got into the Side, we were pretty sure that some dignitaries or celebrities associated with the race were staying next door in the Four Seasons hotel because of the large number of dark suited men hanging out in front.

The start time for the last stage of the race was 12:40, and our car was set to meet us at 9:00AM. Would we make it out in spite of closed roads? The other complication was that the insanely narrow streets in that part of Istanbul meant that a large load of tour buses overloaded the whole section of town. Fortunately, the driver was only 10 minutes late picking us up and we made it to the airport in plenty of time for our flights.

Thursday, April 25

This was the day we planned on a loop tour through a number of the sites north and east of Goreme. We started in the little town of Urgup. This is another cute little village amongst the rocks with little cave hotels. although I was glad we were staying in Goreme.

Part of Zelve Open Air Museum

Then we stopped in what is called the Imagination Valley. This is because the rock formations are evocative of all kinds of things. It’s like you are seeing animals and shapes in the clouds. This was fun clambering around the rocks.

Then we visited the Zelve Open Air Museum. This was another cave city which was occupied for years by Christian hermits and later abandoned. Then when Attaturk declared the state of Turkey, he force moved Turkish Greeks back to Greece and Greek Turks back to Turkey. These new immigrants were Muslims, and were forced to occupy this cave city until the 1950s. Evidence of their stay include a rock Mosque.

Really expensive lunch

Our lunch bill

In the parking lot of the Zelve ruins, we ran into a Turkish man who chatted with us a little and recommended a place to have lunch in Avanos. The place was called Dayinin Yeri, and he drew a map for us. It was just on the end of a major bridge in town, so if was fairly easy to find. This place was another good Turkish lunch place, and we really loved the staff there. For example when Court asked if they had a restroom, they pointed across to the other end of the bridge until they broke out laughing. When we asked for the bill, we were served with a bill for $1,000,000. When Court pulled out a tooth pick from the dispenser, all of the toothpicks came popping out, because they were all connected. Somewhat low humor, but fun nevertheless.

Kunefe

The kunefe is the must-have desert, strands of cooked batter over creamy sweet cheese base, baked in syrup and covered with pistachios. Yum.

After lunch, we drove on to the next stop in our loop tour: Pasabagi. This was where another hermit named Simon came to live in seclusion. Again, cave homes and churches, but the most prominent rock formation is a fairy chimney with three tops.

Pasabagi

The next stop in the loop is Cavusin. The cave church here is very old and worth the long climb up to see its terrific paintings. Further in to town, there is a cliffside full of contemporary dwellings in the caves.

Cauvisin church painting

The final stop on loop day was a return to Ugisar, where we first spied the castle-like rock, which was actually used as a castle. You can climb to the top of this rock and get a terrific view of the entire loop that we took.

Then we dropped back into Goreme, crossed the city and drove up to a ridge above the city for a terrific sunset view and a beer. The road was pretty scary, as many of them were, but the sunset was outstanding. For efficiency, we had dinner again cooked by mama back at the hotel.

Then Ahmet dropped us at the bus station for a ride out to see a whirling Dervish ceremony.

The ceremony was held at an ancient caravansari, a kind of way station in the desert where caravans would stop for trading, rest and refueling.

The Dervish ceremony, called a sema, was dark, solemn and mystical. There was a brochure explaining the various parts of the ceremony but there were still parts which were not fully explained. The six dervishes and their leader begin with a silent bowing greeting, then the dancers shed their black cloaks then move into a series of whirling sequence s in their white robes while the black-garbed leader observed them. Each sequence has some meaning in the progression of a devotee moving into a higher state of perfection. In the final whirling sequence, the leader holds open his black cloak to reveal his own white garment underneath. Then after more greetings, all of the participants file out.

After the one-hour event, we were ushered out of that room and into the courtyard of the caravansari, where the wall was taken over by a vast, wordless, computer graphics animated movie about Turkish culture in Cappadocia with an ear-splitting soundtrack.

Deb and David in Cappadocia

Wednesday, April 24

Our first full day in Cappadocia started with the roar of hot air balloons above the hotel. There were dozens of balloons cruising over town and across the valleys. It seemed crazy – like a hot air balloon rally.

Typical morning breakfast, shared by Susan Stewart

Breakfast at the hotel was similar to all of our breakfasts in Turkey – sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, cheeses and breads. This time we had a dish of mixed fries and tomatoes, and fried rolls of bread and cheese and cherry preserve and honey. The bread rolls were really terrific – crispy crust with soft crumb – awesome.

Nunnery at the Goreme Open Air Museum

After breakfast, we walked to the Goreme Open Air Museum. This is a cave monastery where Christians escaped the world. Unlike the underground city of Derinkuyu, these were Christians who wanted to escape the church which they felt had become corrupt and live more simply. These cave cities include homes and churches with amazing wall paintings. The frescoes were vivid portraits from the life of Christ and other stories from the Bible. Sadly, most of the figures had their eyes scratched out, because there is superstition in Turkey about the “evil eye”.

After climbing around the cave town, we stopped in a nearby restaurant and had lunch. Then we hiked up the road behind the Open Air Museum towards the next town. There was another cave church that we climbed through, and then climbed through the valley back to Goreme.

At this point, we decided to check out the only ham am or Turkish Bath in town. This included a change out of street clothes into a pair of shorts and sandals they provide. Then our faces were painted with a mask, some kind of grey stuff. Then a sit in a sauna, and then you are led into the hamam itself. Here you sit and are doused with warm water and told to wash, then you lie down and the skin is scraped off. Then you are rinsed off and then lie down again on the warm marble slab and soaped and massaged. Finally another warm rinse off and a soak in a jacuzzi. Afterwards, you are toweled off and recline with a cup of apple tea.  Unfortunately, Deb and Susan didn’t have as good an experience on their side, since there was a massive Belgian tour group coming through which dominated the facility and overwhelmed it.

For dinner, we decided to track down a restaurant called the Seten Restaurant which had been highly rated in our Lonely Planet Guide Book. Unfortunately we misread the map and didn’t find it. Instead we stopped at a “Local Restaurant” (that was the name of it) and had a fairly disappointing dinner, with us being the only patrons. Chalk that one up to a lesson.

There are many more amazing photos of this outlandish geography in this Flickr set

Underground city

Tuesday, April 23 (continued)

Our drive to Cappadocia had a couple of really interesting twists. We had rented a GPS-based satnav for the rental car. It led us successfully to the little town of Derinkuyu, where there is an underground city. This city was built by ancient Christians in the first few centuries of the modern area escaping persecutions. This city actually had 10,000 people who would go below-ground with their animals and hide successfully from persecuting forces. The surviving city didn’t have any furnishings remaining because the residents took their belongings with them when they departed the city. The city has 8 levels which wind down into the dark. There are tight staircases cut into the rock, with millstones set up to block the entrance in the event of invasion. The feel is like a massive human-sized ant hill. Really amazing.

Unfortunately, finding the cave city was a bit of a challenge. Our GPS was able to locate the modern above-ground village. But how do you find an underground city? Nothing pokes above ground to spot!

Finally above-ground, we started off for our goal of Goreme. But our GPS, who we named Jane, decided to take us for a merry chase. One of the turns ended up being a minor side road between villages, and then led up the side of a hill. Although the road must have been in Jane’s database, it was mostly just a pair of tire tracks through the fields. At one point, we could see drop offs on both sides of the car with no guard rails. We encountered a turtle in the road at one point. At some point, we spotted what looked like a more legitimate road in the distance and decided to disobey Jane and head for the road by dead reckoning. This got Jane back on the right track, but we still were led through the side streets of the small town of Uchisar, where there is a massive castle-like rock, our first exposure to the amazing rock formations of Cappadocia. We then wound past fancy hotels in Uchisar which hang off of the hill of the town.

Finally we came over a rise and got out first view of Goreme. We were pretty much blown away by the delicate “fairy chimney” rock formations, many of which have been hollowed out and turned into hotels in Goreme. We came into town without a clear idea of how to get to our hotel, so when we got into the center of town we asked at a market for directions. Fortunately, finding the Goreme Valley Cave House was quite easy, unlike several other places we tried to find in town.

The hotel is fairly new as a hotel – only open for about a month when we stayed there. But the building used to be the house of the family which run the hotel. This family has run a market shop for many years, and decided that the house really wasn’t being used. So they worked for months to renovate the house for use as a hotel. In the cave rooms, this meant tapping away at the walls of the rooms to remove the darkened stone and make it white again.

Cave Hotel room

The cave rooms didn’t seem to be built in an actual cave, but were built of cave material and might actually have been built into a cave. The floors were covered by Turkish carpets, and the rooms decorated with pictures and artwork from the local region.

Our host at the hotel was Ahmet, son of the family. He had excellent English skills, was very willing to help us, and was terrific. The mom of the family wins the local cooking contest and we agreed to have dinner at the hotel on that first night. We had a terrific vegetarian dinner, with salads, main dish and desert.

After settling in our dead-silent, cozy, wifi-enabled rooms, we slept very well.

There are more Cappadocia photos in this Flickr set

Egirdir, Turkey

Monday, April 22

The next morning, we started for Konya. But we decided to drive through the Lake District rather than take the coast road. Most of the morning was spent in rolling country roads, a very nice drive. At some point, we were in a natural “park” between hills, and Susan said “this looks like South Park,” which had occurred to me as well. By mid morning, we drove into Isparta, which immediately reminded us of Boulder, Colorado. Partly this was due to the setting against high mountains and the residential high rises which looked like the high rise dorms at the University of Colorado. We decided to make a coffee stop, and had noticed signs for several miles for a place called “Kippa Extra.” This turned out to be a really huge “big box” store like Fred Meyer or Wallmart, brand new, playing American pop music on the sound system, totally empty. I bought some extra socks to wear with my shorts, and we got various items before we took off.

About an hour later, we arrived at Lake Egirdir in dramatic fashion. The road crests a rise and then you are presented with the panorama of this vast lake. The little of town of Egirdir (pronounced like “Err-dir”) sits on the lake with a narrow strip of land out to a little island. We lunched in the main town and then walked out to the island to have desert and coffee before getting on the road again.

The drive to Konya would take us looping around Lake Egirdir and another vast lake and over some pretty good roads. Konya itself is quite religiously conservative. It is the place where the Sufi mystic Rumi is burried in an elaborate tomb, in the Melvana Museum, about a block from Hotel Rumi, where we stayed. We got a reasonable rate at the Hotel Rumi, but the entire place smelled like smoke, and was really a problem for my sister who has an asthma issue. That night, we had dinner in a restaurant just a block from the hotel, a place which we thought might have a whirling Dervish ceremony. Unfortunately, no whirling, but we had a very nice dinner anyway. No alcohol, there really are no venues which serve any kind of booze. But reportedly the city has a pretty bad alcohol abuse problem.

Mevlana Museum, where Rumi is burried

Tuesday, April 23

The Melvana Museum is probably the most interesting thing to see in Konya. We walked through a number of small cells, where various parts of the Dervish life is described, including the three days of silence that a novice must practice before being accepted into training, then 1000 days of training before being accepted as a Dervish, which is then followed by a solitary retreat in a cell for many days. Also in the museum is a former mosque, which contains the tombs of Rumi and a number of his family members and followers. The tombs were like mammoth mounds of white stone capped by a stone which looks like a Dervish hat and a scarf. Also in this building is a Koran reading room and a box which contains some of the hairs of Mohammed’s beard. There are holes in the box where you can sniff the air coming from them, which is supposed to smell like cinnamon.

Alaaddin Mosque

On our way out of Konya, we also visited the Alaaddin Mosque, which was really talked up by Lonely Planet because of its tile work and history. We could have probably given it a miss.

For more photos from Konya and Egirdir, check out this Flickr set

On the 21st we bid farewell to Selcuk, the little town where we had spent three days and drove out to Pamukkale.  This drive took us up a large and fertile valley between two very dramatic mountain ranges. It was tempting to think of JRR Tolkien locating his Lord of the Rings trilogy in this landscape, given the forests, mountains and fields of the land.

Pamukkale is the home of dramatic travertine terraces, like a limestone or calcium waterfall which is visible from many miles away like a lighthouse. It was well known by the ancients as a source for warm mineral water and like the town of Bath, England, Romans would come from far and wide to “take the waters” for their diseases. The ancient city of Hieropolis has been partially restored on the cliff above the valley. Because the ruins of Hieropolis are so extensive, it finally gives a full scale and scope of a large ancient city. Ruins like Ephesus and the like don’t really seem that big. I surmise that this is because the bulk of these cities were not built of stone and thus are lost to the ravages of time. A larger area of Hieropolis was made of stone, and is spread over about a two kilometer long cutout in the cliff.

Part of the vast necropolis, city of the dead

One of the entrances to Pamukkale / Hieropolis is close to the vast necropolis or cemetery – evidence that sick people who came to be cured by the waters died there in large numbers as well. Row after row of mausoleums and burial sites show that these dead folks had some money.

Pamukkale had a very large theater which had an orchestra / stage area which was modified to be flooded as a pool, so naval adventures could be recreated for the audience. There was also a large temple where Pluto was worshipped. One of the springs would spew poison gas, and the local priests would call this the “plutonium” and demonstrate the deadly properties by tossing in birds and small animals and watching them die.

You can swim in the mineral waters as well. There is a pool / spa located in the park which will charge you to swim amongst the ancient columns and for a towel as well if you don’t have one of your own. This combined with the entrance fee for non-Turks and it can make for an expensive swim for foreigners.

Probably the most dramatic part of a visit to Pamukkale is the travertine terraces. You are allowed to walk on the terraces if you take your shoes off. The experience is like nothing else. Imagine walking on a frozen waterfall surface with pools of light blue water and a stream cascading down the hill. But the water is warmish and you are barefoot in the stream and the pools. The surface shows tiny ripples that are like the bigger terrace pools. Towards the top of the falls, the “snow” was fairly dirty looking. Since this became a UN world heritage site, they periodically reroute the water and allow the sun to bleach the terraces white again. As you walk along there are pebbles and rocks to walk on, so those with tender feet will experience some pain.

Walking on the calcium terraces

From the entrance next to the necropolis, you can walk all the way through Hieropolis, then down the waterfall to the little town of Pammukale. If you do this with your own car, it makes for a long walk back up the terraces and another two kilometers back to your car. I offered to let the rest of my companions walk down the tavertines while I did a little run back to our car. Then I drove down to the bottom of the hill to wait for them. When I met them at the bottom, they insisted that I should walk up the travertine to experience it for myself. Unfortunately this meant paying the entrance fee of 20TL (about US$10) a second time. Interesting that Turkish citizens were allowed to enter the site for free without buying a ticket. I guess it costs to be a foreign tourist.

While we were still at the top of the hill in Hieropolis, we decided it was getting a bit too late to drive further on our trip, so we should find a place in Pamukkale. Consulting our Lonely Planet guidebook, we were advised that their top choice was the Melrose House hotel. They were listed as having a swimming pool, which was a draw since the hot springs pool in Hieropolis was pretty expensive to swim in. We tried calling them (got a recorded message) and reserving two rooms on their website (no response). So we were not sure if we could get in there.

So while I was walking on the tavertines, Susan and Deb walked down to the Melrose House  and checked to see if there were two double rooms available for us, while Court waited for me in the car. After I arrived back from my walk on the tavertines, Court and I drove down to the hotel.  I was able to message Deb on Facebook (we didn’t get any call or texting on our SIM cards), and she said our rooms would be … interesting.

Circular bed at the Melrose House

Once we got to the Melrose House, Court and I learned that our rooms both had circular beds! Quite a surprise, but the rooms were very nice, with a make-up mirror and coffee service in the room. We learned from Lonely Planet that they served a good dinner there, so we ate dinner as well as breakfast the next morning. The staff there were very friendly and helpful – good job, Lonely Planet!

You can see more photos from Pamukkale and Hieropolis at this Flickr set

Saturday, April 20

Olives for sale, Selcuk Market

On this day, we attempted to visit three more ancient sites which are more-or-less in the same area as Ephesus, a so-called “PMD” Tour, nicknamed after the names of the cities. We managed to succeed not only to visit all of these old cities but also to add a couple of additional sites.

We waffled between doing this long day of driving and seeing more “piles of rocks”, or driving early to Kusadasi on the coast and hopping on a ferry to the Greek island of Samos. We finally decided that it would be a little too expensive to do the one day island hop, although this would be a fine option fo a future visit.

But first, we visited the Selcuk market, because Saturday is a market day in town.

Temple of Athena

Temple of Athena – Before leaving Selcuk, we decided we needed to stop by the site of the ancient Temple of Athena, which had been the pride and joy of the city of Ephesus.

Unfortunately, there is very little remaining of the temple, since it has been submerged in a lake. All that is left is a single column.

Didymus: Watch where you step at these ancient sites

Didymus – this is the site of an ancient temple where an oracle once lived. Here the oracle would drink from the sacred spring at the center of the temple complex before declaring their future visions. The temple has a few columns standing, and is fairly well contained. But like most of the ruins we saw in Turkey had not been much reconstructed.

Miletus – An ancient city connected to Didymus by a processional road. This is a vast ruined city which starts with a very impressive theater. The town used to boast three great harbors and was a tremendous power in the region before it was conquered by Persians and Alexander the Great. Then the harbors silted up and the city was abandoned.

The river which silted up was the Meander River. Sounds like it lived up to its name! This is the same fate which caused Ephesus to be abandoned as well, since its famous harbor has been silted up as well. Amazing to think these towns were seaports, since they are many miles from the ocean now.

The ruin of Miletus is spread over a fairly extensive area and includes a large bath house and agora. The bath house has a restored cold pool (frigidarium) and furnace rooms. The site is pretty much submerged now into a swampy glade, dominated by mosquitos and extremely loud frogs.

Priene – Although it was a smaller city and less important than Miletus, there is more of Priene remaining today than Miletus. Partly this is due to its position half way up a cliff face. There is a well-preserved theater with an altar to the god of the theater and reserved seating (thrones). The temple to Apollo had a killer view over the valley and must have been an impressive building in its day. Unfortunately it is mostly just a jumble of column parts with a few reconstructed columns in place for reference.

One of Priene’s claims to fame was that Alexander the Great lived here while he was working on conquering Miletus.

Unlike the other sites today, this one was a bit of a climb in the car and then a hike up to the site itself, but it’s worth the effort.

Sirence

Sirence – When we returned to Selcuk it was about dinner time, so we took some advice from our hotel owner and diverted 7 kilometers to the little town of Sirence. This is a greek-flavored village with charming back streets, pensions, restaurants and a small town square / market. Clearly marketed to tourists, it was still alluring to wander along the cobbled lanes petting the sleepy cats and smelling the fire smoke from the inns. We read that just last December, Sirence got very popular with tourists who came there to escape the 2012 Mayan Apocalypse that didn’t happen, because the town was reportedly a zone of peacefulness. I took a photo of the town with my smart phone and was surprised that Google Goggles automatically matched the photo with an earlier one shot in 2007 by someone else on the internet.

We ate dinner in a family’s small two-table restaurant at the advice of a shopkeeper in town, and then wound our way back to Selcuk. That was in itself an adventure because the road downhill was different than the road uphill, and it looked like we might not be anywhere close to civilization, until we dropped into the upper reaches of Selcuk.

Donnar Kebab (known as Shwarma in Israel) was quite common

Once we find food that we like, it is quite normal for us to stick with a few items we’re familiar with. My vegetarian brother-in-law would usually order “Choban Salad”, also called “Shepherd’s Salad”, a mixed salad of tomato, cucumber, onion, green peppers, and parsley. We would also usually order a mixed Mezze, which was a sampling of cold dishes such as hummus, cucumber in yogurt, dolma (grape leaves wrapping up rice), eggplant salad and the like.

Wine is grown in Turkey, particularly in the Cappadocia region where we visited. In visiting wine shops and eating in restaurants, we encountered a number of grape varieties that we were totally unfamiliar with: Narince, emir, kalecik karasi, bogazkere, uchisar, avanos, begaz. The most common varietals were Öküzgözü and
Boğazkere, although we found that these were better blended together rather than straight.

As for treats, there were a couple of options. The markets had Turkish Delight of many varieties and forms. But my favorite indulgence was Turkish Coffee. This style of coffee making has a really thick and strong cup of espresso, sweetened and swimming with coffee grounds. Often it was served with a cookie or a sliver of chocolate. Most of the coffee we got in hotels and pensions was instant.

Turkish Coffee

The markets we encountered in many cities were usually chock full of veggies, spices, peppers and all manner of raw materials. At some points, we were regretting a little not staying in an apartment where we could cook something up, since the options were many and very fresh.