hiking | Around the World in 80 Trips (Or Less)

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Venice to Turkey 21

Day 21, Gallipoli, May 24

Breakfast and on the bus at 7:30 AM. Ground is wet so it must have rained last night. My favorite kind of rain, at night that you never see!

Beshiktash soccer team in Istanbul is our driver’s favorite Team and he has a model bus on the dashboard. We are in the city of Canakkale (pronounced kaan-a-kaal-E).

Our bus drives onto a ferry that will take us to the Gallipoli Peninsula, an Intercontinental ride. We have been in Asia and we are going back to Europe. We first learned about Gallipoli on our RTW 2020 in Wellington, New Zealand. It was a WWI battle to control the entrance to the Black Sea. We will now learn the Turkish version. Some interesting shots from the ferry ride.

The cemetery of Anzac is very moving with the engraving on the stones. We also visit ‘Toren Alani’, a more rustic cemetery where the headstones are just rounded and not carved.

Chunkbair area with monuments is also moving. Found two more Phillips on memorials. Found several on the one before.

Ataturk’un Gozetleme Yeri is a famous overlook that gave sightings to attacking forces.

Canakkale Bridge is about 3 miles long. Longest suspension bridge in the world. Connects Europe to Asia. Named 1915 Çanakkale Bridge in memory of the victory of Gallipoli for $30 B.

We drive on through Gelibolu Guney and Malkara where we even spot what appears to be a bride and groom heading off on their honeymoon!

Lunch is again at a roadside cafe. We walk in to see workers preparing foods just inside the doors. We have eggplant and meat dishes along with some spinach stuffed bread. As we sit down with our food, a fairly strong thunderstorm hits and we watch torrential rain soak everything outside. But by the time lunch is over, the storm has abated.

Back on the bus, we travel the last two hours to Istanbul. As we enter the city, we drive under an ancient aqueduct. No more explorations for us today. We arrive in Istanbul around 4:30 PM and debark the bus with everyone else. This tour is over. Oz does make sure we all have rides to our chosen hotels on a smaller coach.

This coach takes us to our hotels pair by pair with our travel friends. Yes, many of them are now friends, some of whom we will stay in touch with via social media and some via WhatsApp!

The coach comes to a point and stops. We are told it is only 4-5 blocks to our hotels. But which way and where? Luckily, the bus guide says he will take us. There are eight of us, six to one hotel and Elee and I to another. At one point, Elee and I are told to “wait here”, and we do. The guide takes the six downhill to their hotel and Elee and I wait for him in a place where we question where we are.

But, true to his word, he comes back for us and helps us find our hotel. Good thing he does as it turns out our hotel is in the back of a coffee shop. We would have never found it on our own.

We tip him and check in to the hotel. We are shown to the room and are disappointed. The bed, for example, has about 6-8 inches on each side to get into the bed. This will not do. We complain and are given a different room that is much more spacious. No windows, no air conditioning, but we take it. TV doesn’t work, but oh well, we’ll tough it out.

We relax for a bit, upload photos to a computer and head out in search of dinner. It turns out we are in Old Town and near the top of the hill. We can see the Tower from the front of our hotel and it’s only 50-75 meters away! It’s the tower we saw when we were here 8 days ago and didn’t get a chance to visit.

We walk up to the tower and the narrow tiny streets are filled with shops and restaurants. We look around and find a restaurant that serves lamb and get seats in the streetside tables so we can people watch. We have roast lamb and wine and enjoy the ambiance.

After dinner, we walk around the streets and shops watching the light of day wane and the lights of the city come on. We hear a lot of commotion in one area and it turns out there is a protest going on!

We come across a five story restaurant that has rooftop seating and we go up. We are lucky enough to find there is a fantastic view of the Tower from where we sit. So a glass of wine later, we wander back down to our hotel.

See you all tomorrow!

Venice to Turkey 17, Part 2

Day 17, Cappadocia after breakfast! May 20

We now visit Uchisar, a village of “stone churches” or “fairy castles”, where people still live. Remember we saw one of these from the hot air balloon this morning! The first thing I notice is the Police Station (Jandarma)!

There are moments of very light rain, not enough to get you wet, but enough to put spots in some of the photos! This place is fascinating! What a concept of house building! As a testament to the quality of the camera on my iPhone 17 Pro, the first photo here is a zoom in of the second photo!

A resident, Ismail, invites us in and gives us a complete tour throughout his house. Four generations have lived here. It is pretty spacious and comfortable looking. It’s amazing that the house looks totally livable! Ismail makes a living by selling trinkets and food in his own cafeteria and store built into his house! One room feels very warm and Elee comments on that. Ismail tells us that is because the fireplace is lit! Notice in the photos that Ismail has a terrace and even a built in ‘veranda’ overlooking the valley!

It is hard to describe the feeling as we marvel at the ingenuity of the Turkish people!

We spy a unique bike path and are told that Turkey chose ‘cornflower blue’ as its national aesthetic and functional color choice. The bright coloring helps combat cars parking or driving illegally in the bike lanes, and serves as a visual guide

Now we move on to the “Camel Hoodoos” and Fairy Castles or ‘towers’. Lots of fun rock formations in Cappadocia. We walk around until rain drives us back to the bus.

Rain sets in and are offered a downhill walk in the rain which I pass on and a stop for hot tea and coffee. I decline again but I’m sure the downhill hikers will enjoy. We do walk down to a unique set of shops with a couple of ‘Wishing Trees’ where you can tie on a ribbon for good luck!

We make another stop to check out a rug store but I decline to go in as I have seen Turkish rugs AND their prices!

We have a lunch stop at an all-you-can-eat buffet that turns out to be very good. We have determined that Turks can make a mean cup of soup!

We get to our hotel around 4:30 PM and dinner is at 7. I set my alarm and go to sleep for a couple hours. We get up for dinner and go back to the room for the night. A couple photos out of the room show our view.

See you all tomorrow!

Northern Lights Tour Day 07

Day 07, Feb 03, 2025, NL Village to Karasjok, Norway

We wake up at 6:30 AM and walk across the Village to get breakfast in the hotel. We board the bus at 8:30 AM. This will be our longest driving day so far, we will drive 5+ hours today and end up in Norway.

After an hour in the bus, we stop at the Sodankyla Old Church. It is -36C, or -33F. Yes, you read that right! Walking around outdoors, we pull up our Neck Gators and pull our hats down over our ears! We have icicles forming on our eyelashes! The old church and adjoining graveyard make interesting sights for our cameras, which surprisingly work!

Driving on for several hours we come to the SIIDA Sami Village. The museum is interesting showing the ancient Sami culture. There is an interesting kilometer long trail to hike that shows the animal traps used and buildings the culture used. It is still -36C and I start out without my Gator pulled up. By the time I pull it up, I have icicles in my beard! The clever yet primitive animal traps are intriguing to see. There is even a courthouse and jail where errant residents were punished!

Moving on, we stop at a set of stores for sundries. It is interesting that in this part of the world, grocery stores cannot sell alcoholic beverages higher than 8% ABV (Alcohol By Volume). For reference, wine is normally 12-14% so wine is watered down here. There are separate stores for the good stuff and these are harder to find. But Mikael and Viktor find the “Alko” stores where the good stuff is found and a bottle of wine is purchased for the room.

The bus drives on through the night and the dusky view is eerie. We come to a sign announcing Norway and the bus pulls over. We all get out and Mikael pours shots of good Russian Vodka. We all drink to Norway!

Shortly ahead we make the actual crossing into Norway and arrive at our hotel, Scandic Karasjohka, for the night. It is snowing fairly heavily. We have 1.5 hours till dinner and settle into our room.

Temperature today stays around -30C to-36C. It feels good to be inside and get out of all the layers of clothing. Dinner comes with the Tour today and we are glad not to have to walk into town in this temperature! After dinner, we settle down for the night.

Northern Lights Tour Day 06

Day 06, Feb 02, 2025, Rovaniemi to NL Village

Leaving Rovaniemi, Viktor drives the bus further north. At 11:00 AM, the sun is barely above the horizon. It won’t go very high in the sky today. The scenery driving along the roads today through the snow covered trees is beautiful. But it is cold, very cold! Brrrrrr!

We stop at an old church to please our cameras. They shiver with us but they function which is a bit surprising!

We arrive at a dogsled camp around 2 PM and gear up (again) in snowmobile suits. It has warmed up to only minus 25C! It’s a heat wave! We are given a briefing as to how to drive a dogsled (and how to ride in one!). Each couple is assigned to a dog team. First, Elee drives and I ride. Elee falls off immediately! Not a good start! But the Guides get her back up and she gets the hang of it quickly. I refrain from even chuckling as I know my time is coming and who knows how well I’ll do! Half way through, we switch and I drive back. This next set of photos was taken by Mikael, our Guide!

Driving a dogsled team is quite the exhilarating experience! There is no steering controls on a dogsled. The dogs want to run and they want to run where ever they wish! Luckily for us, they decide to follow the other sled teams, for the most part! There is a rubber pad between the rails that you can step on to slow the dogs down. There is also a hard brake bar that you can step on to finally stop them! The first time I lift a leg to put my foot on the brake pad, I fear I will suffer the same fate as Elee! But I manage to hold on and slow the team down. On uphill runs, it is sometimes necessary to push off with a foot to give the dogs to impetus they need to run.

Once the dogs return us to camp, my fingers and especially my thumbs, are numb to the bone! We all huddle inside the Guides hut around a fire where I manage to painfully warm them up! Then it is off to our lodge, Northern Lights Village. Tonight we eat Moose for dinner and sleep in a glass roof cabin.

The cabin is fun for the most part. It is very warm inside and it turns out that even the floors are heated! The bed is positioned directly under the glass roof. There is a digital fireplace at the foot of the bed for ambiance. We fall asleep looking up at a partly cloudy sky, some stars and tall pine trees! In the middle of the night the sky has cleared and I get some fun photos. It is very comfortable to sit on the heated floor with the camera on a tripod! But alas, the Northern Lights do not come out. A shooting star does show in one photo though!