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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!

Venice to Turkey 17, Part 1

Day 17, Kapadokya, May 20, Before Breakfast!

Today we get up at 3:45 AM. Yes, you heard that right! We are on a bus at 4:15 AM! Happily even! The bus drives for about 30 minutes. At about 5 AM, we arrive to see hot air balloons inflating. We are awake and happy because we are going up today! Within 15 more minutes, we’re in a balloon basket with 27 others plus 2 pilots.

Soon we are aloft and soaring over and through hills, valleys and hoodoos. Absolutely beautiful and magical! Another Bucket List Item checked off! Hot Air Balloons over Cappadocia, or the way they spell it in Turkey, Kapadokya! If you pronounce it the way Turkey spells it, you will pronounce it correctly!

The ride lasts an hour and we watch sunrise from the balloon. There are a total of 156 balloons in the air this morning. All of them ascend and descend through the hills and valleys of Cappadocia.

Our pilots even have a selfie video recording us. We all gladly get together and purchase the set of videos that they record!

This is a different experience than other hot air balloons we have been in. The pilots guide us up AND down through the hills, hoodoos and ‘Fairy Castles’ of the area and so do all the other balloons!

We even spot a house built into the rocks, more on that later!

Sunrise is beautiful from the air! This is surely a unique area of the world!

We are told that a lot of hot air balloon pilots from around the world come here to train. And it becomes evidently true as at the end of the flight, our chase truck is parked right where we land and, amazingly, we land right on the trailer!

Then, as the balloon deflates, the pilots hold a champagne party where they mix champagne with pomegranate juice.

Then it’s back to the hotel for breakfast. Yes, I said breakfast! We feel like we’ve been touring all day and we have only got to breakfast! A very good Turkish breakfast, I might add! Then we relax in the room for half an hour and it’s time to board the bus for the rest of the day’s tour!

But I will leave that for the next post….

Venice to Turkey 16

Day 16, Ankara, May 19

Breakfast in the Palace hotel was very good! They redeemed themselves from last night. All kinds of traditional Turkish dishes, olives, cheeses, spreads and breads!

We are in the capital of Turkey, Ankara. It’s the anniversary of Turkey’s founding in 1919 after being freed from the Ottoman Empire after WWI. The weather is quite cool here at 14C. Oz is giving us historical info on the city. Flags and banners are everywhere along with photos of the founder of Turkey and the current president.

We drive to a castle. We visit the Avrupada Zilin museum here. A travel friend poses with a statue! We see artifacts from well before 1000 BC. Amazing uses of metal, stone and colors.

Now it’s back on the bus and we entertain our cameras with sights of the architecture. We learn that the Ottoman Empire failed because they stopped progressing. Europeans developed better technology and better armies.

Next stop is the Mausoleum of Mustafa Kimal Ataturk (Father of the Turks). The mausoleum is interesting and we walk through. Cameras afre totally welcome! There are views of the city from one end. Inside and out there are very lifelike statues of guards on pedestals. Hey wait! That one moved! It turns out the ‘statues’ are live guards! We must be at the Pageant of the Masters! Not! As we are leaving, we are interrupted by the Changing of the Guard where those ‘statues’ come to life! Fun ceremony to watch. Then we are back on the bus.

We now drive for one and a half hours through the farmlands of Golbasi. I’m not sure I thought of Turkey as fertile and beautiful, but here we are!

We drive through Central Anatolya in the middle of Turkey. We see what turns out to be a ‘Salt Lake’ in the distance. Soon we make a roadside stop for lunch and to comply with Turkish law for bus drivers at “Tuz Golu”, the Salt Lake. Food was poor and barely even warm. The health department back home would have a field day with Turkish roadside restaurants.

We know Turkey has good food, sadly, just not where our tour is taking us. The ice cream stand at Tuz Golu at least had good ice cream! This part of Turkey is also known as Asia Minor.

We stop at the entrance to “Saratli”, the Underground City and vendors assault our senses with colorful displays of goods. We walk through them and enter the underground caves. Narrow tunnels with steep up and down steps that are very uneven.

We only spend less than a half hour in the caves but it is enough to experience them. We stop in the local gift shop and look around. We see a sign advertising Natural Wine and we inquire. When the lady finally understands us, she shouts, “Shaddup” or something like that. It almost sounds like she is saying, Shut Up”, only very fast. We taste what she gives us, pouring it from a refilled water bottle, a pinkish liquid, and it tastes like a crude honey mead or grappa. We decline purchasing any. Then we walk back through the vendors and board the bus.

We drive next to ‘New City’, Kapadokya around 4 PM. We know it as Cappadocia, pronounced more like the Turkish spelling! It’s symbol is Fairy Chimneys in front of Tulips and Horses. We arrive at the Avrasya Hotel and are in our room before 6. Part of our group signs up to go four wheeling in the local area but having spent decades as an off road photographer, the allure of that is over. We will take a walk and check out the neighborhood. There are a few stores in the area but no restaurants.

So we eat at the hotel and we are pleasantly surprised as they have a buffet of delicious authentic Turkish food! There is even a full bar in the hotel so we get a glass of wine with dinner. The wine is even a new grape I’ve never tasted and it stands up to the taste test!

Tomorrow will be an early morning so a glass of wine in the room and it’s time for a shower and bed.

Venice to Turkey 15

Day 15, Leave the Ship, May 18

This morning we pack the last items our bags and go to the buffet for breakfast. We have our last decadent morning meal and visit with an Aussie couple from Sydney that we have met several times on the ship. We forgot their names (shame on us) but I will refer to him as the “Arrive Alive” guy. If he reads this, he will know! I grab a couple shots of a mosque right off the side of the ship.

Then it’s to our room to collect our bags and head off the ship. We have elected to handle our own luggage as it is faster. We hire a cab and go to a hotel to be picked up for our next tour. We have to wait in their lobby for a couple hours. It turns out we probably could have walked to this hotel as the ship is right in sight of the hotel.

We are picked up by a black van at 11:30 AM, right on time. The van picks up 6 more people and then brings us to a large tour bus. There are a total of 20 people on our tour. So we will have plenty of room on the bus, being a standard 47 seat bus.

Our tour guide, Oz, is personal and well spoken. Our driver is Akmed. Istanbul officially has 16.5 million people but it is estimated there are 3 million more, undocumented. Gee, where else does that happen? We are headed for Ankara today, the origin of Angora Wool from special goats.

All the flags around Istanbul are in preparation for the celebration of the beginning of the country on May 19, 1919.

Noon in Turkey is not considered 12:00, but instead is when the sun is highest in the sky.

We go across the first bridge to connect continents built in 1973. In a short while, we go through the modern section of Istanbul with modern architecture and a mosque or two thrown in!

Huge flags hang from the walls, some with the image of the president. About 30%of the country likes him.

We stop for lunch at a highway roadside restaurant area. We don’t know the names of what we eat, but I have an eggplant and pepper dish and a bowl of spicy lentil soup.

We head out again and drive 4 hours. Then we stop for 45 minutes as per Turkish law. The law states that tour bus drivers have to take a 45 minute break after driving 4 hours. It also states that drivers cannot drive more than 6 days in a row and then have to take a day off! Then we drive for about two hours to our hotel where we will have dinner.

Not many photos today as the drive is interesting but not overly spectacular. Fun sunset as we come into Ankara!

5.7 million people live in Ankara. Not as many as Istanbul, but still enough to cause traffic jams. We arrive at our hotel, the Meyra Palace Hotel. It sure is palatial! Everything down to the furniture and room lights are shiny and ornate. Crown molding is ornately decorated.

Dinner in the hotel dining room is tasty yet unspectacular. We didn’t recall that meals are a part of the tour. At least it is money not spent! Food we could have at home. Chicken was dry. Salad was undressed. Oh well, can’t have it all. We settle in the room looking forward to tomorrow.

Venice to Turkey 14, Part 2

Day 13, Istanbul, May 17, Part 2

We are quoted €8 round trip to the river boat and think it’s a bargain. So we get in the taxi and happily ride the 15 minutes to the boat. We get a view of the Galata Tower on the way. This Tower will become more important later in our vacation!

Once there, it takes 15-20 minutes to find the correct boat. It turns out the boat wasn’t back from a previous cruise until the last minute. We find the boat and board it right as sunset was beginning. We get underway and begin capturing photos of the city as it lights up at night. The cruise lasts 2 hours and the views are great! We even pass by our cruise ship as we start the tour! And yes, those are random rainstorms you see in the cloud formations!

Continuing on, we watch as the city wakes up at night. A lot of the passengers on the cruise go to the lower lever because it is enclosed and the crew serves them tea and biscuits. I opt to stay up top and keep my camera entertained.

We finish the cruise and are glad to get off the water for it is very chilly. Luckily, we dressed appropriately. As we wait for our taxi driver, suddenly The Call To Prayer erupts from loudspeakers all around us! It seems that we are surrounded by approximately 6 mosques, all broadcasting simultaneously! We find our taxi driver and go back to the ship. I ask him for €10 change from the €20 note I hand him and he looks at me strangely.

He informs me the fare is €80, not €8. I object and insist we were quoted €8. He either calls his boss or pretends to and the price drops to €50. Still not acceptable, I argue the price again. We settle on €40 round trip and I cave in. So beware of scams like this and possibly get your quote in writing.

We get back on the ship and get most of our packing done as we get off the ship in the morning.

Good night everyone!