Three days here in the beautiful south of Turkey. The water is blue, the mountains are tall and the ruins are old (sadly, I am having technical difficulties with the photos, so for now please enjoy this picture of Turkish cats). Best of all it's affordable!
The old town here is, unfortunately, dominated by hotels and restaurants. However, it retains a great deal of charm, being a twisty brick and stone affair, dotted with crumbly old mosques, surprisingly strong Roman buildings, and buzzing bazaars. It doesn't hurt that it's perched above an expansive and sparklingly beautiful harbor. The main entrance is through the massive Hadrian's gate, built around 180 for the Emperor, and just outside it is a thoroughly modern strip of Doner Kebap places... it's a whole roast-kebab neighborhood.
We had a nice time here. It's a rare place that we could afford to sip drinks at a cafe with a rocky ocean view, but here it was only a couple of lira. We bargained for a beautiful inlaid wood backgammon set, and sharpened our skills playing against the hotel manager (backgammon is our new addiction... anyone up for a game when we get back??)
And that's about it... you'd be surprised how fast three days can vanish when you're traveling so much. All those daylong bus rides really eat up the time (so do the overnight ones, although that way at least you save money on lodging). Although I must say even I was unprepared for our next transition, getting all the way back to the west coast and on to Greece... I won't go into too many gory details, but I will say that our so called "overnight" bus dropped us off in Marmaris at MIDNIGHT, 7 hours before our ferry was supposed to leave. After wandering for much of the night, having many hotel-finding difficulties and a few encounters with characters both savoury and unsavoury, we finally managed to drift off for a few hours in the lobby of a fancy hotel we couldn't have afforded in a million years, and drag our sleepy selves to the port in the early morn. Yeesh... never again.
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