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| Professional shot!! |
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| Mud mud glorious mud |
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| Travertine steps |
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| Roman gateway |
Hi everyone, we are on our latest adventure in Turkey. We got here last Monday but the first week was just chilling in a cheap hotel in Calis beach near Fethiye. It was much posher than our usual backpackers hostel/hotel and of course the target market was the one or two week holidaymaker looking for cheap alcohol, English breakfast and Sunday dinner. Our hotel, Rosary Beach , served Turkish food and at £150 for a week half board was pretty good value.
We mainly lazed around the pool but did hire a scooter to see Capa Coy a deserted village where Greeks were ousted after the second world war and no-one else has lived there. We went over to Oludeniz, which I hated, busy, smelly and the Blue Lagoon nothing like the fabulous photos. We also went on a fairly hairy trip towards butterfly valley, very slow going up but fast coming down.
We took a tour to Dalyan, spent a lovely day on a boat, got thoroughly manky at the mud baths and ended it on a lovely beach, with hundreds of others.........
Monday we set off on the local bus to Denizil then on a little dolmus to Pamukkale. We are now back in our comfort zone of a family run hotel, plain and simple. Today we visited the site here which is a mixture of tavertine terraces and the ancient Roam city of Heliopolis, where Philip the disciple was martyred. My word of the day is incongruous, the tavertine terraces and ancient Rome, the bikini clad women in a Muslim country where the mosque rings out the call to prayer, the tranquility of the start of our day to the masses of humanity half an hour later. It was mobbed by large groups of Russian tourists with the telltale armbands of all inclusive resorts. The Roman site was fascinating and very large and it was much too hot to see all of it.
Tomorrow we head off to Aphrodisias, yes, you guessed it linked to Aphrodite herself. There is a complete Roman theatre there. Then Thursday we are getting the train to Selcuk to visit Ephesus. I know it will be busy but we will be spared the bikinis.
This is my first visit to Turkey and the people seem very warm and genuine. We are trying to learn a few words but it is very difficult. It is hot and dry but cool at night and at the coast we were on the shaded side of the hotel. Here we have air conditioning which you need in the daytime.
The food has been good, Meze as most of you will know is a selection of salad/dips which start a meal. In the hotel in Calis there was a great selection every night. Lunchtime today we had delicious Gozleme a very thin bread base stuffed with spinach and cheese, the lady sat crossed-legged rolling dough with a thin stick and got a perfect round each time!!
Tonight we had a mixed plate for starter then I had stuffed aubergine and Chris had liver. Breakfast is bread, cheese, local olives, tomato and cucumber and either boiled egg or omelette. We overheard some other English guest at our last hotel complaining that the breakfast was Turkish and not English!!
Till next time
Take care
Norma xx
Hi,
I can't believe it is nearly two months since I last wrote my blog!! Very remiss of me and if I write about everything then it could be a long one so thought I would just do some highlights.
Our northbound trip went well and our 2 night stay in Tordesillas was fabulous, the old part of town was lovely and we visited the convent de Santa Clara, http://www.clarisastordesillas.es/ if you want to check it out. You get a personalised guided tour and it has some fabulous architecture having started life as a Moorish palace. Spain has such a wealth of hidden gems. We then had a night in a fairly ropey campsite in Gijon, although the food for a late lunch was lovely. Little did we know this was our last night in Ruby....
We used the new LD ferry from Gijon to Poole, much cheaper than the Brittany one, oh and what a crossing!! It was blowing a force 8 across the Bay of Biscay so we just stayed in the cabin taking plenty of travel sickness pills. Still it saves the drive through France and we have 20% off our next sailing due to our complaint about a rude member of staff!!
I stayed a couple of days with Chris, caught up with his sister and mum and then headed home to the North East. In my first week back it was action stations as Amy and Carl moved from their flat in South Shields to a house in Boldon Colliery. It was just like on auto pilot from my years of masterminding moving staff .around in my old life of work!! The house belongs to her dad so he is now also her landlord. Amy also started a new job at the Care Quality Commission and loves it.
Chris and I put Ruby onto Gumtree and she was sold the next day to a lovely couple from Edinburgh and then we found our new van......Henry the Hymer. This is him wild camping on Grisedale common!!
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| Henry the Hymer | |
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| Inside Henry!! |
We bought him just before Easter and then had a little five day trip to work out what was what and to check out that everything worked on the road. We caught up with John and Lyndis near Appleby on a very basic site but
one with fabulous views of High Cup Nick......once the cloud cleared.
He is 20 years old, left hand drive, automatic and well looked after and thanks to the German engineering everything still works . Most importantly this is a van with a fixed bed in the back YEH!! There is much more space and we had a good time checking it all out, the bike rack was a bit of a pain but Chris has sorted that. We have fitted ( sorry Chris has fitted) a new bigger leisure battery to allow us to do more wild camping and we are off again today for a little tootle.We have found a storage place where we can pay monthly as it will only be in for short periods.
I'm just back from a week in Spain, flew out with my lovely friend Vicki for a week at Chris' house. We had a nice week, weather was fabulous and we had a trip to the beach and then on her birthday we went to the thermal baths for the day. She loved the house and the area and I could happily have stayed!! While I was away Chris did a cycle ride, Corbridge to Twice Brewed then to Carlisle, caught up with Adam , got the train from Carlisle to Corbridge and then cycled back to home.
We have had a strange time at home, Chris' aunt, who he lives with here in the UK, was ill with labyrinthitis and was confined to bed and then the house for about a week. She is usually so active and was so frustrated at having to be looked after. She is back to normal now and much happier, at the weekend Chris' friend from his schooldays was visiting and she was in her element fussing over the two of them.
Imogen has had an emotional couple of weeks, her and Phill have parted after nearly eight years together. She is staying in the flat and has had wonderful support from her friends and family. She has a busy time coming up with a hen party, Paulo Nuttini and then a quick trip to Spain.
I've managed to catch up with a number of friends and we had a lovely family BBQ on Easter Saturday.
We are off today to Penrith to get a bit of walking or cycling, catch up with Chris' "grandchildren" and then back Saturday to sort the final bits of packing for our six week trip to Turkey and to catch up with Carl on his birthday on Sunday.
We head off on Monday and hope to do some walking on the Lycian way. We fly to Dalaman and have the first week near Fethiye and then using bus and train we will travel and see Ephesus, Troy and Gallipoli. Istanbul is Chris' favourite city in the world so really looking forward to seeing it, and then our final week we will fly back south and spend a lazy week in Kas where there is good diving and snorkelling, and if the sea is not too rough, a bit of kayaking.
Then we are housesitting in a lovely little village called Allendale, in the Northumberland dale of the same name. We are there for two weeks looking after two dogs, it is an area I have walked in before, it is very remote but beautiful.
Then hopefully we will head off to Scotland, nothing planned just wander north to the wiggly bit at the top!!
After that no concrete plans but some thoughts but more of that next time........
Take care
Norma xx
