Looks like a fascinating trip, OC.

Eser is uselesly arguing against my firm decision to also hang some cloves of garlic from the jacket hanging hook on top of the rear door.>>

one query, is this area of Turkey famed for its vampires? or does the garlic have other powers?

Ann, you never know about vampires these days. We are not too far from Transylvania in any case.

On the other hand it is medically proven that garlic is good for your heart and it is good practice to have some handy just in case.

If anyone wonders why 'Denver' appears in the title, that is where I studied and Joe still teaches. It goes without saying that we are as virtuous as can be with or without being exposed to the town of Virtuous or to the city of Denver.

Replanned the route this morning and decided to push all the way to Beysehir the irst day out of Iznik. That will be about six hours including rest and fuel stops.

Checking hotels at Beysehir, found out that the best seems to be the guest house of Selcuk UNiversity, called Anamos, I went into the website of the Beysehir campus of Selcuk University to discover that they have a Business Administartion school and a School of International trade as well as Banking and Insurance.

So, I just wrote a mail to the dean of the schools to ask to meet him Thursday evening or Friday morning and offered to teach a class or give a short lecture on any risk, risk management and insurance related subject he wished. (not fusion cooking or how to protect your wife from zombies during over 33 years of marriage)

I wonder if he will respond.

Should have someone check the oil and washer fluid in the car tomorrow as well as the tyres and place the blue glass ward on the exhaust pipe.

So, I just wrote a mail to the dean of the schools to ask to meet him Thursday evening or Friday morning and offered to teach a class or give a short lecture on any risk, risk management and insurance related subject he wished. >>

are you familiar, OC, with the phrase "busman's holiday"? How does Eser feel about your mixing business and pleasure on holiday? I can tell you that my DH has been distinctly unimpressed whenever I have suggested such a thing.

Ann, did not receive a response yet. Anyway, checked weather report again and seems that it will turn bad from 20th onward, so have already moved our trip a day ahead.

It is past 1AM now and if I can get up early and if we can leave our Istanbul home early tomorrow, I can surprise Eser by pushing ahead to Beysehir or possibly Afyon, which should be easier tomorrow without stopping at Iznik, so that Eser can get another good beach day pretending that she is Esther Williams in her heyday.

She just watched the fourth espisode of the Walking Dead and went to bed hoping that I do not scare her coming into the bedroom with my traditional shuffle and hiss.

She just watched the fourth espisode of the Walking Dead and went to bed hoping that I do not scare her coming into the bedroom with my traditional shuffle and hiss.>>

funny - the Walking Dead is a favourite of the rest of my family - not me though I am quite partial to old dracula films.

Leaving Istanbul on Nov 14 was stressful. I found out at 11AM when I was thinking that we were late that we actually had to visit FIL for lunch. It was good food but meant that we could not go as far as Beysehir.

We reached Afyon at about 7PM within four hours fortyfive minutes of leaving Istanbul, a distance of about 285 miles.
All stress was forgotten, the darkness did not bother us, there were no zombies on the route and we found our hotel, "Sehitoglu Konak" an 18th Century wooden mansion, originally Armenian owned, joined with two other smaller mansions. It was restored very well with antique and/or antique like furniture and fittings. I will post a review and photographs on trip Advisor.

Unfortunately, the very tasty dinner was also very fatty and our early retirement to our bed was the worst thing we could have done to our very delicate digestive systems.

Another problem is that the mattress of our bed was probably also a petrified relic of a past century and resulted in the worst dreams possible with frequent awakenings in combination with the reflux hitting the area where the protective tonsils were removed thoughtlesly so many decades ago.

We got up at 8AM, to a cold room which for some reason did not have any kind of heating we could discover, packed and went down the old spiraling staircase and up the next to the dining room for breakfast which was poorly presented because the cook had a medical emergency and it was prepared by the young gofer who was on duty the whole night.

It was past 10PM by the time we left, to visit a supermarket to pick up some missing items like cat and dog food for strays, photograph the terrific Afyon Fortress from the street in front of the hotel, and feel good about not buying anything from the large outlet center we just drove through.

We chose the more scenic but slower Isparta route towards Side. It was worth it because this gave us the chance to visit the city of Isparta, a much nicer city than Burdur which the faster route goes through. We went into the city center and found the famous Kadir Kebap restaurant which has a justifiable fame since 1851 for serving their special lamb ribs and short ribs. They have three types, lean, medium fat and heavy fat. Eser picked lean, I picked medium. They were both good. They also had a special dessert which we were not that taken with.

We made it to the main Antalya-Alanya highway and first took the road to Belek to see all the 5-7 star resort hotels, many with golf courses there. Could not see the insides as it was getting late and we felt we would be happier in a smaller hotel directly on the beach at Side as we would have some time before dark to choose among a few of them. It turned out that we had idled too much on our route, so it was dark by the time we started checking hotels at Side. We finally had to settle on Kamer hotel, directly on the beach, with beautiful views, balcony, free wi-fi, frige, hair dryer but hard mattress, small old tv with mostly German channels, tile floors, sparse furniture.

The view is great. So many stars in the sky, the sound of the small waves lapping at the beach, a large doze of lansaprozol after our dinner of a good size grouper grilled on wood fire and shared partially with six kittens and cats who preferred the fish to the cat food we presented to them.

It seems that Pasha is a very popular name for dogs in Side. Our hotel has a Golden retriever called pasha and the restaurant we ate also has a two month old puppy called pasha. Both enjoyed the dog food we had bought at the supermarket and freely shared it with some strays in the area.

Eser finally rebelled and found that Club Voyage Sorgun very close to Side offers very good rates for a Five Star Ultimate All Inclusive Resort, and started the ball rolling for our next three days nights there, until we meet Joe.

I think we slept on a few petrified relics on our trip around Italy, too!

sundriedpachino, I doubt that most Southern european hotels can match even simpler American hotel/motel chains in mattress and pillow comfort.

We are at the five star Voyager, Sorgun now and having checked the bed I fell into the deepest deppression intensified by the lack of wi-fi in the rooms. Even a few pages from a recent exciting Modesit fantasy could help me and I lost myself in deep sleep on the uncomfortable bed after sampling some of the delights of the Ultra all inclusive which Eser and I shared with possibly the largest exodus of Germands from their country in any November in history.

I am not sure if the other guests were already the same size as I when they arrived here, but there is a great incentive for "reverse dieting" a term which is very popular among certain circles because it includes the word "dieting" but has been known to have been medically prescribed to sallow complexioned love sick, affection and admiration seeking or anorexic individuals.

Eser has turned into a mermaid after promising that she will appear for dinner and possibly afterwards if I prefer her to the fully proportioned competition very freely available in our resort.

We are now settled in Unluselek hotel at Anamur,quite a few pounds heavier in flesh and in luggage, having discovered the little shop offering incredible sales on summer and winter clothing which looked great (possibly until the first laundering)our last night at the Voyager Sorgun.

We left the voyager at 12:03 and were at our hotel in Anamur at exactly 15:04, having stopped for fuel once and once for corn-on-the-cob on top of a hill, where the the man kad a dinky shack but with electricity and offered us even wet wipes to clean our hands before and after.

We also bought what he called prickly squash from him, a vegetable that looked like a small green/yellow papaya or like a somewhat dried large quince. He says, they fry slices and eat with garlic yoghurt for a great, sweetish taste. The vegetable does not have thorns or anything on it so he did not know where the name came from.

Part of the road, mostly coastal from Sorgun/Manavgat through Alanya and Gazipasa was through built up areas with large numbers of 3-5 star hotels and resorts. The divided highway was slow because of too many intersections with reduced speed zones and traffic lights.

Past Gazipasa, the new road is still not finished and the old one requires a strong stomach and a great deal of courage to drive after dark. Even during the day, we could only average about 30mph for the last 35-40 miles.

Anamur city center is away from the sea, possibly because of pirate attacks. However, the pirate attacks do not appear to have deterred the tourism trade and the Anamur pier area has hotels, restaurants, cafes and condos in addition to some very friendly dogs with puppies and a larger number of not as friendly cats, all of which deigned to eat from our supply of dog and cat food.

There is a fund raising dinner organized by the municipailty of Anamur in our hotel. The hotel is small. All rooms look over the separate one floor dining facility where the dinner will take place with high music volume. We kept on asking when it is expected to end and were told different times between midnight and two AM by different people including the owner of the hotel who finally confided to us that unless he allowed the municipality these occasional free events he would have to provide for them in other and more costly ways.
"At least the event is for the city football team" he said.

It is now past 5PM and quite dark. i am getting worried about Joe and family. They have not arrived yet because we would have known since they have the next two rooms and I have been checking the parking lot from our balcony.

Have they arrived?

I had posted only five minutes before you posted Jubilada.
They are not here yet, and I do not have a mobile number for them although they should have mine.

A minibus came just now with possibly the musicians and their instruments. The mayor's black Audi appears and disappears every few minutes.

I will post it, when they arrive.

The problem is that the 35 mile service road has hairpin turns, no lane markings and no cats' eyes

They arrived safely, but 15 minutes before I decided that I could not take the loud music, especially the base sounds being almost played in our brothel like room with red and violet lights above the bed and in the bathroom.

We apologized to the owner, carried our own stuff back down, left a note to Joe and went to hotel Grand Hermes at the Pier Square. $50/room for two including open buffet breakfast.
Cigarette smoked room with a double bed but the side table partially extending over the pillow on Eser's side and a single bed that is too small for either of us.

We were chatting with the manager of a fish restaurant who had recently moved to Anamur from istanbul when our phone rang and Joe cheerfully announced that they were in the hotel, checking it out. Apparently they liked the music or had ear plugs and decided to stay there, but joined us at our restaurant soon so we could catch up on how the lives of the two families had moved recently. It was a lovely reunion and the grouper, fried this time, was excellent.

There was a trail of ants moving across the foot towel in front of the bathroom, but I refrained from following them to their objective, fearing the worst. Eser did not ponder long over their raison d'etre fortunately.

Wi-Fi working well as you can tell. there is no blanket or quilt but it is warm. Another thanks to our habit of bringing our own goose down pillows.

Will meet tomorrow to visit ancient city of Anemurium, and then to Aydincik for the great mosaic of the harbour of the pirate town called.....?

Bookmarking so I can read future instalments

Welcome Ted. I hope you can make it again to turkey soon and visit these lesser known areas which are so rewarding in terms of history and natural beauty.

If Eser wakes from her stupor some time within the next two weeks or so, we should have a webshots and a flicker album from this trip. This was a quick trip again with little time to visit or even revisit all the sites because Joe and family had to meet the governor at 3:30PM and it gets dark quickly and there was a great deal of repair work on the highway.

For a while we entertained the idea of taking the ferry from Tasucu near Silifge to Kyrenia in Northern Cyprus for an overnight, but decided that delaying our return would be bad karma.

We found Anamurium exactly as we left it some five years ago
with narry a stone placed atop nother. Fortunately there were no modern day versions of the pirates which caused the city to be abandoned in the early 7th century. A lady troll took about $2/person entrance toll and then we imitated mountain goats over some of the ruins but mainly stayed on the well trodden pathways. We could have spent at least another two hours at the baths, the odeon, the gymnasium, the theatre (where I was hoping for a stand-up rehearsal) and the necropolis which seemed to be the best preserved area.

Our hotel, Calamei is just over the tiny bay of Narlikuyu which is taken over by fish restaurants. We ate 1.6 kilos of sole, 400 gram sea bass and 350 gram large prawns with huge amounts of salad, some fried calamari and a great deal of french fries. (that is for six people)

Joe and family went to meet the mayor and possibly the assistant governor of Erdemli. We shall probably eat at the same restaurant tonight called, Ali Baba.

We will decide whether to visit Olba ruins tomorrow, before we take off towards Mersin and then North to ankara for a stopover.

Otherchelebi, looking forward to the rest of your trip. Glad you haven't been eaten by zombies (yet).

Thanks PegS,

Our room at this hotel was terrific, large with excellent view of the bay but Boy, was it noisy! Built on the side of the small valley with a mosque which had a muazzin who suffered from nose problems but was unaware of them, a school which started at eight and had kids arriving early to play a game called "shout-basketball", and an itinerary vegetable salesman who cried out his products took something away from the peaceful nature.

Now that we are up, showered and packed at 8:25, all noise is gone, the sun is up and we are ready to go down to breakfast.

We will then see the Roman bath just 500 feet away which was built at the point where the stream from the Heaven Sinkhole about two miles away runs into the sea, which is supposed to have a tremendous mosaic of the Three Graces or one of the best examples of early erotic art. Will post photo and open it to discussion.

or one of the best examples of early erotic art. Will post photo and open it to discussion.>>

looking forward to it!

It has been a very long, difficult but fun day. We are in our very cute attic like room at top floor of five star Bilkent university Hotel in Ankara, having driven about 650 kilometres, almost three hours of that in the dark and some in fog.

But it was and is worth it. My teaching post at the Bogazici university, for once, helped and we got a 50% discount plus free breakfast at the Bilkent hotel.

What is more important we visited two fabulous Greek-Roman ruins on the route, one of them with its own sink hole with a relief of Eser's ancestral royal family carved on one wall and a body guard carved on an opposing wall.

there was also humor galore :

1. There were a large number of column parts sticking out of the ground in front of a 5th century one area of the ruins of Kanytelis which some villagers in the area apparently mistook for head stones and started burying their own dead in the same area only about fifty years ago with marble walls and everything.

2. Deciding not to drive in the dark, we made it to the small town called Sereflikochisar about 170 kilometres to Ankara, where we discovered a newly built three star hotel which advertised great sunset views over the salt lake from luxurious rooms with the latest and best amenities.

the hotel was not easy to find because the town turned out to be larger than it looked from the highway. But what was fun was that one of the two young ladies at the reception kept on trying to give us two rooms rather than one and when that did nor work, a room with two twins. She was very upset when Eser insisted on a Queen bed. I wanted to explain that we probably would be abstaining tonight anyway but liked to cuddle but Eser would not let me for some strange reason.

However, when we went up to check the room they had seen fit for us, we had to thank them and brave the dark highway for another 170 kilometres, because the room was tiny and stank of cigarette smoke. they apparently did not have any no smoking rooms at Yildirim Hotel.

We then located Monec Hotel at Oran, an upscale district of Ankara very close to the highway we were using but the chap on the phone would not give us the same rate as Booking.com.

Then, with only minutes to the huge traffic jam of the capital city, I remembered having heard good things about the hotel of Bilkent University. Eser called; I prompted her about my teaching position, and here we are.

I am hungry, Eser wants my laptop to load all the photographs (well, not all, which I will explain later)

OC - you are clearly doing your best to reinforce the instincts of many on this board to book ahead!

glad that the university came up trumps.

hope you get fed soon.

Ann, where's the fun when you book ahead? You meet fewer interesting people and you get less satisfaction having come up top in difficult situations.

Plus, almost all the hotels we ended up with on this November trip turned out to be quite pleasant except for the ones at Anamur and that was not for not booking in advance. Also, we would not have been able to see some of the exciting, historic, adventure spots traveled by only a few if we had to meet deadlines and make it to our booked hotels.

Must make one correction. I missed typing the word "church" in describing the spot where the moslem villagers had buried their dead. The new graves were just about 30 feet from the half demolished apse of the church where an etched cross was easily visible.

Should also say something nice about the Passat SW or Variant or Estate which we are driving which, although with a souped up 1.4 litre engine drives like a pure bred racing horse and eats less than Eser.

The contractor changed four doors in the house while we were away , to the consternation of the family architect. They also re-touched the paint at certain spots and corrected some things but could not install an under the sink drawer we bought from Ikea.

New SIL candidate wants to convert the whole family to become Galatasaray Football club supporters. I have to tell him that that would triple my DD's dowry.

Ann, where's the fun when you book ahead? You meet fewer interesting people and you get less satisfaction having come up top in difficult situations.>>

OC - I've travelled both ways and like the idea of travel as exploration but lack the courage to do it outside western europe.

Man U currently losing to Galatasaray so we are all Galatasaray fans now.