To Carine to Cnidos with a brief visit to magnesia, ending in Phrygia
 

My wife and I will take of April 22, 2011 Thursday morning with the 7:30AM Yenikapi-Mudanya ferry and continue to izmir to use a free night at the new Swissotel and then continue to Carine, next to the bird sanctuary at the delta of the Great Menderes river.

We have no other hotel reservations, but are hoping to find some decent B&Bs in the area and then push off to datca peninsula to possibly stay at Hayitbuku. later we will drive through Aphrodisias to Afyon and then to Eskisehir for Phrygian sites, if we can do all this in about eight days.

Eser hopes to swim and take photos. I hope to add to my visual memory, and think of funny things to write. She will force me to eat less and walk more. I will try to see more signs of archaic ruins. We will make some new acquaintances and, perchance, friends.

I will give details of lodging, road conditions, distances, interesting sites here on the Turkey forums, if readers show interest.

i will write the impressionistic trip report on Fodors Lounge as I have done with some of our previous trips.

Our Subaru forester AWD is gone. We now have a Passat SW and thus we are limited in terms of the roads we can take, but not the adventures.

I'll be looking forward to reading your report but prefer this forum to The Lounge.

We drove through Magnesia on our way from Sirince to Didyma et al and back. Unfortunately we felt too rushed in the morning, and too tired in the evening, to stop. There were quite extensive ruins on both sides of the road, and only one car parked at the lot. You might have the place to yourself. We regret missing it.

There is an excellent roadside grill called Ali Baba not far away on the road south to Didyma, Miletus and Prienne. Nice people who saved us from starving late in the afternoon.

We have the AWD (4Motion) version of the VW Passat SW and it does fine on dirt roads. Won't have the clearance of the Forester, though.

Thanks FD,

We have the Yenikapi-Bursa ferry tickets car+driver+passenger=102TL on-line. We also have reserved at Ege Palas instead of Swissotel in Izmir because eser's classmate at the restaurant owner manager certificate program, the son of the owner of this hotel arranged for a 10Euro discount !!! (We had a 50% discount at sSwissotel but over the rack rate which still made it more than 30Euros over Ege Palas) And we get a seaview room.

the major problem will be waking up early enough to make the 7:30AM ferry. I just know that Eser will make me play our version of double deck two-handed pinochle since we have seats facing each other across from a table on the ferry. I will still be half asleep. She will cheat and say that she beat me afterwards, "as always!!!" I made the mistake of cheating gin rummy to her when we were married 33 years ago and have refused to play her the last thirty years. Reminds me of a John Collier short story, and i refuse to lose my fingers.

FD, people on the Turkey, Europe forums do not usually like this type of writing. I wrote the above to test again and for you, but if i do not get any feedback by the time we start the intricate stage of preparations for our trip, i will probably continue on the Lounge. There is no reason for me to impose a sense of humor served with a twist of lemon peel, obtuse language or immemorable literary associations on readers who are looking for quick confirmation of the validity of their past and future travels.

Hello Otherchelebi,
I've been thinking of you recently, as my neighbour's son has just left for a 6 week holiday with some former colleagues & friends in Turkey. He had 3 or 4 years with the Australian Vetrans' Affairs department in Turkey and loved it. Now he's home in his own country, he's homesick for yours!

Glad to see you're off on another adventure. I'll look forward to following the caravan.

Glad to hear from you Bokhara2. I hope life has been treating you well.

I was just checking a list of medicine to take, Cozaar, beloc, Glucophage, Cymbalta, aspirin, etc. and other easily forgotten items such as,

- John Freely's books
- duck down pillows
- mosquito repellant
- pinochle playing cards
- chargers for chargeable batteries for cameras

- possibly purchase a portable memory foam pad for my so very spoilt body.

We will pack one medium size and one small case today and add another small one for shoes and toiletteries tomorrow in addition to the laptop, i-pad, cameras, pens and paper, books, as well as some trip rations tomorrow.

Eser is away to Yoga and gym after a cavitation session (which always reminds me of the dentist.) She says that it is all in preparation for the tough trip, which does not quite match her diagnosis of her physical problems as being as a result of the psychological issues of sharing what i call adventures of matter of all colors from white to black to red to yellow to blue. I am enjoying a high of having had five of my grad students for brunch at our house. We may actually meet one at Eskisehir next week if we manage to get there for the Phrygian remains. He will be visiting his parents during the school break.

Bad local and national news. Famous painter knifed by religious zealot at protest gathering had to hail a cab himself to rush to hospital because noone else helped. Candidacy of 12 independents likely to win seats vetoed by Higher Election Counsel on false legality, causing riots and making the coming elections even more suspect. I still have a chest cold. Eser is entering that turning point in a woman's life with anything but meekness, humility or submission. She says. "You go ahead and act humble in my stead!" She may have a point.

I must have whizzed through many of those turning points myself. So many and so fast that i have been feeling dizzy since I discovered that I was a genius over ten years ago after completing an on-line IQ test. So i know that you do not get back to square one because the turns are not always in the same direction.

Our Passat SW has the 1.4TSI engine with enough power for one passenger. When you are two and with baggage, it would be nice to have another 20-30 Horses. Does anyone know if it would be safe for the life of the engine to have a chip installed for that purpose?

Hooray, made appointment for not only the software for 20% engine power increase but also for installation of sprint booster and the F1 air filter, for 11 AM tomorrow. made someone else deliriously happy. I just hope he does not find anything else to sell me when i get there.

aparently the sprint booster cuts down on the turbo gap and the slow response of the VW tiptronic gear box also. I will ask if they have one for installation on the human body as well. -:)

8PM. What a long day. 11AM appt. at bgt superchips. found out that owners were sons of highschool classmate. One Di Caprio and one Brad Pitt. No wonder classmate had been elected school prince in 1963. (Well, they did give me a 10% discount)
The car goes great and got me to my 1PM appointment at neurologist because of dizzyness with some feeling of excess tongue size yesterday. She had treated my mother and daughtr also and we had some common friends, so some gossip was in order before she got serious and sent me to some tests and scans.

Little did i know what i was to suffer. A brain scan is bad but a neck scan is the worst for someone with claustrophobia. The cacophony was supplemented with a terrible FM tation which filled in while the machine was taking a breather. The panic button in my right hand became my only life line to the real world and the only thought i had was to savour the power that the panic button gave me and how terrible it would be if i found out that it would not work.

25 minutes neck and then 20 minutes cranium and i was a different man. I think I am back to normal now, after three hours, but then everyone thinks he is normal?

I took out things to pack. I then separated them into two, then i added some from one pile to other, then i reversed the order. Eser asked me what goes where and if i really meant that to go there. Just some light banter, which went on while i wrote the previous lines and closed to door.

Then, just now, i found the list i had prepared before. Fortunately the handwriting is atrocious. It is impossible to read except for a few items, so i do not have to change the piles again. I mean, it is not like we are going to Somalia. Neither did the stork bring me with a body form foam travel pad as a free give away on the side.

Must get to the news, to cut down on my enthusiasm for the trip and put more distance between my delicate body and eser. May write some tomorrow, especially if Nese has successfully activated our Tom Tom GPRS and eser gets busy playing with it instead of killing pigs with her crazy birds or saving our house from the zombie attack on her ipad.

5PM, Izmir, Ege Palas, great sea view room on 16th. Two free drink vouchers for bar on 21st. Car in garage with my toilette case, toothbrush et al. Need a rest after 80 kilometers of unnecessary driving due to inexperience with tomtom or the work of an evil genie.
Cannot and will not blame anyone with any resemblance to a real person.

Currently 24 degree in the shade Celsius, possibly 95 in the sun Fahrenheit. Girls of Izmir more beautiful then i remembered or the previous day's tests have other effects.

Alsancak area and the coast promenade, Kordon, looks very inviting. Some rest, then walk, then food, then buying new toothbrush and paste for the price of having the old ones brought from the car. I wonder if i can locate the used-book store i used to visit 40-50 years ago. If it is as magical as i thought it was at that time, it should be at the same place and looking exactly the same. Wish me luck in my search, and i may even give you its address.

Definitely time to move to the lounge, unless i suddenly start writing about selcuk/ephesus and cappadocia. Good bye once more and FD and bokhara, please join me on Fodors lounge.

The powers are working against me there also, playing with my ability to push the wrong keys and totally blocking my post and effectively forcing me to erase it. But i will persevere.

Today is the 4th day of our trip. I already wrote the first day and part of the second on the lounge. It is past midnight so the next instalments will have to wait.