Turkey

Blue Mosque

We had an early start to our Turkey trip by having to be at Heathrow by 5.00am. We got picked up by a big coloured man dressed in a suit driving a flash Mercedes. All he needed was a wıre from an ear pıece and I would have felt as if we had our own personal body guard. Dıd wonder ıf we were goıng to arrıve when he stopped in the middle of an off ramp to decide which way to go and then took the one that wasn't signposted for airport.   So arriving ın Istanbul early afternoon tired and hot, wondered what we had struck.  Shower and quick rest before hittıng the streets for food. After meeting the rest of our tour group at 7pm we hit the cıty again in search of yet more food.  20 million people live in Istanbul - it's crazy. Saturday 1st day of tour we did the usual sights of Istanbul - Blue Mosque, Topkapi Sarayi Palace Museum, Ayasofya Mosque and the Grand Bazaar.  5.30am call up Monday as we had to leave at 7.00am for long drive through to Cappadocia.  Got here at 7pm wıth a few stops on the way.  The 2nd largest Salt Lake ın the world was great to see and we also went to Ataturks Mausoleum and Museum in Ankara.

Salt Lake

Tuesday was another 5.00am start (although our wake up call came through at 4.52am!)  as Pete and I had decided to do the hot air balloon trıp.  AMAZING!!!   Fantastıc sights over the unique "lunar" scenery as well as the excitment of our first ever balloon trip, well worth the money. The rest of the day  was spent exploring the Oztanik Underground city and all the other amazing sights around Cappadocia as well as goıng to a pottery and a precious stone shop where they wanted to rob you blind.  No purchases by us.  The weather was hot but not unbearable, in the mıd 30's but a dry heat so not as bad as 30 degree days at home.

Hot Air Ballooning over Capaddocia

Landscape from Hot Air Balloon

Underground City

Would die for a decent coffee, to be able to turn on the tap to get a drink of water, to go to a clean toilet without having to pay (really hate paying for a dirty loo) but at the same time don't want this holiday to end although well over half gone now.

The long drive through to Pumakkale after another 5.30am wake up call, whilst shorter than the Sunday leg seemed longer. On the way we visited the Sultanhan Caravanserai from the 13th century and Konya, the home of the Whirling Dervishes. We arrıved around 6pm in time to have a much needed swim.  At our hotel they had the garra rufa fish pedicure and I talked several of the tour group into having it done.   The next morning we looked around Pumakkale Necropolis ruins and the amazing limestone terraces which I imagıne is how the pink and whıte terraces of Tararewa would have looked.

Limestone Terraces  Pumakkale

Ampitheatre- Necropolis Pumakkale

We drove from Pumakkale through to Kusadasi in the afternoon where our hotel had a great view of the Aegean sea and the habour with all the cruise ships in.   The next morning we opted to leave early for Ephesus, Roman capital of Asia Minor, before the cruise ship crowds got there but with a few hold ups we soon got caught up in the crowds.  We spent a couple of hours exploring the marble streets, amphitheatre, library and Temple of Hadrian. After visiting a carpet factory we went to a Nomadic village for a traditional lunch, followed by a visit to Virgin Mary's house high in the hills. The latter part of the afternoon was free tıme so we had the bus drop us in town so we could paddle ın the Aegean sea and then got a taxı home (thank goodness ıt wasn't too far -taxi driver dropped wheelies, burnt rubber!!!)

Library of Celsius at Ephesus

Weather ıs hot, hot, hot, had some 38,s but we have found it no problem.

Our last nıght was spent ın Canakkale after driving through from Kusadasi. Both of these places would have been lovely to have an extra free day at.  Both beside the Aegean.  On the drive through we stopped at Bergama to visit the Acropolis. This entailed a cable car ride up to the ruins which was probably better than the ruins. Here a young boy chased me to the bus as he wanted a lira from me for taking a photo of his donkey. I didn't give it to him. Next was legendary Troy which was uninteresting, but we were a bıt sick of ruins by then, and of them all they are the most unremarkable.  The next day, Saturday, we boarded a ferry across to the Dardenelles where we bussed to Gallipoli to visit Anzac Cove, Chunuk Bair, Lone Pine.  This was very moving with us all taking photos of memorials with names of family or possible family and there were a few wet eyes when one realised the hopelessness of the situation for our soldiers.  We then drove through to Instanbul to finish the tour.

Anzac Cove

Pete in Trenches

We have been sorry to say good bye to some neat friends that we toured with. 

Pete and I were pretty tired.  The tour was full on with no free days the advantage beıng no chance to spend money!  We covered over 2300 kms wıth a lot of early starts.  We were sick of Turkısh meals which were lunch and dınner, all tastes the same after a whıle.  The last night 15 of the group went out for a last meal and we chose an Indian restaurant - a welcome change.  Turkey was a great place to tour, so different from anywhere else we had been.

We had an extra day in Istanbul so Pete and I walked to Taxsım Square not far from our hotel and got the Fernicular followed by a tram to the Underground Cisterns and then walked to the Spice Bazaar.  In the tram I was talkıng to Pete about what to look out for so we would know where to get off and a young man behind me lent over and started speaking to us about what we wanted to do.  Turns out he was going to the stop we needed so said he would show us etc.  Anyway he not only got off wıth us but also walked us to the Cısterns then as he was leaving pointed out hıs Uncle's shop about 3 doors away and said when you come out come to shop I wıll show you nice jewellery.  Bloody hell, they don't mıss an opportunity.  Thank goodness exit from cisterns was on a different street and we didn't take him up on his offer. I enjoyed the Spice Bazaar where the shop keepers were no where near as pushy as the ones in the Grand Bazaar. .  As we got back to Taxsım Sq in the afternoon we were greeted by Polıce EVERYWHERE ın riot gear, wıth shıelds, guns, semi automatics, gas masks - not a pleasant feelıng although everyone oblivious to them. Asked back at our hotel and they said just normal, probably a soccer match on and they there just ın case.  We dıd see a couple of the polıce run after three boys ın soccer shırts so we had already guessed something to that effect.

Housing Istanbul

Reporting from DDC

Dorset, Devon and Cornwall.  After getting ourselves to Heathrow and picking up a rental car we headed out on the M25 for Weymouth in Dorset.  The kids were right, much easier to use Heathrow as the rental car base although it was 1 1/2 hours on the tube to get there.  We arrived in Weymouth mid aternoon to a lovely hot sunny day and the town and beach was packed.  After leaving our car at the B & B we set off on foot to explore this lovely seaside town where Alice had lived. Talk about typical English seaside town, Punch and Judy and donkey rides. Weymouth has an interesting harbour where every two hours during the day traffic and pedestrians are stopped from using the bridge so it can be raised to let boats through. Two friendly local bobbies gave us this bit of information when we were down by the harbour at around 5pm and said the next raising would be at 6pm.  Needless to say we made sure we were back in that area for 6pm. We had dinner at a pub down by the harbour (The Kings Arms I think Alice) where we were given a window table on the second floor overlooking all the goings on.  It was fun people watching.  Weymouth is where all the sailing events for the 2012 Olympics will be held - not sure how it is going to cope with the big influx of visitors.




Weymouth Beach on a hot Summers Day



St Albans Street where Alice's flat was



The bridge in action



One of the Condor fleet whom Alice worked for


Next morning we headed through Devon on our way to Cornwall seeing lots of thatched cottages on the way which had me oohing and aahing.  We spent the afternoon exploring Bodmin, Padstow and Newquay.  Padstow is where Rick Stein has set up a restaurant, deli, fish and chip shop, cafe and apparently also owns a lot of accommodation in the town.  So much so in fact that the locals refer to the town as Padstein.  Pete and I decided that we had to have a feed of his famous fish and chips so joined the queue. For £8, twice the amount of cod and chips anywhere else I was expecting something spectacular but no they were very ordinary and full of grease.  The ones in Portree had been far nicer.  Newquay is UK's equivalent to Mt Maunganui I would say, it has the surf beaches so full of young ones.  We found it dirty and unpleasant in the town area although the beach area was quite nice.  Our accommodation for the next 2 nights was in a little town called Lostwithiel where we had one of three rooms above one of the local pubs The Earl of Chatham.  After our greasy lunch (at about 2.30pm) we weren't that hungry so shared a chinese takeaway eating it by the river late in the evening. The next day we were up early and headed down Cornwall towards Lands End visiting Truro,  St Michael's Mount (where fortunately it was low tide so we were able to walk out to the Mount, but unfortunately it was Saturday so were unable to visit the castle, only day it is closed!), Penzance, Mousehole and then Lands End.  The day was so beautiful we were able to see the Isles of Scilly 28 miles out to sea.  After a full day we headed back to Lostwithiel arriving around 6pm where we spent the evening with the locals and I enjoyed a Cornish crab salad for tea (yeah some greens). Our trip back to London was uneventful other than trying to work out how much petrol would get us there without running out or leaving too much in the tank.  One rents the car with a full tank that you pay for and then return it empty - very hard to do.  My first calculation misfired as I forgot that your car does everything in miles, the sign posts are miles but when you fill up its in litres.  At around £1.39 per litre imagine what a gallon would cost.




Oooh Aaah - I love them



Padstow




Cobbled path to St Michael's Mount that is underwater at high tide

 

Land's End

Since being back in London it has been full on, hence no blog. Monday we left the flat around 8.30 to get ourselves to Buckingham Palace for our 10.15 appointment to have morning tea with the Queen (yeah right!)  Even though our tickets had been booked and paid for over the net we were told to be there 40mins before our time slot. OMG the queues, we wondered if we would even get our tickets in time.  Fortunately Michelle left us queuing and went off the ask someone about the situation and was told they were just going to open another booth up futher down the road, so we had a few minutes head start and got our tickets relatively quickly after that. The Palace was AMAZING.  We got to go through a lot more rooms than we thought, saw some spectacular art work (in fact I overheard one gentleman remark that they could sell it all to pay off the National Debt) and the special exhibition set out this year was the Royal Faberge collection. As a bonus Kate Middleton's wedding dress was on display, along with her jewellery she wore, shoes and a replica of the bouquet.  We also got to see a short video on how the lace and dress was made and the 17 cake wedding cake was also on display with the bottom 14 still being the original.  We even got to go for a walk around the gardens. We spent about 2 1/2 hours at the palace and well worth the £17.50 each to see it although afterwards Pete was heard to say he thoroughly enjoyed it apart from all that "wedding shit". By now we were ready for a sit down and lunch and after recharging the batteries headed back to the Palace to go through the Royal Mews, another £8 but we were there so thought we may as well see it. Carriages, one car and a few horses were on display, again worth seeing. Mid afternoon by now and we decided to walk to Harrods (quite some distance away), me to get a Christmas decoration and Michelle to look at the pets for sale. A pedigree daschund puppy for £1700 and a kitten for £1000!  Needless to say we were only looking.  My Christmas decoration was far more reasonably priced and probably the only thing I could afford in the shop.  By now it was definately time for a drink and rest so headed for a pub to wait for Peter's brother David and his partner Andrew who had spent about 6 hours getting the short distance from Brighton to London, problems with line flooding due to a burst water mains or something.  Nathan and Chloe and Nathan A came into town also and we all got together for a family meal.  We went Italian this time and were entertained by an hilarious waiter. Great times but a long day, think it was about 14 hours from when we left home to when we got back. Tuesday was also spent with David and Andrew back in the city.  Andrew showed us St Pancras Railway station and London library on our way to the British Museum.  We spent a few hours seeing just a small part of this huge museum and then met up with Michelle (who had stayed at home for a few extra hours - couldn't keep up with the oldies) and headed towards St Pauls Cathedral.  Here we all balked at paying £14.50 for entry, even Father David couldn't get us a free visit.  Next on the list was a walk to South Bank to the Tate Modern which is an art  gallery show casing modern works of art. I'm ashamed to say we admired the building inside and out and then headed for the restaurant on the top floor. By now it was late afternoon and we needed to head our separate ways, Michelle Pete and I to get to Leicester Square to have a meal before going to Lion King and David and Andrew to head back to Brighton.  Lion King was great although not sure why it's a lot more expensive to get into than other shows. Another day covering a lot of ground and by the time we got home and into bed it was mid night.

Buckingham Palace from the Gardens

Today Pete and I had thought of going to Kew Gardens but it would be another full on day and then tonight we're to meet in town with Nath and Chloe and my niece Alicia and her boyfriend Rob for a Brick Lane experience.  This will be our last time seeing Nathan, unless he turns up at Heathrow airport where we have a 5 hour stopover after being to Turkey and Greece, bearing a bike for us to take back to NZ for him.  Instead we are hanging out at Michelle's flat, may go into City late afternoon but to be quite honest enjoying the down time.  Tomorrow we are going to the London Borough Markets and walking the South Bank but will be home for tea.  Yay, the first home cooked meal since before we went to Cornwall. We have a car picking us up at 4.30am Friday to get us to Heathrow for our early flight to Istanbul.

England has really turned on the weather for us, with temperatures in the last few days in the high 20's. Today is meant to get to 30.  Not much fun when playing Sardines in the tube!  Michelle is lucky enough to have a back yard with grass, so today we are feeling very much as if we're in NZ with the heat and lazing about on the grass spotting squirrels in the trees. We are looking forward to the next part of our journey but will be very sad to say goodbye to the kids.