TURKEY

Istanbul

The trip started off just like any other, as we headed out to Luton at the crack of dawn. It was a fairly uneventful flight until we landed at the terminal in Istanbul. As the world was in the grips of swine flu when we found that Turkey was taking no risks. We were all thermally imaged on our way into the airport terminal and Claire registered a temperature which was too high by 0.2 degrees. She had to sit with about 6 other people for 15min and in the hope that she cooled down. Luckily for us she did and by then the visa and immigration queues had gone so we breezed through.

The start of this tour was in Istanbul so we headed straight to the Grand Bazaar and wandered around the maze of streets. It is remarkably clean which was surprising given our previous experiences in Egypt. We saw a lot of interesting things to buy and decided to return on our last day rather then carry everything with us. We met the rest of our group that night and the trip started properly the next morning with a tour of the highlights of the European side of Istanbul.

First stop was the Topkapi Palace where it took us 3 hours to explore. Much of the time was spent listening to our guide who was very informative but whose delivery was very boring. Regardless the palace is pretty impressive and would have been a city within a city during its heyday. The tiles in particular were quite intricate and amazing colours.

The seal of the sultan and some of the decorative tiles.

Next we headed through the Hippodrome which used to be the site for chariot races but now is home to series of monuments donated by a variety of countries. Next to this park is the famed Blue Mosque. It is the only mosque in the world to have 6 minarets and surprisingly we were able to take photos inside. There weren't that many people praying while we were there which we can understand considering the number of tourists wandering through. The blue colour is from the tiles but they weren't as blue as we expected. It is only the drawings or decoration on the tile that is blue rather then the entire tile. While we were there we saw a child of about age 10 dressed in a regal stlye of outfit. Our guide expained that this was the circumcision outfit and the boy is brought to the mosque and 'shown off.

The wash area outside the mosque

Part of the mosque ceiling

Blue mosque at night

After leaving the mosque we headed into the Hagia Sofia which is now a museum but has been both a Christian chuch and mosque. Much of the Christian decoration was removed or covered over during its conversion and now is an interesting mix of both religions.

Considering the heat of the day we were looking forward to our next stop, the Basilica Cistern. This was the original water source for the city in 532AD. These days there is only 1m of water in it and the 336 columns have been floodlit to create quite an interesting atmosphere. There are also heaps of rather large fish swimming around.

Dinner that night was at a traditional restaurant where we tried Gozleme. This was one of our favourite foods of the trip. They are a savoury pancake that can be filled with meat or cheese or spinach. More often eaten as a snack, we chose 4 and made it a meal. In all the places where we saw these being made it was done by an elderly lady. The best part of the meal was the massive hunk of watermelon that we bought on the way back to the hotel.

Gallipoli

To start today we drove for around 5hrs to the small town of Eceabat where we started the information overload at an outdoor museum. This museum has a replica of the penninsula showing all the sites of the battles involving the British, French, Australian, New Zealand, and Turkish. It also showed the location of the underwater mines in the channel. Back on the penninsula the first stop was Anzac Cove. It was hard to believe that such a beautiful coastline could be the site of so many lives lost. There are many cemetaries in the area and all the graves and very well looked after. Particular care has been taken, so that even the 3 muslims graves are alligned with Mecca.

The Sphynx - a landmark used by the sailors

Further along the road is Lone Pine with quite an impressive memorial although the only tree here is not a pine! In this area, either side of the road are the trenches that both sides were digging. The Turkish memorial is also very impressive and contains some poetry dedicated to their troops. We learnt that the entire 57th division was lost and they have never named a division '57' again. We finished today at the New Zealand memorial of Chunuk Bair which is located at one of the best viewpoints of the area. After the heat of the day it was really nice to swim in the hotel pool and watch the sun set over dinner at the hotel in Cannakkale.

Lone Pine memorial
Kusadasi

We spent 2 nights at this very touristy town. On the drive there we stopped off at Troy and saw the remains of the city portrayed in the movie. The other difference to the movie is that the sea no longer reaches the city walls but has receded a couple of kilometers. There is a 'replica' of the trojan horse and you can climb into it but it is a little squishy. The current one also looks nothing like the one in the movie. Continued on driving to Pergamum which has more ancient remains, the most impressive here being some freestanding marble columns that were at least 10m high. The other main attraction was the amphitheatre. It could hold 10 000 people and was incredibly steep. The heat was getting to us so it was with relief that we jumped back on the bus and made it to the hotel.

Replica of the wooden horse from the movie Troy

Column at Pergamum

Our second day in the Kusadsai area started off again with ancient ruins, this time at Ephesus which dates from 300BC. These ruins are probably the best preserved and it is easy to see the different types of buildings that are there. We started at the Odeon which was used for the upperclass to hold meetings or see shows. The main street is very impressive and lined with chapels, shops, public latrines and an impressive library at the base. The Temple of Hadrian which lines the street has friezes that show the building of the town. Like Pergamum it boasts a massive amphitheatre seating 24 000 people. We have a feeling that it may still be used today.

Looking down the marble street towards the Library
The Hercules gate at the top of the street. If you can touch the sides with simultaneously with flat palms then you are also Hercules.

The Library

Amphitheatre

Leaving the ancient monuments for awhile we spent the afternoon visiting a leather manufacturer and a turkish delight maker. Lots of nice flavours and if we had been returning to London we would have bought quite a bit. One of the highlights though was the Hammam that we did for the afternoon. Normally this bath-house is only for males only except Fridays but our tour had booked out the place for a couple of hours. The process involves lying on a heated marble slab to warm you up and make your skin smooth, then you get scrubbed by an attendant. The attendants are large Turkish men with had very little command of the English language so conversation was restricted to 'Move', 'Stand', 'Roll', 'Good?', and 'Done'. After the scrub (or pummel as Steve remembers) you move onto the massage bench where you are soaped down with the suds coming from a pillow case. The process finishes with a quick dunk under the cold shower and then a relaxing sit down with some apple tea. We have never felt so clean or so tall as they crack your back, toes, fingers and any other joint they find during the process.

One of the shops outside the Ephesus site

Leather manufacturer

Hand made Turkish Delight

The final stop for Kusadasi was at a carpet weaving co-op. The ladies that make the carpets are from the local villages in the area. The profit from any of the carpets sold goes back to the village. The show room ended up being covered by many layers of carpets as the attendants threw them around. We tried hard to purchase one but they weren't coming down to our price.

This lady was making a silk carpet.

The attendant doing the carpet throw.

Pamukkale

Considering the 40 degree heat we did think it was a little crazy to be visiting thermal pools. Since it was so hot we opted not to pay the extra for a dip in the pool instead we headed to the calcium terraces to have a walk around. The terraces work their way down the mountain side and are filled with the thermal water. We weren't allowed to wear shoes on the terraces and surprisingly it wasn't hot to walk on. It was although very bright as everything is white. After leaving we all spent the afternoon sitting and swimming pool side at the hotel. This was also the last night for some of the group as they headed back to Istanbul the next day.

Cappadocia

It was quite a long drive from Pamukkale and we had a break in Konya with a visit to the Mevlana Museum. Set in some really pretty gardens this museum is dedicated to the Whirling Dervishes and their teachings. We were able to see them later that day at 'Turkish Night' which also included belly dancing and a mock wedding ceremony.

Whirling Dervish

Part of the 'wedding'

Belly dancer

Our first full day started with a drive through the 'fairy chimneys' to Goreme where did a tour of the former city in the chimneys. It was amazing to see the houses, kitchens, churches that were carved out of the structures. They are surprisingly cool inside as well. The entrance to some the caves was a little tricky at times and Claire was almost pulled off one chimney while helping a very overweight lady up the stairs.

Some of the chimneys that contain caves

Inside one of the cave chapels
Another of our highlights was a visit to a local potter. The guy made a plate out of the white clay for us and then a teapot out of the red. We can't remember what the difference was because they all get painted anyway. His work was very impressive and again we bought a few pieces. There was a Turkish Carpet shop across the road from our lunch stop so we had another go at bargaining and we finally made a deal. Steve even managed to get the carpet to fit into his backpack for the trip back to London and it is now safely in Brisbane, awaiting the perfect coffee table. The afternoon was spent in an underground city of Derinkya. We were able to go 8 levels down and were amazed at where the schools, animal pens, ventilation shafts, living areas and churches that had been created in the previous centuries. What was also amazing is that 8,000 people lived down there during times of war.

View of the chimneys

Inside the underground city, around level 8

Inside the school room
That night we stumbled into a real wedding party that was happening across the road. Claire and Mary were ushered into the married ladies section while Steve and Darryl managed to located the brides father and get an explanation of procedings. It turns out that it was 'womens night' where the bride was getting henna tattooed. There was a stage set up with a group of girls dancing with the bride, although as we found out it is only the single ladies that can dance. The married women all surround the stage and then the men stand behind and choose who their future wife from those dancing. We were made very welcome and even offered food. It turned out that the actual ceremony was the next day at the grooms village. We noticed on our way past the next morning that the entire area was spotless and no evidence that 400 people had been there a few hours earlier!Istanbul

It was a long drive back but we did make a fairly short stop as part of the drive back to Istanbul where we visited the Museum of Anatolian Civilisation in the Turkish capital of Ankara. The building is brand new and has some intesting architectural features.

As we were flying out the following day it was up early to hurry into the Grand Bazaar and snap up the last of our purchases. Claire's shopping spree was restricted after the carpet and pottery purchases, so only bought some small pieces of artwork and naturally some turkish delight. Sadly we had to return to London, but the African adventure wasn't far away.

Montenegro

Sunday
It was time to farewell everyone on the boat so emails were exchanged and this website shared, and off to the bus station we headed. The station is only a few hundred meters up the road from the port but we were feeling the heat even at 9am. We realised a little too late that you also have to pay to put luggage on board the bus and the guy wasn't giving change so we paid a premium! The drive itself was really interesting, initially following along the coast as we left Dubrovnik and headed south but then moving inland towards the border. You could start to see some of the areas that were affected during the war.

Our first road border crossing was simple. We didn't even have to get off the bus. The official boarded and stamped our passports and on we went. It felt like about 10km from the Croatian border crossing to the Montenegran one, so we were glad we weren't walking. Once through the border we again found the coast and the rest of the drive was constant scenes of the bluest of blue water, games of waterpolo, families swimming and stunning coastlines.

Leaving Dubrovnik

We arrived in Kotor around 2pm and were flooded with people trying to get us to rent their apartments. It was a little unnerving but our guide book had warned us of this. We had prebooked our accomodation so just had to figure out which of the three 'gates' to the old town it was nearest to (Note:Google maps hasn't made it to Kotor yet). Unluckily for us it was the furthest one from the station so another few km of walking in 40+ temperatures. The lady at the apartment told us there had been a slight mix-up with the bookings but not to worry as we would stay in her friends apartment for the same money. He arrived to show us the new apartment which we had no idea whether to trust him or not. The conversation went along the lines of:

Him - "English?"

Us - "Yes. Do you speak English?"

Him: - "No."

And that was that.

After thinking we were getting led down the garden path as we wound our way through other peoples driveways and backyards, our apartment was excellent. 1bed mezzanine style studio with the all important air conditioning. There was a lot of pointing and nodding as he tried to show us how the air-con worked and the complicated front door lock, but we figured it out.



The afternoon was spent wandering the Old Town in search of a supermarket. The old town is in immaculate condition, no wonder that UNESCO gave it heritage status. You would think it would be easy to get lost but most of the narrow, cobbled streets all end up back in a square near one of the 3 gates. Thankfully it doesn’t take too long to walk around the town in its entirety and the temperatures kept all sane people indoors so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. Since we had pretty much walked back to the bus station to find a supermarket we decided to cook our own dinner. Pasta, a bottle of wine, really bad english TV and airconditioning. What more could you want.
Monday
The view from out front door is straight up the mountain backing the Old Town. At the top is St Ivan Fortress and a small church halfway up. Claire's mobile phone provider was very nice in sending us a weather report for free at 5pm every day so we knew that temperatures were going to be high again. Knowing this we set off around 7am. It took a fairly leisurely 2 hours to get up and back, and this included lots of photo stops to appreciate the view and feel sorry for the guy having to whippersnip the path.


Our reward was breakfast down on the waterfront before stocking up for lunch at the markets and returning to the airconditioning to recover. That afternoon we forced ourselves to brave the heat and looked at a couple of churches and visited one of the historical Palaces which also doubles as the maritime museum.

We also attempted to walk further round the bay but the road was really narrow and quite busy with cars, so gave up in favour of icecream and shade. After dinner we headed back into the Old Town to try for some shots of the fortress. The people were out in force. As soon as the sun sets, this town comes alive. There were heaps of families out doing the shopping and kids playing at 10pm.

Tuesday
It was our last day in Kotor so we ventured down to the pebbly beach for a swim. The water was surprisingly chilly considering how hot it gets during the day. The non-english speaking apartment owner was great and let us stay until after lunch as our bus wasn't leaving until 3pm.

The bus trip back to Dubrovnik encounted a slight delay at the border crossing, as the Croatian police decided to do a random baggage check on every passenger on our entire bus. An hour later we were on our way and very glad that we had invested in packing cells, which made the repack much quicker then others.

After arriving at the Dubrovnik bus station we had to figure out how to get to our hotel. Thinking we were used to the croatian transport system we assumed the bus would be fine relised it only came every hour from that stop and we had just missed one. We looked at the map and thought "it isn't too far, we'll just walk". An uphill 60min walk later (with our large backpacks) we arrived at the hotel completely knackered. We decided against going into town for dinner and settled for an expensive buffet dinner at the hotel.


Wednesday
This was to be our last day in Croatia and our flight back to London was for late afternoon. For the morning we joined a sea kayaking tour that left from just outside the Old Town walls and went around the nearby island before stopping off for lunch in a cave and returning to the Old Town. We did have the option of snorkelling at the cave but after hearing the shrieks at how cold it was both of us decided not to go in. We were wet enough anyway just from the paddling. All in all it was a relaxing holiday.

CROATIA

The first part of our journey back to Australia was a week of sailing around the islands off the South coast of Croatia. Rough seas; cramped conditions; bad food.... these are things that you may associate with sailing, but fortunately we had none of that.

Sunday

We arrived at Dubrovnik airport just after lunch to a very pleasant 25 degrees, a vast improvement on the previous few days in London. The bus ride into the city was very picturesque, with steep mountains dropping into the bluest of blue seas. We were dropped off at the main bus station, where we purchased our ticket for next weeks trip to Montenegro. The bus station is also next to Gruz Harbour, where we found our boat for the next 7 days. We were initially shown a below deck no-ensuite cabin, which started to concern us, but after pointing out that we had paid for an above-deck ensuite cabin, we settled into our nice above deck room.

Our next mission was heading off to explore the Old Town. The Old Town is a complete maze of streets with lots of steps and blind alleys. It reminded us a little of Essaouira in Morocco but much cleaner. The big difference was that the streets here are spotless.

We did the tour of the walls which had a few hairy moments as there are some very steep drops. The views are amazing. Our final item was to reward ourselves with some of the best gelati icecream we have ever eaten.

Monday morning we sailed off to the island of Mljet. Being one of the younger members of the boat we took advantage of the roof space and set up camp for the few hours.

We headed into the national park to see the 2 salt lakes (Malo Jerezo and Veliko Jerezo) as well as visit a small monastery on an island in Veliko Jerezo. All in all, it was another picturesque location, but the monastery was very simple and in the process of being rebuilt.

A relaxing swim in the afternoon, although by this time Claire had learnt lesson no. 1. Sunscreen works very well, but only when applied. The 5% of her body which was minus the sunscreen fared particularly badly. Claire was in a fair bit of pain and the constant exposure to the sun wasn't helping the knees any, so we returned to the boat and spent the remainder of the afternoon watching waterpolo and sunset at the beachside bar

Velico Jerezo

Tuesday morning we sailed out for Vela Luka on the island of Korcula. We awoke to the sounds of the engines starting up. We left really early and had breakfast whilst sailing. I have to say the food wasn't really to our tastes so far. Lots of beef and potato. Thankfully for Claire there was Nutella at breaky and she did collect any of the unused packets to eat throughout the day.

We weren't able to get into port until after lunch so we docked in a beautiful little bay where we were surrounded by amazingly clear blue water. There was although a disused military base which had prominant signs saying no mooring, and no photos. Of course we disregarded this, and docked for lunch. Naturally midway through lunch an official uniformed man came down and told us to leave. Only problem was that our captain had gone spear fishing for tonight's food, so we unhooked the rope and moved about 20m further into the bay and floated for a couple more hours

Loved being able to jump off the side of the boat whenever for a quick swim to cool off.

The town of Vela Luka is tiny with not alot to do. We waited until around 5pm before tackling the hill behind town in search of a cave (Vela Spila). The walk was just over 1km and we were knackered when we got to the top. We think the guy collecting money at the entrance felt sorry for us and let us in for free. In hindsight there wasn't very much to see at all. It was in shade, so did give us time to hide from the heat for a bit before walking back down. We had had enough of the boat food and dined in town. Have I mentioned how good the icecream is? It is very easy to have more then one a day.

Inside the cave

View of Vela Luka from cave

Wednesday morning and we were off to Hvar. Followed the same plan as the day before, sail for a bit, anchor, swim, relax, swim, eat, relax, swim. I love this lifestyle! This is a bit of a party town and lots of very rich people come here judging by the boats. We were in a queue for nearly an hour before we were allowed to dock. There were 9 boats in our line tonight. So far there has only been 4 and we are usually on the land side with the others having to walk through ours to get to land. This time we were in the middle. We spent the afternoon looking through St Stephen's Cathedral which was an interesting mix of modern and traditional decoration.

You would have thought that we had learnt our lesson from yesterday, but we tackled another hill to reach a fortress anyway. The path was quite a lot easier as it was paved all the way. The views over the town and port were amazing and worth the effort. On the way down we stumbled into a fresh fruit market and stocked up for snacks and then Claire spotted the bakery. The most exciting find of the this trip was a Lamington! Sadly it was about 3 days past its prime.

View from the Fortress

Thursday and we sail back to the island of Korcula, this time docking in Korcula Town. According to our itinery we were meant to come here on Monday, but as we've found out, the itinery is at the discreton of the captain.

Korcula Town is much bigger then Vela Luka. The old town is very picturesque and we managed to find a roof top bar in one of the turrets of the wall. A fabulous spot to watch the sunset, but you definitley don't want to be wearing a skirt to get up the ladder. Any drinks ordered come up the outside of the building in a basket and pulley system. Great for novelty but very expensive.

We raced these into the port

On the advice of the guide book we bought tickets to the Moreska which is a live show of singing and sword dancing. Both were amazing, especially the sword dance as the sparks started to fly!

Friday we sailed to Slopan and this was the first time we didn't stay on the roof. The airconditioning stopped working during the night and neither of us slept well, so we hid in whatever shade we could find. Instead of docking in a bay we pulled into a tiny port called Sipan and had lunch. There were sea urchins all along the 'beach' and we walked for ages in order to find a suitable spot to enter the water.

Our lunchtime entertainment was a water polo game between a group of american teenagers and the local croatian men. Let's say that team USA was getting a lesson in how to play. All the waterpolo matches we have seen have been in open water and the ropes are permanently in place so people are always having a go. The final port for today was a single street town where it seems the only reason to go there is that the boat gets cleaned.

Saturday was heading back to Dubrovnik via Lopud which had the first sand beach that we have seen. Inspired by yesterday's waterpolo a few of us found a ball and had a throw around. When we got to Dubrovnik it was lunchtime and it was way hotter then the first time we were there. We found out later that it had been 40 degrees. Tried to sit out the heat on the boat but eventually headed into town to see the Franjevacki Samosan (franciscan monastery) which was amazingly cool inside. It had some of the highest ceilings that we have seen in churches so far. The cloisters also had some pretty gardens and a small museum. We finally found the breeze at a tiny harbour side bar and spent the rest of the evening there.

This week was fantastic and just what we needed after the hassle and stress of packing up our lives again. The coastline is amazing and the gentle rocking of the waves will put you to sleep in an instant. Just remember to apply the sunscreen.

Next stop: Montenegro