King of the Hill

Thurs Jul 31 - day 19

Eaaaarly morning flight to Athens.  Alarm went off at 3:45.  Yes there was a cat hanging out at baggage check.

Took bus the wrong way, those hotel instructions again!

Food was far away.  Two restaurants with no food, so we had to leave twice.  Third time was a charm. 

Tackled the National archeological museum.  Wow factor was out of this world.  However, apparently mimicry of the sculptures for photos is considered "disrespectful", so Sherisse, knowing this ahead of time, had to explain why she wouldn't take my photo.  The sculptures were so very good.  There's a reason ancient Greek culture inspired all those dudes in Europe to start a renaissance.

Fri Aug 1 - day 20

Parthenon on top of the Acropolis, top of the bucket list, check!
But the people won't get out of the way for our photos, and the other people are constantly taking photos when I just want to see stuff.
We started early and by the time we left people were climbing the hill in dense herds like cattle.
Ancient Athens agora, we walked the pathways of the ancient city where Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates taught. 
Acropolis Museum, its amazing how much stuff they have, but the statues have taken their greatest beating in the last 50 years from pollution.
"But which parts are real?" Repeated many time through the days.
We were moving slowly all day,  "Respect the heat".

Sat Aug 2 - day 21

Walking tour of Athens
Freedo cappuccino at McDonalds
Pedestrian street to church
Three little orthodox churches
Little white houses with narrow alleys
Roman agora
Flee market
Lunch on pita row
Walk to cemetery
Museum of Byzantine history
Delicious dinner of meatballs with egg and lemon sauce aaaand another Greek salad.

Across the Sea to Greece

Mon Jul 28 - day 16

High speed hydrofoil ferry from Fethiye to Rhodes.  Goodbye Turkey, hello Greece!

Arrived in the old city harbor.

Our hotel was far superior to the Star hotel.  Glad we skipped that.

Old city castle wall is a medieval crusader fortress in amazing condition. 

Played frogger with high speed scooters whipping through the castle walls.

Mythos on the rooftop patio, overlooking the city gate, harbor and market square fountain.

Avenue of the knights
Grand palace of the masters
St. Paul's gate, climbed the walls and soaked in the endless Mediterranean sea.  The lighthouse and windmills were surrounded by yahties.
After Mythos and wine in the market we found the Ambrose gate and dinner.  Then we were ready to climb the Acropolis. 

Sea spreading to the distant mountains. At sunset we absorbed the vista. We found the Acropolis Temple as dusk fell. It was huge.

No taxis after four phone calls by a shop owner.  A long 50 minute walk later we crashed back at home.

Tues Jul 29 - day 17

Lindos

White houses
Narrow streets winding around the side of the Acropolis.  Steep climb in the heat to the top.
Old crusaders fort guards the ancient temple.
Ocean views, white cube houses and beaches surround this Greek island fortress.
Hit the beach to beat the heat.

Found an amazing little restaurant by our hotel.  Delicious huge Greek salad and meal.

Wed Jul 30 - day 18

Beach day in Rhodes
Wall to water people
Randall had to conquer the fear. Jumped from the high platform way out in the sea.
Surrounded by endless deep blue sea, with island mountains in the distance and the historic city of Rhodes behind us. It was a great day.

Back to our favorite restaurant for Greek salad and we discovered Giaourtiou, sausage in yogurt sauce with pita.  Amazing with a Greek salad.  Sherisse had to run from only one cat.
"Randall it is coming at me!"

Time for the Beach

Thurs Jul 24 - day 12

Bus from Selcuk to Fethiye

Excessive chagrin about hotel location, far from otogar (bus station), proved to be misplaced once we found the beach, a ten minute walk away.

Found the beach filled with English tourists and walked the boardwalk cramped with restaurants and shops while the sun set over the bay.

Found the best baklava and tea yet

Fri Jul 25 - day 13

Party in the house (or boat)

Drove over the mountain to board the party boat to visit six beaches of southern Turkey.

Butterfly valley
Sherisse wasn't satisfied with the first waterfall so she decided we would climb right to the top.  We saw one butterfly.

Two teachers on a beach vacation.
Sherisse "isn't it so easy to float here?"
Randall "Yes, you should add salt water to your science class density tower."
Sherisse "Ya, I was thinking about density."

Cold water lagoon.  Swim for 5 minutes and become 5 years younger.

Dare devil Sherisse conquers fear and does the super steep waterslide into darkness them outdoes herself by jumping 3 meters off the side of the boat into the water.

Randall, not to be outdone jumps from the top deck.

Sat Jul 26 - day 14

Disastrous bus extravaganza takes us into the hills on a mom and pop chicken bus.  One hour bus trip takes four hours. 

First hotel proprietor sends us to the wrong bus station.  As we wait for the first bus pick up Randall says "we're lucky we haven't had to wait much for busses this trip".  Famous last words. 
At the otogar, the bus guy says what every bus guy say  " bus ten minutes coming".  Its magic, every bus in this country no matter when you arrive is "ten minutes coming."
On chicken bus full of local senior citizens and we have to stand because the seats ran out.
Changed busses just outside of Xanthos, and bus driver forgets our stop and drives into more hills across the valley.
We keep driving into Kas until we meet the bus coming the other way and change busses.
Get to the turnoff for Patera and change busses again.  We got off that bus too early in the village but as the the prior bus driver was following us, he directed us to get back on.
At 1:40 we finally roll into the beach surrounded by the ruins of ancient Lycian Patera.

Randall wanders away to find a lighthouse while Sherisse finds a huge snake in the ancient temple.  Terrified, she bolts through the bushes and eventually finds Randall 800 meters away at the lighthouse.  She is not happy with him.

The ancient lighthouse was probably built by Emperor Nero.

Walk to the head of the Lycian way at the gate way entrance to the city.  The hike we planned  seems unlikely now in the sweltering 5 o'clock heat.

Bus guy at the road home "your bus 10 minutes coming".  We catch the real bus home and one hour 15 min later we crash in our hotel.

Sun Jul 27 - day 15

Slept late as we needed to recover from our bus ordeal.

We visited a Turkish hamam today.  Here's how it went down.  After a warm sauna, you lay on a large stone platform in the middle of a 400 year old room, wrapped in a towel.  Next, a middle age man, also in a towel, roughly exfoliates most of your body with a scrubbing tool and then throws hot and cold water on you.  After that, another middle age towel clad man covers you with soap, gives you a light body massage, cracks your back, throws more water, sits you up to wash your hair, and then finally drowns you like a cat with more water.  So relaxing.

Followed hamam with lunch by the harbor.  Efes, and gozleme were delicious. 

Huge Sunday market was right outside our hotel and Sherisse drove a hard bargain to get her turquoise ring.

Ephesus: Trouble with Cats and Roman Latrines

Tue Jul 22 - day 10

Travel day.  Expected 3 hour bus ride  from Pamakkale to Selcuk that actually took 6 hours.  Long morning.

Solomon, our friendly hotel proprietor, gives the comprehensive rooftop tour of Selcuk and Ephesus.  Then prepares our scrumptious lunch of mezes (Turkish tapas).

We walk through the ruins of the Church of St. John, named such as he apparently wrote his gospel and died looking after Jesus mother here.

Wed Jul 23 - day 11

Early morning excursion to Ephesus to beat the tour crowds.  Do all tour guides talk so obnoxiously loud?

Trajan rules the round world.  Hadrian rules the free world with an arch. The wisdom of Celsus archived not in scrolls but books.  Randall and Sherisse promenaded the Hercules gate onto the sacred way.  It's like the Disney Land of ancient ruins.  Sherisse brings Ephesus to her grade 8's in her selfies of Rome tour. 

Randall gets reprimanded by grumpy tour guide for testing out the ancient Ephesian latrines.  There was a cat doing the same.

Spent the afternoon playing in the waves of the Agean sea at Pamacak beach.  Palm trees are better than Randall's beach umbrella.

Deeeelicious dinner at Walabee's Aqueduct Restaurant.  Order the  "surpise dinner" and they choose for you.

The lonely planet book was used as a weapon against cats three times during dinner so Sherisse only had to leap from her chair twice.  She didn't fall into the fountain but it was close.

Beach Day on a White Mountain

Mon Jul 21 - day 9

Arrive in Pamukkale after night bus that doesn't stop for first 6 hrs.  Bladders ready to burst.

The turquoise mineral pools winding up the stark white travertine cliffside provided one of the most unique beach days ever.

Take breathtaking natural phenomena and ancient historical monuments, add blazing sun, water, beachwear and cameras you get the temple to narcissism.  (It was a nonstop sea of selfies and sports illustrated swimsuit wannabes.  Not us though...well mostly not us).

Randall chooses not to startle Sherisse so he says nothing as cats creep stealthily under the table at dinner.  He then scatters them stealthily.

Two Days Discovering Lost Cities in the Desert: 2 teachers need a better map

Sat Jul 19 day 7

Its funny how hotel room features like a/c and  floorspace become important after a sleepless night in the heat, tripping over luggage getting to the bathroom.

Mememem and pancakes  on the panoramic rooftop for breakfast. Off with our tour group to see underground cities, but our bus is stuck in an alley behind a slow moving tractor

The green tour

Erbil our tour guide gave us Turkish
Name Layla (means intoxicating beauty) and Mecnun (meshz noon) (means crazy in love), famous lovers from a Turkish love story.

Selime Orthodox monastery

Ihlara Valley walk - first Christians arrived here after 70 AD to avoid Roman persecution.  St.   ...   Church in ruins but you can take pictures of the frescoes.

Derinkuyu underground city.  We went down 7 levels, 50 meters while four people panicked and had to be escorted to the surface.   Sherisse finally had to retreat as we decended the tiniest passage towards the 8th level graves. Maybe she saw dead people.

Sun Jul 20 - day 8

Day 8, that means the first week is over.  Sad

Missing socks and serious back pain cause early morning drama. Sherisse, against her better judgment, attempts chiropractic treatment. Randall finally seeks help from random Boston backpacker for back cracker.

Hiking! Rose valley, the Ucichur castle, and Love valley on the agenda.  Well, making one out of three ain't bad. 

The name  of the village, Goreme, is Turkish for invisible, but I think it should be applied to the hiking trailheads.

This invisibility required some off trail hiking which almost went well until 25 feet from the bottom we ran into a sheer cliff.  Well, almost sheer because there was this one spot with a slight rut caused by washout, so of course Randall was game.  Sherisse was slightly more hesitant, or very hesitant, or terrified to go down but too nervous to go back up.

Sherisse proved once again that she is Ms. Unstoppable because she followed Randall down the almost sheer rut.  This took a good 20 plus minutes, a continuous stream of encouragement, and an elaborate plan to catch her if she slid all the way to the bottom.  She made it.  Random Turkish men applauded from across the valley.  Randall ate more dirt than he has in the past several years.

The entire situation was obviously Randal's fault; however, a still somewhat miffed Sherisse gamefully agreed to climb the red peeked mountain which revealed some of the most breathtaking vistas seen yet.

Efes, Coke and Ruffels at the Rose Valley Tea garden.

Long hike back from Rose Valley.  Two hour hike turned into five and a half.

Evening restaurant crawl.  Water, lots of water and baklava by the 'river'.  Next patio, Efes.  Last patio, curry and the second Efes on the tip of the highest terace overlooking the vista of Goreme at Manzara's.

Capidocia, Crossings Over to Asia

Fri July 18 - day 6

Overnight bus to Goreme arrives after nine AM.  11 hour bus ride accomplished.

After "sleeping" on the bus and checking into our hotel we head out in the hammer pounding anvil heat to find the Open Air Museum with the Orthodox cave churches.  Passing numerous hotels advertising pools we reconsider our booking priorities.

Our cave church tour happens in slow motion.  I think the ancient Christians were more about living in cool comfort than hiding in caves from persecution.

Domes, columns, amazing orthodox frescoes all in miniture cave sized churches.

Hiking the house cave filled valleys around Goreme almost didn't happen because Sherisse got stranded at the steep part halfway up the first cliff.   Thinking she was going to die, Randall must save her.

Randall is surprised the hike continues as Ms. Determination isn't going to let some random cliff stranding stop her.  

We discover slot canyons, amazing rock formations and narrow riverbead passageways as Sherisse continuously wonders if we are lost.

We are unexpectedly forced to negotiatiate several steep narrow ladder decents down the river bed.  Sherisse repeates here uncertainty about our direction of travel.

We round a final corner to suddenly come upon the Tea Garden restaurant?!  We have the fresh squeezed orange juice.

One final hour of hiking/walking and we stumble barely conscious into our hotel room.

Nazar's delivers a great supper where we discoverwith vegetable gozleme.  A savory fried pancake with veg inside.

Late evening at the hotel room, with the windows open for essential air Sherisse queries "Can cats get in there?".
Because fresh air equals sleep, Randall replies no.