This was one of the highlights of our trip, a chance to step back in time and witness the last monument of an absolute monarch from centuries ago (the links below give the full history of the statues and how they got to the summit of the mountain). We had to set off about 4am to ensure we got up to the summit, and it was worth it - sunrise was awesome, with the sun rising on one side of the mountain, while a storm gathered on the other side - we came down the mountain in driving rain, which made [View Full Entry]

---

---

http://www.kapadokyaballoons.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocia [View Full Entry]

---

---

And so onto Cappadocia, a region of Turkey famous for its amazing landscape (parts of Star Wars were filmed there) - there will be plenty of pics to follow! We travelled along the route of the old Silk Road, the trading route that used to exist between Europe and Asia, and we got the chance to stop at some of the caravanserais that still stand on the route. These were stopping points every 20-30km along the route, to allow the camels to rest, and to allow for trading along the way - the one we visited was in near perfect condition, [View Full Entry]

---

---

The highlight of getting back on the Fez Bus was being reunited with our original tour leader Kerry who had been with us on the first 2 sectors and was by far the best Fez leader on the circuit. A large part of her appeal was that she appeared completely scatterbrained - mainly because she said everything as she thought it so, where others would try to maintain an aura of calm regardless of what was going on inside, you always knew exactly what Kerry was thinking and feeling as it happened - but despite this things always worked out and [View Full Entry]

---

---

Too soon we had to get back on the Fez Bus and head for what we expected to be yet another highlight of Turkey - Olympos and its treehouses. A fairly uneventful journey was followed by an exciting arrival as we caused unintentionally caused controversy. We arrived at the “House of Fez” in Olympos, a place called Kadirs which we weren’t staying at because we had heard that it was a massive party place and we just wanted to relax. The tour leader said he would get someone to contact Sabans (the place we were staying) so they would send someone [View Full Entry]

---

---

After a couple of relaxing days in Fethiye we were on the road again - for a while at least. We had only just left Fethiye when the driver decided that the bus needed a quick service (it seemed to be running fine) so we pulled into a garage, the mechanic did his thing and the bus broke and would not start. 5 days on the Fez Bus now 2 breakdowns and 2 days with no aircon - we were starting to feel that we were the jinxes. After about half an hour of mechanics looking panicked it started up again [View Full Entry]

---

---

Fez Bus: Sector 4 - Koycegiz to Fethiye The next day was very exciting and started with yet another sales room - this time carpets. Frist they showed us how they get the silk from the worms and then how each carpet is hand woven - some taking 4 years to complete and comprising 400 knots per square inch - mad! Then there was a long demonstration in the show room where about 6 staff threw carpets around and let us walk on them - they were lovely. Once again, being handmade they were massively expensive - starting about £1,000 for [View Full Entry]

---

---

Fez Bus: Sector 3 - Selcuk to Koycegiz After 3 nights in Selcuk it was back on the Fez Bus for the journey to Koycegiz (pronounced Coogies, obviously). To be honest the first half of the day was a complete waste of time with us only actually travelling about 30 miles from Selcuk and instead visiting a variety of sales rooms. We started in a gorgeous little village called Sirence where we sampled the local fruit wines which come in a variety of flavours including mulberry, kiwi, peach and pomegranate of which Col’s favourite was the mulberry (I was still a [View Full Entry]

---

---

Fez Bus: Sector 2 - Canakkale to Selcuk The next day was very hot and very long and for the most part we were stuck on a bus with no air-con. We set off at 8am and stopped soon after for a tour of Troy - now I have never really thought about it but if anyone had ever asked I would have guessed that Troy (and a number of other amazing sites) was in Greece but Turkey is actually home to a huge number of famous ancient cities and is far superior to Greece in that it is a) cheaper [View Full Entry]

---

---

Fez Bus: Sector 1 - Istanbul to Canakkale We had booked the Fez Bus (a hop-on, hop-off tour of Turkey) so that we could see as much of Turkey as possible with minimum hassle and maximum flexibility and we had a month to fill with only a vague idea of what our itinerary would be. It was very exciting! We got on the bus expecting a mix of nationalities and ages - and were right on 1 of those counts. There was a wide range of ages from early 20s to 60s but one nationality was in the majority - Australians! [View Full Entry]

---

---