Blogs from Cesme, Aegean, Turkey, Middle East

I truly wish I could tell you how beautiful this coastal area is, but we arrived after dark, and all we'll see tomorrow is what is alongside the road as we drive back to Izmir. We got glimpses of the sea as we drove from Izmir to Cesme. The sunset was spectacular but it was almost impossible to get a good pix fron the bus window as we curved through the mountains. Oh, well.....There may be other chances. Meanwhile we are walking and riding the bus, walking and riding the bus, and walking and riding the bus. We had 4 ruins or old churches we visited today. Or was there 5????? The last was the church of Policarp, who was the first Christian martyr. We looked through the fences at the ruins of the ancient city ... read more

July 13th: Local Tour of Turkey Meets Pedestrian Cruise Ship Forced poor Mengu to drive two hours from Cesme to Ephesus on the scenis route that runs along the coast. More picturesque views of a coast line that is as jagged as a broken window. Mengu tells us that the coastline is longer on this side because of the many inlets created by the making of the mountains here. HHI: Level 4 - heat is moderated by a fresh breeze from the Aegean Sea. Fantastic. Ran a moderated gauntlet of shopkeeper's into the ticket office for Ephesus, an ancient harbor city of about 200,000 people. Tara and Megu apeased us by traveling with us to see the site, a year to the day of thir first visit to this locale. The place was deceptively large and ... read more

This one is going to be short - I lost the long one just typed! So last day in Turkey - the ferry to Greece tonight was cancelled due to strong winds. Found a random hotel, not bad room or price, and I think I'm the only guest here, so no problem hoarding the one computer. March (at least this year) apparently isn't quite the perfect time for Turkey. Istanbul rained 4 out of 5 days. Cappadocia was freezing. Ephesus was warmer, but quite unpredictable with sun and rain and wind. In any case, Turkey was a bit harder to travel, partly due to weather, partly due to some little logistic mishaps which I've detailed before but somehow autosaving didn't work. So retry heading to Chios tomorrow (hopefully). Will load pics when I can find a ... read more

We drove down to a seaside town called Cesme today to visit the castle of St Peter. Cesme is a lovely little town and the castle was well looked after and very interesting. There was a museum inside that mainly contained nautical exhibits as the castle featured in many famous sea battles. From standing on the battlements we could see across to the Greek Islands - well we were assured by Mum and Dad that we would have been able to if it wasn't raining :) We headed into the village for lunch and had our first Pide which is a bit like a pizza at a small restaurant. We managed to stay fairly day but we were all glad that Mum had packed the umbrellas - thanks Mum. After a walk through the main street ... read more

We arrived in Chios around 4:30am. We drove off the boat and were soon informed that the next boat leaving for Turkey would not leave at 8am as scheduled but at 4pm. They told us the boat was “broken”. We made the best of it and spent the day exploring the town. We finally loaded the car around 3:30 then watched as the one other car squeezed on board this tiny little ferry. About 45min. later we arrived in Cesme Turkey. We got off the boat and were directed straight to the customs office. This, by the way, is the first time we have gone through customs since we left France. We all got our visas with no problems but were told we would have to wait until morning and purchase Turkish insurance in order to ... read more