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Published: April 9th 2015
Arriving to Ataturk airport, we handed over our passports and our flight confirmation email to the man behind the counter. “There is a problem.”
Words you really don’t want to hear at an airport.
“You are at the wrong airport.”
Hearts sink. Here nice and early but not nearly enough time to get to another airport.
“Go to the main ticket agent down the hall.”
Our tickets were not refundable but flights are still leaving in 30 mins, 2 hours, 3 hours, etc. from now to Izmir. Feeling embarrassed about our error, we re-booked our flight to leave from Ataturk and we were on our way a couple hours later.
We took the metro from Izmir Airport to a station that had part of our hotel name in it. We couldn’t narrow down the walking directions on Google maps the day before so we were really just playing our luck and hoping for a sign. We emerged from the underground from a random exit and looked at a couple screenshot maps on our phones..... Which way should we go?? We started in one direction when by some chance I turned around and saw a sign-
our hotel sign on top of a tall building in the sun. Weeoo, a break in a slightly stressful day from the travel gods.
After checking in to our hotel, we hit the town on a mission. We had only given ourselves a ½ day to see Izmir and we were already running a couple hours behind schedule. First stop, their infamous clock tower in Konak square. We walked along the water until arriving at a nice square with the clock tower and a mini mosque; minutes later it started to rain. No umbrella on hand, we threw our jacket hoods over our heads and kept on going down some busy streets and into Gozlemecim, the #1 rated restaurant in Izmir. We were a little skeptical when we arrived as it was basically a glorified street food stall but we wanted to try it anyway. We walked up to the entrance; the lights were off, 2 ladies sitting inside at a table in the dark looking out to the rainy street. Unsure if there would be a communication barrier, we approached cautiously asking if it was closed. They start nudging a man laying down hidden on a bench beside
them, suddenly there was action – lights on, the man fires up the stove, the table is cleared and we are ushered inside to the only table with a nice little heater above – obviously the reason they were all crammed underneath. We didn’t even know what exactly it was that they served but there were newspaper articles laminated all over the walls about the little restaurants accomplishments. We asked the cook to make up whatever he thought would be good and sat back under the nice heater at our small wooden table, mmm delicious.
The next day we took the train to Selcuk, our main reason for the flight to Izmir, for the journey to Ephesus. The weather called for rain all day but we were prepared, prepared for everything except the hottest day of our entire trip so far. No shade, no sunscreen, still suffering. We started off at the mosque then to the St. John basilica and castle. We had read that it was about a 30 minute walk out of town to Ephesus and decided that we were interested in enjoying the weather and walking there. On the way we popped into the Temple of
Artemis before finally arriving to the gates... an hour later... we might have went the wrong way out of town. We walked around Ephesus, the grand ruins, for hours touring every inch of it – fabulous but by the end we were spent. Our feet ached... we had already put on just over 20kms. We hailed a cab and had him to take us to our final destinations, a stop at the Seven Sleepers Grotto and the house of the Virgin Mary, her final resting place after her journey with St. John.
We returned to Selcuk with 75 TL left to our names. We needed 50 lira for our cab to the airport the next morning and 12 lira for our train back to Izmir. 13 lira left.... about $6.50 CAD. Not wanting to withdraw anymore TL on our final day in Turkey, we settled on a grocery store for “dinner”, grabbing a couple snickers bars, 2 bags of chips, water, a box of biscuits and a multivitamin.
Turkey has been awesome, super friendly people who are really helpful. Wish we had more time here!
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Mom
non-member comment
Beautiful
Looks so pretty. Glad u r having a nice time. Safe travels