Turkey, Prague and Amsterdam

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Welcome to our last travelblog!! We just got home from a four week trip around Turkey, Prague and Amsterdam and we fly home tomorrow (the 28th of November), via Thailand for two weeks.

Well Turkey certainly is a great travel destination which we believe should be on everyone’s ‘to do list’ (Wes believes this more than Vic.....). With the combination of being in a different cultural and religious country, the natural wonders, ancient cities/ruins, Gallipoli, the friendliest people (and the most annoying) and the beautiful coastline, Turkey has a lot to offer.

Istanbul is a thriving city with 15 million people and has plenty to offer travellers - notably the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya and the Grand Bazaar (where we purchased a backgammon board and tea set - we drank plenty of Turkish tea), to name a few. Istanbul was incredibly busy and crowded and noisy.

We soon ventured south along the west coast to a resort town called Bodrum for a few days, where we were hoping to do a gullet cruise. However the weather turned and we had couple of dull days, so to fill in time we did some shopping (which requires much bargaining with the shopkeepers!!!) and Wes bought some cheap shoes and jeans.

We then ventured north to visit the ruins of an ancient city called Priene and then off to Selcuk, where we settled for five days. Here we visited another ancient city, Ephesus (the best preserved Roman city in Europe), St Johns Basilica (where St John wrote his gospel), the grotto of the seven sleepers (where seven boys slept for 200 years) and took a day trip inland to the ancient city of Hierapolis and the natural wonder of Pamukkale where hot, calcium rich, water flows over a hillside edge forming white ledges and hot springs (which you can walk in, but no longer swim in).

Our next stop was Cannakale where we visited the city of Troy and the battlefields of Gallipoli. We highly recommend Gallipoli. It's amazing to see how close the Anzac trenches and Turkish trenches are to each other.

We then caught the bus cack to Istanbul for a few more days before flying to Prague, where the weather got considerably cooler and we realised how glad we are to be escaping the European winter!! Prague is a great city to just wonder and admire the architecture, churches, castle, the old town square, the Jewish Quarter and the river which runs through the city. We also took a train ride out to Kutna Hora to its ossuary which is decorated with bones of some 40,000 people!!

After a few days in Prague we flew to Amsterdam for two days where we again just wondered along the many canals, visited Anne Frank's House and the infamous Red Light District.

We're home on the 14th December, so we'll see you all soon!!!

Wes and Vic

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Photos

Aya Sofya
Vic made a few friends in Turkey