Antalya

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Caught the tram again from our hotel after breakfast served in our room (thats a first). This time we knew where we were going and arrived at the Otogar for our midday 5 hour bus trip to Antayla. We leave the East now and head towards the Mediterranean Coast


Outside temp today is in the low 30's, the bus takes us over some very high mountain passes, but very good roads also a nice bus to travel in. Most of the buses here have satellite TV and free WiFi access,

Arrived at Antayla Otogar and try to find the free shuttle into the old part of the city, it is a lovely warm afternoon and at last we start to see glimpses of the sea.

We realise that we are now the only people left on the mini bus and with a bit of sign language the driver makes movements like we should be getting off. We had given him a note of where we wanted to get off which was the Old Town Hall.

Ok here we are pack and suitcases on the footpath and none of the street names coincide with our map in the Lonely Planet, so we did a bit of walking and tried to match up some street names, turns out there are twoTown Halls, the old and the new and we were at the wrong one.

But as always happens in Turkey, somone approaches you and asks if they can help, before too long this guy has Sheryll's suitcase and is heading off through this absolute maze of cobbled streets, most with no vehicle access, I dont know how we would have done it by ourselves

Ozman House is our Pansion for the next few days and we are soon all booked in and up on the rooftop terrace in time to see the sun set over the Mediterranean. There is music coming from all around us mainly Turkish some modern some old.
What a magic sight and sound to be here after the past several weeks where we have been hundreds of kilometers away from the sea.

Breakfast the following morning was as we have become used to and served on the rooftop terrace, typical menu of tomatoes, cucumber, two types of cheese one a hard yellow and the other maybe a goat or sheep's milk feta style, hard boiled eggs, a basket of crunchy fresh bread and yoghurt topped with dollops of honey or preserved cherry syrup
All washed down with a Turkish tea, and that fantastic view over the Antayla Bay.

Gulet's moored in the old harbour and larger craft heading out over the bay for cruises.

How could you be in a place like this and not have a swim, so it was time to bare our winterised bodies on the beach somewhere, maybe we can tack onto the end of an English Tour Trip and go unnoticed !!

A lot of the beaches around us are managed by hotels so you cant awim there unless you are a guest, so we get on the tram to Koniliti beach and spend several hours there in the late afternoon, the sea is so warm and clean and a pleasure to swim in.

Tomorrow we are off to Olympos

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