Adriatic

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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 of Smyrna as it had closed just before we got there. To see it, we went down through the city of Izmir through work traffic, the driver started up a narrow, uphill street, only to meet a car, head-on, and quite a discussion went on through the bus window to the car window, and voices were briefly raised, then the bus pulled hard right, the car, hard left (our left) and we passed, and so did the next car. The bus driver is excellent. He made a 3-point turn around in the small parking area in front of our hotel this morning, in space that our passenger truck drivers said they'd never attempt. Going down through the city, we had, maybe, 3" of air space between us and the next vehicle. Thankfully, the majority of the cars here are small. The motor cycles and motor scooters thread their way in the "third lane" which apparantly follows the line dividing the two car lanes. We saw a pizza delivery scooter with a box on the back of the scooter for the pizza.

The country has been beautiful. Mountains and valleys, interspersed with farm ground and ancient ruins and little villiages. Few of the farmers live on their farm ground. Most live in villiages and walk or ride or perhaps bicycle to their fields. Today was the first we saw bigger fields. The other days, the fields were the size of some country yards, separated from the next field by a ridge of stones. The stones are everywhere....from big to gravel. Some farm plots have looked like they had a gravel mulch, the stones were so thick. Today there were acres and acres of grapevines, all trimmed and tied up on short trellises. The guide tells us they are for raisins...have you checked your raisin box?? I plan to look when I get home and see if possibly they came from Turkey. Won't bore you further....I'll just say we have eaten wonderful salads and fruits here, and all is grown here....no iimports from South America or other places.

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Comments

[Lucille Bowman]

Looks like you are seeing some awesome places and them mountains are beautiful. We are enjoying seeing all these pictures and hearing from you! Lot of the stuff seems familiar from our Germany trip. Enjoy!!