Tour wrap-up

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Tour Recap

What a Rick Steve’s Tour is like, in my humble experience on the 13 day Turkey Tour, or as I like to call it, Turkey Trot.

Our group is 28 people. Our tour guide is from Turkey and well educated. The tour members are range in age from 40- 79. Yes, the oldest is 79 but she has no problem keeping up and carrying her own luggage for blocks (a requirement for Rick Steve’s tours.)

A typical tour day starts at 6:30- 7:00 for breakfast, then on the bus at 8:00. See a site in the morning. At the site, we are not lead around by the guide with a big umbrella. No, he gives us an orientation to the site; the significance of the site and tells us a time to meet back. I do like “being on our own” at sites. That way you see what you want to see and spend as much (or as little) time you wish. All entry fees are paid. In some cases, we get to go the front of a long line.

Lunch, on your own. However this tour came with three surprise and bonus lunches with the group and they were delicious with a huge spread. We had half our lunches a Petrol Station. I know what you are think; ARCO AM/PM. Nope, the petrol stations right off the freeways are an event. The restaurants are usually caferia style, which our tour guide calls a “point and shoot.” (eg see the food and point, no translation needed.) The tables are neatly set with table clothes and linen. The bus boys (always boys) wear ties. At most petrol stations are nice clean with WC’s, a gift shop and sometimes an outlet store of some sort. All have wifi. Half our tour bus would pull out their Iphones and go crazy. Me, I have this cute little Acer notebook. Lightweight and a real keyboard. Anyway.

Afternoon activities or sightseeing event. All of the events were worth it. Besides seeing historical sites, we had lunch with a typical village woman who fixed us a traditional lunch of rice & beans; we sat with a local Iman (the head of the muslin church in his town) and had a Q&A session. What I liked the most about that was the session took in an old church and then he sang a prayer for us. On a Sunday.

We toured a couple of factories (which I really liked) and our guide was patient and kind and answered all sort of questions for us and had no shortage of Turkish topics to talk about.

The evening consisted of checking in to a hotel or back to our hotel typically by 5:00- 5:30 and half of our dinners has been with the group (as part of our tour prices.) Group dinners always at 7:00. Ergo, our “free time” daily amounted to 2 hours or less. We usually never went out after dinner; too exhausted. Group dinners were always wonderful with a ton of local food to eat. (I exaggerate a bit perhaps a half a ton). (Have I’ve told you about all the tomatos we’ve eaten? At every meal?)

Our hotels were…interesting. We stayed a plush, super plush hotel one night that had a natural hot springs hot tub (good for the bones we were told so I soaked) and half of us had a suite (including yours truly). Half the hotels were just okay. I am sure we stayed there for the location. All had wifi, but the funny thing was I only had wifi in our first & last hotels. In Konya, I went down the front desk with my computer in hand asking why I couldn’t get wifi. The front desk guy got on right away and looked at me like an idiot, an American idiot that is. I was very clear it didn’t work in my room to which he says, “oh, you must be in room 306.”
“Why yes” I say.
“Wifi never works in that room. Half the time never on the third floor.” he says.
And so it goes.

Most of my blogs were posted in lobby while wearing my PJ’s since I would post at 6:15 am or so after Skyping with Kailey. A couple of mornings I put one of my many new scarf’s, ran down the road to a place I knew had wifi and to sit outside and post. Serious. Let me tell you, I was a serious blogger.

And open air seating. Let’s talk about that shall we.

Since we are in a warm climate or maybe it’s just tradition steaming from the Roman Period I don’t know but almost every place has outdoor seating and/or courtyard. Including hotels. Including mornings that snow. A couple of mornings sitting in a court yard freezing caused me to eat more….all that shaking and burning extra calories I had to eat more. I know, I know, courtyards are charming and cute, yes. But come on, something has it be done when it’s freezing outside. No worries tho, one of the hotels sold us gloves. Yes, I purchased a pair of knitted gloves which were practical at the time and now they are a souvenir.

Our group members consisted of a person who’s been on every-single Rick Steves tours and this was her last one to several people who had taken 5-6 tours. I would guess less than half of us had never been on any sort of organized tour.

Would I take an organized tour again? Maybe. Would I take a Rick Steve’s tour again? Yes. It’s nice being at site or in town and knowing someone, even if to say “HI” or take cuts in line. Its nice having breakfast with your new friends discussion yesterdays adventures wondering what the next day will bring.

In the end, everyone exchanged email addresses, everyone hugged everyone and promised to keep in touch, including the tour guide and bus driver.

Thanks for tuning in and my regular adventures with my hair or scarf’s or obnoxiousness returns tomorrow.

Or Maybe I’ll just give you the evil eye.



Prost.

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Photos

heads of state
the newest ruler

I'm cold
coffee in the morning and we are outside

our fancy room
we loved this place, if only for the night

group dinner
with our hosts

the cave room
this room was super

room courtyard
outside our rooms, the outdoor courtyard

courtyard
of our breakfast area a few mornings

a dinner spread
on the snow day

my plug ins
what a mess, but this is what works

bus driver
and our tour guide

another buffett dinner
this is just a wee bit of it