Blogs from Turkey, Middle East - page 12

13 Feb 2020 Çanakkle Its a beautiful sun shiney day here today, so we took a trip out to the ancient city of Troy, about 35kms from here. Its quite astounding that there have been nine cities built one on top of the other over the last 3500 years! We pretty much have the site to ourselves too which is one of the benefits of travelling here in the off season. We took some left over bread with us to feed the puppies and dogs as well. The Gallipoli guide did it a couple of days ago too, so we thought why not! TheTurkish government has a special program for stray dogs. The stray dogs have an identification tag on their ear which means they have already been picked and brought to the local shelter for ... read more

07 Feb 2020 Istanbul As often happens, our easy, unplanned days often turn in to some of the busiest. After walking through the long, winding park at the back of the Topkapi Palace, we found ourselves by the banks of the Bosphorous Strait, overlooking the Asia side of Turkey. Those of you watching the new series, Ottoman, will know exactly where that is, and what it means to Turkey. We walked over the Galata bridge, which crosses the Golden Horn. Shane has had quite alot to say about the Golden Horn over the last few days. I have been ignoring him!Finally....I found someone selling Gozleme! Apparently it is only a summer food here so my dream of consuming most of my calories eating the stuff will die here also. Shane is making up for it eating ... read more

Another new year, another ski trip, that's just how it has commenced each new year seemingly since time immemorial. So, when a variety of skiable nations have already been visited, it is time for Turkey to step forward and try and prove to the masses just how much this nation, normally associated with resort holidays, measures up on the ski destination scale. Before we get to those details, however, it is worth noting that on this occasion, the accommodation was not right at the ski resort itself, but instead at the nearby industrialized Turkish city of Kayseri, a sizeable city with a fair few traces of development to place it within a category of cities possessing roughly one of everything. Staying at the city's prime property, the Radisson Blu hotel constituted a lap of luxury approach ... read more

Gestern habe ich wieder gut gefrühstückt und mir dann mehrere Punkte vorgenommen, die auch realisiert habe. Zuerst bin ich zum Großen Basar. danach zur Suleymaniye Moschee, vor dort zum Gewürzmarkt und danach habe ich an einer Fahrt am Bosporus entlang teilgenommen. Nach all dem bin ich wieder zu meinem Stammrestaurant und habe dort zu Abend gegessen. Anschließend bin ich zum Hotel und habe dort dies und das gemacht. Ich freue mich aber immer mehr, dass ich bald wieder in der Heimat bin. Auch mein neues Auto soll bald übergabebereit sein.... read more

Nach dem Frühstück heute bin ich etwa 100 Meter vom Hotel zu einem Platz, von dem aus kostenlose Shuttle-Busse zum Otogar (Busbahnhof) fahren. Darauf hat mich gestern der Reiseführer aufmerksam gemacht. Dort angekommen habe ich beim Warten einen Kaffee getrunken und meiner Familie ein frohes neues Jahr gewünscht. Dann bin ich in einen Bus mit dem Schild "Bursa" eingestiegen, aber es war der falsche. Zum Glück habe ich das noch bemerkt und bin zusammen mit anderen Reisenden in einen Bus mit dem Schild "Istanbul" eingestiegen, aber eben dieser Bus machte dann später einen Stopp in Bursa. Auf dem Weg hat es etwas geregnet und wir sind die neue 3-spurige Autobahn Izmir - Bursa - Istanbul gefahren. Also eine weitere wichtige Infrastrukturinvestition. Erdogan geht auch in anderen Bereichen vor, so wurde z.B. in den letzten Tagen ein ... read more