Bodrum and Rhodes

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May 4th.

We are now in Bodrum, Turkey. John is having a snooze, after spending the morning walking around the town, and seeing the Castle. We had never been to Turkey before, and we have really enjoyed Bodrum. Decided not to do any tours here, just walk around on our own. The ship is at anchor, so we had to tender in to shore, then back to the ship. Seabourn has a tent set up on shore, and have cold drinks, towels and lotions…. We walked all around the harbour, stopping for coffee on the way….also passed a small fish market, where a lot of the towns “street cats” hang out. There is a lovely flower garden opposite the fish stalls, and all the cats are siting amongst the flowers, eating small fish that are thrown to them. Even when we were in the café having coffee, we also had a “street cat” and a “street dog” come up for a pat! Walking through the town, there were lots of cats everywhere. In an office, I saw a cat on a couch, then another walking through the office, then another on a chair, and yet two more on the floor in the sun……they were all strays. It was lovely to see how well all the stray animals were looked after. Some of the dogs were a bit mangy and flea bitten, but at least they were well fed by the locals.
Tomorrow we will be in another part of Turkey.

Yesterday we were at the Greek Island of Rhodes. First time in Greece, and we certainly want to go back there again. The ship arranged a shuttle bus to take us from the ship to the town, but as we went out to wait for the shuttle, taxi drivers approached us, wanting to take us on tours. We ended up agreeing to do a tour with a couple from Luxembourg, so it only cost us 10 Euros each. The driver took us all around the town of Rhodes, showing us the main sights; then dropped us off back in the Walled City. We spent the rest of the day walking around the beautiful cobbled streets of the old town. Of course as we didn’t catch the shuttle into town, we had no idea where we were supposed to catch it for the return trip to the ship, so ended up walking all the way back. It was quite a walk, but we haven’t had much exercise so far on this trip! John thinks he wants to live in Rhodes now……still have two more Greek Islands to visit, plus Athens.
It is so nice to be back in such lovely clean places after the filth of Egypt. I always thought that one day we would go back to Egypt and spend more time there….but dont think we would ever go there again now.

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