Selçuk Environs

Today was a day for visiting a couple of the towns around Selçuk.

This morning I took a bus up to Şirince, a quaint little winemaking village in the hills east of Selçuk. Unfortunately there are no tours of the wineries themselves but there are plenty of places handing out free samples and I had a truly fantastic lunch (local ravioli with a sauce of yogurt and ground pepper) at one of the village restaurants.



After Şirince I headed out to Çamlik to take a look at the steam locomotive museum. Interesting but would have been better if they'd left the locomotives looking a bit more run down.



In other news I'm still not sure exactly when I'll be leaving Selçuk. Certainly won't be tomorrow though.

Ephesus

Some photos from my visit to Ephesus yesterday...



After the visit to the ruins I made a pilgrimage to Homeros Pension for a sunset drink at the place where Derek and Elisa picked up the tradition. As a non-guest I didn't get any of the homemade wine and had to settle for the usual beer though.



Finally here's a shot of my guesthouse pool at night. It's still a bit cold for night swimming but very inviting during the day.



Today is pretty much reserved for R&R by the pool although I may get out for some light wandering this afternoon.

Selçuk

Today, instead of heading straight for the Ephesus ruins, I wandered around some of the attractions in Selçuk town. Most of my time was spent in the Ephesus museum which worked out well since the weather wasn't cooperating once again.



If it's nicer tomorrow I'll head to Ephesus otherwise it'll probably be a day for lounging around the very cool guesthouse where I'm staying.

Bergama

Spent the last day and a half seeing lots of piles of Greek and Roman stones in and around Bergama. I took most of these shots (all but the first in fact) today on my looong walk up to the Bergama a crop of police acropolis.



Tomorrow I head to Selçuk where I plan to spend a few extra days relaxing in addition to seeing all the sights.

Grey Skies

It's been very overcast for the past two days, which is unfortunate since Ayvalık is very picturesque and blue skies would have made for some great pictures. Regardless, here are a few pics I took today.



Tomorrow I'm going to head to Bergama for a couple days to see the ruins there before heading down to Selçuk/Ephesus.

Yeah, that Troy.

Well Troy, while interesting for the history, has to be one of the most spectacularly un-photogenic places I've visited. I'm glad I went though and here are a couple pictures anyway (just 'cause it's Troy).



Çanakkale itself was OK although there wasn't too much to see there either. That never stopped me from posting pictures before (see above) so here are a couple more taken in town. If you think the Trojan horse statue in this second picture is cheesy you should see the 'replica' at the site itself.



Currently I'm in Ayvalik. I'd originally planned to spend only one night here to break up the journey on the way to my next stop but this is a cool little town so I'm going to stay through tomorrow if not longer. The place I'm staying is fantastic - I'll have to post some pictures tomorrow.

Istanbul - Day 3

Finally left Istanbul today. Since I am congenitally unable to do things the easy way (and since I didn't really care about seeing Gallipoli) I made my way down to Çanakkale on my own rather than signing up for one of the tours.

Yesterday I finally went to see the Aya Sofya church/mosque/museum (take your pick). I think these pics came out OK considering they don't allow tripods (WTF???) or flash photography inside.



Bonus points for anyone who can explain the tripod ban to me. My inner cynic says that by making it difficult to take decent pictures they hope to sell more postcards but there is probably a legitimate reason.

Anyway, in the late afternoon I went over to the Beyoğlu neighborhood north of the Bhosporus to climb the Galata tower. I like the sunset picture below but you'll probably need to crank the brightness on your monitor to see anything.



Tomorrow I'm going to go see Troy and will probably spend another night here before heading further south to Selçuk to see the ruins of Ephesus.

Bosphorus

The weather cooperated today so I took a ferry up the Bosphorus today to the town of Anadolu Kavagi near the Black Sea.




I also spent some more time wandering around Istanbul taking in some of the sights.

More Istanbul

Some pictures from my second day in Istanbul. These are all from indoors sights as today was too overcast for outdoors photos. I hope these come out OK - they look fine on my camera's screen but are very dark on this computer.



If the weather is nice enough I'm going to take a ferry trip up the Bosphorus tomorrow. I plan to stick around Istanbul for another day or two then I'll start working my way south towards the Mediterranean coast.

Istanbul

Made it to Istanbul this afternoon. Here's a quick picture of the Blue Mosque, which is only about 100 yards from my hotel. More later.

Monument Lights

Here are a few photos from Bangkok at night. Back to the old format for this post as I really have nothing much to say about any of them.



I have a couple hours before I have to leave to catch my flight. Next post should be sometime tomorrow from Turkey I would think.