See? It's a shitty breakfast. If I had a good iOS image markup tool, I could point out that there's an egg (a hard boiled egg, the horror (for our family at least!)), really old cucumbers and tomatoes, mystery pink meat and pretty mild (ie tasteless) cheese. We're not that picky (I swear!) but come - on! To top it off, with the "age" of the food and the inattemtiveness of the breakfast lady, it made it seem like we were late for the scheduled 8am to 10am breakfast hour, yet it was only 9:30.
More on the time warp tomorrow.... Too funny.... You'll have to wait.
After hearing from my virtual long distance trip assistant (thx Dad!) through his virtual long distance message relayer (thx Mum!) we decided to take a bit of a detour on our road trip today and stop in at Aphrodisias.
The scenic route we chose brought us on a small road that wound through a couple of hill side villages (villages in Turkey seem to always have been built on a hill, a tradition from the Romans no doubt, who knew the importance of gravity on water and sanitary drains!), then up and over a small mountain range that separated the valley we were in from the valley we were headed to!
For some odd reason (protecting gift shops and parking attendants), you have to park about a kilometer from the entry gate of Aphrodisias, pay for parking and take a tractor trailer to the gate (you couldn't even walk if you wanted to).
The city is well preserved, and many say it's as good as Ephesus (where we are headed to later in the week) while being less crowded due to its location being a little inconvenient for most. For us, it was a nice opportunity to stretch our legs and take in a bit more culture and history.
The council chamber, pictured here, was pretty cool. Today we've seen more white haired tour groups than we've seen anywhere in Turkey (or on our entire trip for that matter). It's a bit of a surprise, as this site was supposed to be dead - I think we have been very lucky coming when we've come and to have the weather we are having - Turkey in the busy season sounds very hectic.
One of the cooler sights here was the huge arena, it could seat 30,000 and was used for sporting events and chariot races.
The old Hamam (Roman bath) had some really nice carvings and David-esque statues that got a chuckle from Robin.
Like Xanthos and Hieropolis, there was a very well preserved amphitheater here as well.
There were tons of pomegranate trees - you could see how easily this tree spreads seeds as when the fruit is left on, it splits open and the seeds drop.
Some of the sarcophagi they'd recovered were very ornate.
We ended up walking around and exploring for just about an hour. Then it was back in the tractor and back on the road...... Roadddddd trippppppp!
It took another couple of hours to get to the little town where we've rented a cottage for four nights. Selcuk is a little town near the big tourist site of Ephesus. For us, it seemed like a logical place to park ourselves for a few days and use as a base. Selcuk is a fantastic old town. The small downtown area, where we were to meet our property manager, is a beautiful little pedestrian shopping area with souvenir shops, restaurants and local oriented shops packed along little cobbled streets. There are ruins of an ancient roman aqueduct that run from the hill above Selcuk to the castle sitting on higher ground on the other side of town.
We met our property manager, and she gave us a great intro to the area, with suggested things to do etc. She helped us out with a contact to ship our stuff and then she hopped on her bike and told us to get in our car and follow her to the cottage. Hilarious! We drove slowly after her for a couple of minutes to a cobbled drive that was right next to one of the ancient wonders of the world - the temple of Artemis. We parked and followed her into a nice, secluded yard, then into the cottage that immediately surpassed all of our expectations. As Beth said, it feels like home!
The kids were excited to grab some groceries so they could cook dinner for us tonight.... How could we say no to a nice home cooked meal! On the way, we saw another "Bankamatic" machine, which, combined with Abby's frequent use of InstaGram, reminds us of Banka and Gram at home!
Before groceries, we stopped in at the Moonlight gift shop, the place that was recommended for shipping some of our stuff back home. A half hour later and our pockets predictably lightened without even having shipped anthing yet, and we were on our way to the grocery store. The kids talked eagerly about our scheduled trip to Costco when we get home as they eagerly pulled stuff off the shelf and into our shopping cart. We had to remind them that we were only here for four nights, but it was nice to see their raw enthusiasm!
When we got home, the kitchen was off limits as the Bickerson's opened up shop. They made a nice appetizer platter....
While we waited for the chef to finish her masterpiece...
Just like home!
What a meal. It was so nice to eat at "home". It's the thing we really miss the most (just after the people of course!) - that and our own beds.
The dressert may look like cocktail weenies, but no, this is not Malaysia, those are Turkish "traditional" donuts!
Beth especially seems in her zen place in this cottage. It was timed well with the end of our main trip in Turkey, with only one more brief stop in Istanbul this weekend before our "European 3".
It's nice to be home.... ish.....
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