Ya! Hello from Greece. We are on the island of Samos on this beautiful Thursday, taking a break after lunch. This is a long past -- sorry. We haven't been able to get online lately.
Our last few days in Turkey were lovely. On Tuesday we stayed close to our hotel. We lazed on the beach, did laundry and ate dinner at the resort. (Jim and Pat are vegetarians and have not enjoyed the food as much as we have. Kebabs are a pillar of Turkish food.) The Kellers were thrilled to eat at the hotel buffet, which included lots of mezes (starters), most of which were vegetarian.
On Wednesday we got up at the crack of dawn. The crack of dawn is not Patty's friend. But she managed to be the first in the shower. We had to pack and get to a nearby hotel by 6:30am, where a local tour company picked us and our luggage up to go to Ephesus. Everyone else on the bus would be returning to Bordum at the end of the day, but we had made arrangements for them to drop us off in Kusadasi at the end of the tour.
Our first stop was a parking area where they sorted us all out by language. All the people who spoke French stayed on our bus and we got sent to the one with the English speaking guide. Our bus had about twenty seats, and the group was made up of Poles, Brits, Germans, Scots and Irishmen. And us. (Everywhere we went on the Turkish Aegean, people were surprised to see “Americans.” The Turks who spoke English had a hard time understanding us – they were accustomed to hearing the Queen's English.) In particular, we made friends with a young Polish couple, Adrian and Magda. And a petulant young Irishman. That's the fun of being on an excursion – you form a family of sorts.
Our next stop was a roadside cafe where we could all get breakfast. Our tour guide Ahmet ran a tight ship and kept us moving. At each stop we were given a time limit – usually 5 minutes. At breakfast he was generous and gave us 30 minutes to go to the bathroom, wait in line for breakfast and eat.
We got to Ephesus, up in the hills outside of a small town, a few hours later. Ephesus was the final resting place of the Virgin Mary, and a bustling hub for about 500 years on either side of that. At the entrance you are swarmed by vendors. (And other tourists. For being out in the middle of nowhere, you can't believe how many people are there.) Then you push through the crush into an area that seems like a few marble slabs laying around here, a piece of a wall there. You think, this was a long way to come for this. Then as you continue on through the folds of the hills, each piece of the ruins gets bigger and better, Finally at the end you see the old library and a theater that seats 25,000 people. I can't put it into words – absolutely stunning.
It took about three hours to tour the whole site – and that's with Ahmet's 5 minutes limits. It was hot, and there is very little shade, so we were beat at the end of the tour. Then they took us all to an outdoor lunch place with a lovely breeze and cold drinks. It was buffet style and for the second meal in a row, the Kellers got a big meal they enjoyed.
Then we were shuttled along on a few government-mandated visits to local artisan shops, between which we got traded to another bus, and said our good-byes to our tour-mates. (Even though the buses went to the same places.)
Finally they sent us with the French-speaking tour guide so they could take us 20 or 30 kilometers out of the way to our destination. The driver and the guide argued back and forth about where they would drop us off, because tourism is very regulated and they did not have permission to enter the downtown area of Kusadasi. They told us they had to leave us at the outskirts. But when we got to town their generous nature kicked in and they couldn't stand to abandon us. They drove us through the complicated streets right up to the doorway of our hotel. As we arrived, we were embarrassed to see that the other bus had followed us as well. We waved good-bye yet again to our friends as we walked inside, knowing that they still had at least three hours to travel back to Bodrum.
Kusadasi is a port city on the old caravan route. We stayed at the Keravanserai hotel, an actual old caravan stop. It looked just like a castle from the outside, with metal reinforced doors and high ramparts. Inside is a big courtyard with lovely plants, tables and chairs and settees. It also has rug merchants and a stage for bellydancing shows on weekend nights. Around the second floor there is a mezzanine and hotel rooms with old names. Ours was “Okuz.” The rooms had fireplaces and high-vaulted ceilings. And, thanks to recent retrofitting, bathrooms. It felt magical!
Last night we walked out to the fort and had a simply charming dinner overlooking the harbor. And we did some last minute shopping for gifts. It was a really nice finish to our time in Turkey. (Jan also got a call in to daughter Jenny, on her 36th birthday. Another Happy Birthday to Jenny!)
This morning, after a nice breakfast in the Keravanserai courtyard, we switched gears and started our trip through Greece. And of course, experienced one of those weird border kind of things that you don't understand but hope will be fine. We bought our ferry tickets yesterday, where the tour agency staff told us he would meet us this morning to check our passports and get us on the passenger list. When we neared the port this morning, several different people we had never seen before came up and asked for our passports. We got a little nervous but showed them our tickets. Finally a women showed us her ID for the same tour company, took our passports, said she'd be back in 10 minutes, and left. At first we were just scared, and then Jim got downright cranky about the system being so inefficient. But a few minutes later someone came back with our passports and the boarding passes and all was fine.
We spent 90 minutes on a beautiful, sunny morning sailing over aquamarine water with some fun Germans and Belgians and voila – we were in Greece. We are staying at a little pension owned by a man named Stelios. He picked us up at the port and got us all set up. The place is on the backpacker's route, but is a step up in facilities. Our room has a balcony over the sea and a bathroom. As Jan said, you just can't describe the color and sparkle of the water.We got a bigger room that Jim and Pat – we have 3 twin beds, they only have 2. We have wandered around town, gone to the local museum and eaten gyros and a Greek salad. Everyone is napping now, in prep for finding a good dinner.
Our best to everyone. We love staying connected with you!
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