Our flight to Istanbul was painless, and we made it to our hotel around 23:00 in the evening with minor problems. Our friend Caroline was waiting for us, and we began our two week journey throughout the country together. She had taken a vacation from Chattanooga, and decided to join us for two weeks. The first thing we noticed in Turkey is that nobody speaks English. We talked to a local who could speak some, and he said they don’t teach it in the schools. Therefore, we spent a lot of time on Google translate and using hand gestures. The first day in Istanbul we were very stressed out because everyone was telling us we needed to hop on a tour bus to see the country. Of course this cost a lot of extra money, and we love doing things our way. We opted against a week -long tour because we just don’t like people telling us when we can do things. Plus, we have always made it work. Istanbul was super clean and a fun town to explore. Things were more expensive than we thought they were going to be, and the prices were on par with the rest of Europe, which was surprising. The highlights of this city were Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome, the Grand Bazaar, and our boat ride through the Bosporus Straight. This is the stretch of water that Russia uses for its shipping lanes with other countries, such as the Ukraine and Romania. It is a very important piece of water. We spent 3 days in Istanbul, and then took an early morning bus for 7 hours to the town of Canakkale.

The two main things to see in Canakkale were the battle field of Gallipoli and the ancient city of Troy. When we arrived to town it was pouring rain, and a kind British gentleman showed us the way to our hotel. We asked him what he was there to do, and he replied “go to the bar and get drunk, and then tomorrow visit the archeological museum.” I guess that is one way to spend your holiday. The next day we took a small mini bus to the ancient city Troy built around 3,000 BC. It was in the middle of nowhere, and unfortunately, the old wooden horse is no longer there. It was a great place to visit, and we had a great mini bus ride with a bunch of locals to get there. That same day, we decided to take a night bus to Izmir Turkey, and from there we caught another small bus to the town of Selcuk. Selcuk is where the ancient city of Ephesus is located. The night bus was tolerable, but there was a small kid who kept stealing my food throughout the night. I had a food bag with snacks, and caught him snatching my grapes from time to time. His mom did not care one bit. We were exhausted when we arrived in Selcuk, and spent the morning passed out in the room. Our hotel was kind enough to let us check in early, and once we were well rested, we walked over to Ephesus. We spent about 3 hours here exploring the ruins, and it was fascinating. The ruins date back to the 500BC era, and it was so cool to see ruins still standing today. The next day, we took another small bus to the town of Sirince about 6km away. This was a Greek mountain town that was covered with wineries and local vendors. We hiked around town, bought wool socks, and shared a bottle of wine under the grape vines. This was just a nice place to relax for the day with almost no crowds. After leaving Selcuk, we took another bus to the town of Pamukkale for the night. This was probably the least favorite of our cities in Turkey. Here, you visit this mountain covered in calcium deposits and water pools. This was very interesting to see, but the town was very touristy and small. It was hard to get a feel for the local life. We darted out of this town early the next morning, and headed to the town of Bodrum.

Bodrum is located on the Mediterranean coast, and you can actually see Greece from the shoreline. All of the buildings were white washed as in Greece, and the food was amazing. We spent two days at the beaches soaking up the sun, and were glad this was where our trip was ending. The one thing that we enjoyed every day in Turkey were the breakfasts. Every guesthouse we stayed in offered free breakfast, and it always consisted of bread, jams, honey, tomato, cucumbers, olives, cheese, coffee, and tea. After leaving Bodrum, we took our last bus to Izmir where Morgan, Caroline, and I overnighted before our flight to Bucharest, Romania. There was not much to see in Izmir, but just a layover for us. Overall, Turkey was amazing, the sites were good, and the food tasty. Turkey definitely knows their potential as a major tourism hub.

We look forward to seeing everyone back home in a few weeks.

Cheers,

David and Morgan