Janie’s diary (see above) confirms how we flew out from Heathrow to Istanbul on 8 November and had arranged to be met at the airport and taken to our first hotel, the Sokullu Paşa Hotel.
It also shows that we booked a flight to Izmir lunchtime 11 November, with the Avis desk awaiting us there.
Our flights back to Heathrow on 18 November were 10:00 Izmir to Istanbul, then 13:45 to Heathrow arriving London at 16:00 GMT.
We had not arranged any accommodation for the Izmir week; we were playing it by ear on a fly-drive holiday. Seems fair enough in November, frankly.
Part of our purpose was to see Ros Elliot (who lived/lives near Izmir) and her plans were a bit up in the air, so booking ourselves up ahead of time would have been a bit daft.
Bodrum‘s a beautiful coastal town and of course we made sure we had time to stroll the town in the morning before heading back in the direction of Izmir to meet up with Ros Elliott at the end of our trip.
Bodrum Castle by dayWithin the castle
On our way out of Bodrum we encountered some scallywags who showed us their school.
I cannot remember exactly where we stayed that last night but I am pretty sure that Ros lived in Kuşadası at that time, so I suspect it was on “that side” of Izmir, making it a convenient place for us to meet Ros and get to Izmir airport reasonably early the next day.
Update: Ros remembers that Janie and I stayed at the Ege University Hospital Hotel, which was brand new at the time and was happy to take guests unconnected with the University or the hospital. According to Ros, the place remains open to all comers. It was very conveniently located for our purposes…
…except that, as Ros recalls, we found it surprisingly difficult to find a suitable restaurant in that Bornova district of Izmir.
Still, Janie and I do remember having a very pleasant meal with Ros and finding it very interesting to “swap notes” with her; us as tourist visitors while she had already been living in Turkey for a few years by then.
Ros said we had seen an awful lot in just a few days and she was right. Looking back on the pace at which we took that road trip, while I can believe we used to tour like that I wouldn’t dream of arranging such an itinerary in so few days any more!
Towards the end of the meal, “Mystic Ros” read our coffee grounds in the Turkish style…and I tried to reciprocate.
We’d had a great time.
All the pictures from that holiday (just one or two from this leg of the journey are not shown in this piece) can be viewed on Flickr – click here or below.
We had a lovely morning stroll around Fethiye, taking in the beauty and quaintness of the place. The above photo is but one example. As is the one below.
Trendy Marmaris
Then we drove on to the trendy town of Marmaris, where we wee able to enjoy some lunch out of doors and also were able to wander around, trying to look trendy ourselves.
Daisy looks so trendyBest head towards Bodrum if we want to get there before dark!
Then on to Bodrum, where we stayed for the night. After dinner…
… we took a stroll around and just about managed to get a night shot of the castle.
We vowed to return the next day to take a daytime picture of the castle. Did we succeed? Tune in for the next and last episode.
All the pictures from that holiday (just one or two from this leg of the journey are not shown in this piece) can be viewed on Flickr – click here or below.
Not yet sated with antiquities, we diverted to Aphrodisias ahead of driving to Fethiye for a bit of seaside towards the end of our trip.
We popped in to the Aphrodisias Museum before touring the siteYou can just make out a tiny me in the theatre (above) and the odeum (below)The ruined temple at Aphrodisias (above) and gymnasium (below)
The highlight of Aphrodisias, for me, was the exceptionally well-preserved stadium – see picture below and headline picture.
Janie was probably a bit “antiquitied -out” by the time we got to Aphrodisias, but that was OK because we were done with antiquities for this holiday. It was seaside from then on.
We hit the road from Aphrodisias to Fethiye
We weren’t going to make the same “arrive after dark mistake again and got to Fethiye in good time.
We found a comfortable, simple place to stay and an equally comfortable, simple place to eat tasty Turkish grub.
You can probably tell from these pictures that Fethiye – indeed the whole of that Aegean coast, was not exactly busy in November.
All the pictures from that holiday (just one or two from Aphrodisias and Fethiye are not shown in this piece) can be viewed on Flickr – click here or below.
Writing more than 25 years later, I sense that Pamukkale has changed and become more resort/touristic than it was when we visited.
We stayed in a motel named The Palmyra Motel, I think at Ros’s recommendation.
The rooms in the Palmyra hotel had balconies onto pools of Pamukkale spa water
We enjoyed the facilities in our motel and also went into the centre of town to enjoy the sights…
…and even a swim amongst the Pamukkale ruins; something visitors were allowed to do for a small fee (paid to the Pamukkale Hotel) in those days.
This would not go down well with the health and safety brigade these days, I fearThe view from our motel into Pamukkale town
This was a memorable part of this holiday. We wished that we had allowed two nights at that motel to allow time to wallow in the views and wallow in the spa.
A rather unconvincing wooden Trojan Horse monument at Troy
We knew we were in for a long drive from Çanakkale to Pamukkale that day, but still wanted to see Troy before setting off on the longest leg of our road trip.
Having been spoilt the previous few days…
In truth, after Ephesus and Pergamon the previous couple of days, Troy was rather a disappointment.
…the ruins of Troy didn’t really hack it for us. View from the fake Trojan Horse
Troy has been built, razed and rebuilt many times, possibly not always in exactly the same place. There’s not a lot to see and it all seemed a bit confused/confusing/unconvincing. The wooden horse thing depicted above was a particular source of my de4rision on the day.
Excavated bridge into on of the old city’s was probably the highlight
Then the long drive to Pamukkale. It was billed as being over six hours and my goodness that’s what it took. We shared the driving and/but needed the odd pit stop, so we were really quite nervous towards the end of the drive as we realised that we had failed to get to our destination before dark and would be driving the last 45 minutes or so in darkness.
But get there we did. I think Ros had recommended the place we stayed and by gosh that was relaxing and fun. But that’s for the next write up.
The collective memory (Ged & Daisy) of this part of the trip is a bit foggy. Ros might be able to help us to fill in one or two gaps.
We arrived in Izmir in the afternoon of 11th and collected our Avis car, which was to be our companion for the next week.
I’m not sure why we ended up at the Izmir Palace Hotel for a couple of nights; perhaps Lonely Planet recommendations, perhaps Ros suggested that combination for our routing.
Anyway, I’m pretty sure that, once we had collected our car and navigated the Izmir traffic, we didn’t much fancy doing anything else that day we arrived. I’m sure we had a decent meal, either at the Hotel itself or somewhere recommended nearby.
It was well cold, but I’d paid for the balcony so I was going to use it!
We had arranged to see Ros the next day. I think she lived in Kuşadası at that time, so the plan was to meet at/near Ephesus, which Daisy and I were in any case very keen to see.
We have no photographic evidence of Ros joining us that day, but I am sure she did, at least for a while. Whether she came all around the Ephesus ruins with us or not I cannot recall. I do remember her not wanting to be photographed that day, although she relented on the matter of photographs when we met up with her again on the way back from our road trip, at the very end of our visit to Turkey.
Ros might remember this day better and/or differently.
Anyway, here are some of our photos from the fabulous ruins of Ephesus.
A life in the Great Theatre, darling!What a Great LibraryStroll the Arcadian WayMore splendours of Ephesus
Janie and I spent 10 days in Turkey that autumn. Unusually, I didn’t keep a written log, so these Ogblog pieces come from the photo-log we made up on our return and some additional memories that survive.
On arrival from London at Istanbul airport, we were met and taken to our Istanbul hotel, the Sokullu Paşa Hotel. That place is well located in the historic district of Istanbul, so we simply found a local restaurant that first evening and enjoyed a traditional Turkish meal.
The Sokullu Paşa HotelOur “Old Town” neighbourhood
Our first proper bit of touring, the next morning, was to the Cağaloğlu Hamam, a traditional Turkish bath dating back to the mid 18th century. The headline photo shows me outside the place.
I kept the leaflet they handed us – see below.
I think that’s me relaxing after my steam and scrub
Janie and I both enjoyed the benefits of that place. We had to go separately, of course, but both procured the full works – i.e. steam and scrub.
Comparing notes afterwards, both of us were scrubbed by a big burley person who might be mistaken for being scary. In fact, my abiding memory of the place was a brief chat with a fair-skinned fellow with a Germanic accent who arrived slightly later than me and who had, like me, procured “the works”. I’ll never forget the nervous expression on his pale face when he saw the giant masseuse arrive for me and start scrubbing, as he knew that his turn was soon to come.
In truth, I think I like my exfoliation and massage to be a slightly gentler treatment than the traditional Turkish, but it was a wonderful experience to have the full hammam treatment in such an historic venue.
The Blue Mosque
After the hammam, we went off to see the sights for a couple of days! I’m not entirely sure which sights we saw on which days, but I have a feeling we went to see the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia on that first day, leaving the rest of the Istanbul touring until the next day.
Inside Hagia Sophia
My photo notes remind me that we ran into one of my mates from Lambton Place health Club in Hagia Sophia, but I’m scratching my head to try to remember who it was.
I’m pretty sure we ventured a bit further form our hotel for dinner that second night, finding a place with a stunning view across the water that refused to be photographed with old-fashioned flash guns.
Topkapi
The next day we spent a lot of time in and around Topkapi Palace.
Views from the top of TopkapiHarem with a viewThe Pavilion of Murad III – beautiful tiles but I couldn’t find the honours board
We also visited the Grand Bazaar that day.
I’m pretty sure we found a local eatery again on our final night – again finding it easy enough to follow our noses (possibly with a little help from Lonely Planet) and find excellent food at unsilly prices.
Janie and I took the Eurostar to Paris and spent four nights there. In 1995 Eurostar was “a thing” – the service had been running for just a few months and indeed the daily service for just a few weeks.
Eurostar pioneers, us. Janie sports a stereotypical Gallic stripy jumper
We stayed at Le Relais Medicis, which claims to be a charming hotel on the Left Bank. Actually it was a charming hotel; well located and suitably tasteful without being opulent.
C’est chic.
We were very keen to see the Musée d’Orsay and I am pretty sure that was our first proper stop after dumping our luggage. The headline picture of the photo album (at the end of this piece) depicts me eating in the restaurant within, which was our main meal on that Thursday, after a fairly long and very enjoyable meander around the gallery.
But our traipsing around Paris really kicked off the next day. We started walking around Le Marais…
After that, a long hike up to Montmartre, pursing the arty theme of our long weekend yet further.
We had a good long look at Sacré-Cœur once we got up there…
…and did a fair bit of wandering around those beautiful streets.
We were pretty tired by the end of all that and/but we found a lovely little rustic restaurant in that Montmartre district where we had a simple (by Parisian standards) but most enjoyable prix fixes meal, after which we staggered home…perhaps with some help from the Paris Metro.
On the Saturday I think we started with a look at Saint-Chappelle…
We did a fair bit of walking around the Right Bank of Central Paris that day, ending up at a rather charming little rotisserie restaurant near the river where we had a memorable meal of roast duck with pomme purée and vegetables.
The next day the weather was not so special, but we had planned a bit more of an indoor day. We did The Louvre…
I think we might have (foolishly) walked the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe, as I do remember getting wet at one point, after which we decided to use the Metro a bit more.
We went on to Montparnasse, where we hung out a Lilas Cafe for a while, fancying ourselves as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir.
Janie with an existential Citron Pressé, by the looks of itOutside the Montparnasse Restaurant where we ate after Lilas
On the Monday, our train wasn’t until late afternoon, so we took advantage of the better weather looking around the environs of the hotel – in particular the beautiful Jardin du Luxembourg.
According to Janie’s diary, we went to Momos (Japanese Restaurant in North Ealing) for dinner when we got home and played tennis in Lammas Park on the Tuesday morning. Janie worked in the afternoon, I went back to my flat and sorted out my life ahead of a busy few days.
