Selcuk - Stepping into Turkey on our own

Posted by Melissa

Our cruise aboard the Star Clipper came to a close. We had such fun with the gang, it was hard to say goodbye - but lucky us, we had plans for a BIG trip and it was time to venture out on our own.

Instead of negotiating the Greek Ferry system and the Turkish Ferry system, we were able to book passage aboard the Star Clipper for the first two days of their next cruise.  A pretty luxurious ferry to get from Athens to back to Kusadasi, Turkey!

We checked out this caravanserai  in Kusadasi before hoping on a dolmuş (small local bus/van) to Selcuk.

Our first stop in Turkey was Selcuk. We chose this town in part due to the rave reviews for Jimmy's Place on TripAdvisor.com. We were a bit nervous about traveling to Turkey, few of our friends had been here, and we hadn't heard too much about the area (although our research told us that the Turkish people are amazingly hospitable and friendly). Jimmy's place has a very good reputation for helping travelers AND they speak English - a good combo for our first week. Our slow travel speed (about a week in each location) also helps to get to know local people and culture. It is so much easier to make connections when staying for seven days instead of two!

We chose to splurge a bit (easing our way into our Turkey travels) for a large room with a balcony overlooking the mosque as well as the castle up on the hill.

We soon realized that we had a front row seat for the call to prayer - the five times daily call, via loudspeaker, where the Muezzin calls the faithful to pray at the Mosque. We also found an unexpected added acoustic bonus - a daily morning drummer .  This guy walks the streets VERY early in the morning, drumming away, to wake the faithful (and everyone else) so that they may eat before the daily fast begins.  What fast you ask - well, our visit coincided with the last week of Ramazan (Turks call it Ramazan while most of the rest of the world calls it Ramadan) and devout Muslims fast during daylight hours during the month of Ramazan. Amazingly, we got used to this after just a couple of days and managed to sleep through it.

Wondering through Selcuk we found these Roman Viaduct ruins

- with nesting storks on top of some of the sections

and a few pedestrian only streets with small shops and restaurants (although we discovered that pedestrian only appears to include motorcycles and motorscooters so watch your step!).

So much to see in Selcuk - too much for one blog post!  First up - The Basilica of St. John.

The walled perimeter of the Basilica with a Mosque in the background

I was surprised to find out that the Apostle, St. John (as in Mathew, Mark, Luke and John), was buried here. We learned that Jesus entrusted John with the care of his mother, Mary. After Jesus' death, John brought Mary to this area and they lived out there lives here. We toured Ephesus another day and saw Mary's house there - another blogpost. We enjoyed walking through the beautiful ruins which are located up a small hill from town.

The views of the surrounding countryside reminded us both of Italy.

Happy Melissa

Happy Thane

Next up - Ephesus - to be posted as our internet connections allow. Sometimes they are good, sometimes not so much...

Turkish ports from the Star Clipper

Posted by Thane
When we arrived back at our ship in Alexandria, Egypt there seemed to be some delay in our sail away. After quite a few hours and much whispering among staff we heard that we would NOT be leaving Egypt today. Usually an itinerary would not be changed for anything so everyone was a bit nervous about staying in this port without knowing why. The next morning we received our "official" announcement from the ship that we were sailing without a flag and that the Egyptian port officials wouldn't let us sail until it was taken care of. The main office for Star Clipper had arranged for us to change registration from Luxemborg to Malta while we were in port for two days in Alexandria. Apparently the inspector from Malta didn't get the message in time. We were without registration and through much discussion the port officials let us stay out at anchor in Egyptian waters until it was taken care of.

Sailing again

Finally after two days awaiting the Maltese inspector and being wooed by the Star Clipper staff with an open bar and free internet access, he showed up by private jet. It was an eight hour inspection, but the authorities let us sail while he completed it.  We never saw him or else I would have posted a pic of him doing whatever it is he does. We did lose three ports in the process - Limmasol, Crete; Antalya, Turkey; and Dalyon River, Turkey.  Those ports were replaced with Marmoris, Turkey and Patmos, Greece.  With the passengers well placated and two extra days at sea, all was well and we were back on our sailing adventure. We managed to entertain ourselves quite well.

Egyptian night

Tom

George

Alina

Jennifer

We all dressed up in our best imitation Egyptian clothes.

Tom, our fearless leader

George, our resident Egyptologist,

Beautiful Alina, and

Jennifer, looking just like Elizabeth Taylor.

Melissa and Rolando

Rupert

From our new stop in Marmoris there was a tour to Dalyon River. We didn't take it because we would be back in a few weeks with more time to spend. This was our first stop in Turkey and we were excited to find out more since we would be spending three months in this country.

The shopping bazaar in Marmaris kind of reminded me of the Galleria in Milan, except Turkey style.  We were invited in for tea many times.

Walking the back streets of Marmoris we had many photo opportunities and met some beautiful Turkish ladies on the way.

Here I am doing my best Carnac impression while Melissa is busy learning HTML in her new found office.

Our next port was Bodrum where we went to the Castle of the Knights of St. John and the Underwater Museum which is actually not underwater but a collection of artifacts that were found in sunken ships.

These are wine Amphoras that stacked easily in the bottom of the ships. The next photo is the view of Bodrum from the top of the Castle.

We stopped for lunch on our way out of Bodrum. 

When we arrived in Kusadasi most passengers went to Ephesus but since we would be back here the next week we rode a dolmus up to Selcuk where our first hotel was booked.  Up to this point we have been on a two week cruise with friends.  In just a few days, we will begin our personal adventure of 6 months touring through Turkey, Italy and Spain. We decided that we wanted to check out the town that we had chosen for our first week. We met the owner of the hotel and he showed us all the rooms and gave us a choice.  We chose a room with a balcony overlooking the Mosque and the Castle for a total of $53/day.

When we arrived back at the ship we had an evening of local folk and belly dancers to entertain us, a great evening.

We finished our two week cruise with our friends by returning to Athens on the ship.  We stayed on the ship with the crew while they did the changeover and filled up all the appropriate tanks. We stayed busy surfing the net and sunbathing on deck.  The next group of passengers arrived and out we went for a two day sail back to Kusadasi.
Next up, our week in Selcuk.

Exploring the Pyramids

Posted by Melissa

Day 2 in Cairo and it is still amazingly HOT! August in Egypt, who would have thought?? We woke to this lovely view of the gardens and the pyramids at Giza from our balcony.

Breakfast in style and then out to explore.

Breakfast room at the Mena House

Our first stop is the The Great Pyramid of Cheops (Khurfu), just down the road from the hotel.

Our group - Thane, me, Jennifer, George, Alina, Kathy, Nancy & Tom

This is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing. I found it so hard to believe that I was standing next to, and even crawling up, this iconic structure. Every little child has seen pics of this pyramid and now I found my adult self lucky enough to be here.

Sweet Hubby and me

Cheops/Khurfu Pyramid

Khafre Pyramid

We also checked out Khufu’s Solar Boat which was found buried next to his pyramid. The thinking is that this boat was intended to convey the Pharaoh's spirit to heaven in the afterlife. Several other boats have been located around other pyramid complexes but this is the best preserved specimen of all Egyptian boats found to date. It was hard to believe that this was about 4500 years old!!

Up next was the obligatory camel ride!!  For me this just meant getting up on the camel long enough to have my pic taken. Yes I am scared of being on a camel! Thane and the rest of our group of eight rode around the desert for a bit.

Just a short ride away we come upon another iconic wonder of the world - The Sphinx.

The ramp in the background of this pic was built for a recent visit of President Obama.  Our guide also told us that this was built so that Obama could walk up to, and touch, the Sphinx - but that the President of Egypt himself has never touched it!

Nancy T

Next up a visit to the Saqqara complex where I  found these cobras on a wall near the Step Pyramid of Djoser .

We went inside the Tomb of King Unas, down to the underground funerary chamber. Unas was Pharaoh of Egypt from 2375-2345 BC, 5th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom.  This particular pyramid doesn't look like much from the outside, more like a mound of stones, but inside we found three rooms which were covered in hieroglyphics. I was awestruck to be standing next to these ancient writings. Pretty amazing stuff built some 4300+ years ago by ancient Egyptians (Thanks George! - my personal Egyptologist)

Both interior photos taken from the internet

My personal wishlist included a stop at an Oasis, and, lucky me, that is exactly where we found ourselves for lunch today! I'm sorry to say that our pics didn't really do it justice, but here are pics of our lunch.

Vegetarian portion of lunch

Mixed grill - we think the small chicken like meat was actually pigeon...

As we left the little outdoor cafe, a couple of musicians were drumming away and Thane caught our lovely leader, Nancy, doing her famous Egyptian Dance. Thank you Nancy and Tom and all of the BN staff for making this trip possible. Love you guys!!