I was in Turkey

The Eighth Wonder of the World? Nemrut Dagi & Eastern Anatolia

info@iwasinturkey.com (Jason and Tracy) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

From Goreme we booked a tour with Cem tours for a 2 night/3 day trip out to Nemrut, Urfa, and a few other stops along the way with a drop off in Ganziantep. First the good parts of the tour. After negotiating the price to 120 euros per person, the cost of transport, food and admission on our own would have cost us about the same with a few extra headaches along the way along with days lost waiting for public transport, plus we got a guide to explain a few things. The hotel in Urfa was nice with a good breakfast as was the lunch place in Urfa.

Touring Turkey

info@iwasinturkey.com (Lauren) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Cary, Mom, and I flew from Simferopol to Kiev and from Kiev onto Antalya, Turkey in order to celebrate my 26th birthday properly. We decided not to stay in a hotel in Kiev, because our flight to AntaIya was at 4:30 am and we would have to leave the center of Kiev around 2 am anyway just to make our flight, so we took a bus around midnight and just hung out at the airport and tried to sleep in our chairs until boarding. As you can imagine, by the time we arrived in Antalya, we were exhausted.

Bozcaada: Annual Wine Festival

info@iwasinturkey.com (Jana) — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 19:46:32 +0000

A wine festival during Ramadan?! Seeing as though it's the time of the year when Muslims normally abstain from drinking alcohol, I was surprised to hear it. Ramadan isn't exactly a prime time for wine-guzzling Turks to make the journey to Bozcaada's annual harvest celebration. But judging from the crowds mingling by the vino merchants, it doesn't seem that the observance fazes the residents of Bozcaada.

Aphrodisias

info@iwasinturkey.com (Aysegul ) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 01:58:51 +0000

As I wrote before, we stopped at the ancient city of Aphrodisias on the way to Kusadasi. It was a tour we were planning since winter.

Amasra and Safranbolu

info@iwasinturkey.com (Jana) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:27:52 +0000

Hey All! I had 3 days off this last week so I decided to take a spontaneous trip to the Black Sea coast. You can take these kind of trips in Turkey....bus fares are like $10. Pensions--or homestays--are about the same for a good night sleep and some breakfast!

The Secrets of Medusa

info@iwasinturkey.com (Saben and Lin) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 02:12:47 +0000

The air rose up and stung our bones with a damp chill. We switchbacked down, down, down into the Basilica Cistern on stone ramps to see what remains of Justinian’s savior of Constantinople.

Life Was Old Here, As Old As the Hills

info@iwasinturkey.com (Bolger Family) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 11:45:18 +0000

Thursday the 13th, we docked in Kusadasi -- which is the heart of the Turkish Riveria. Once a sleepy fishing village, over the past 30 years, the town has exploded in size. While 50,000 people live there year round, the city swells to over 400,000 people in the summer. Apparently, the better beaches are several miles away.

Hospitality, Hitchhiking and History in Northwest Anatolia

info@iwasinturkey.com (Ezra Mannix) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 10:58:24 +0000

I thought about how I ought to blog about this trip: whether I ought to just recount the places I had been and things that I learned about Turkish history, culture, etc., or whether I should include what truly ended up making the trip special. I will choose the latter.

Turkey/Syria Wrap-up

info@iwasinturkey.com (Saben and Lin) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 02:06:51 +0000

We loved Turkey…. and kebabs. Turkey is one of the few places we have been where we could easily see ourselves living. Istanbul is a vibrant, classicly modern city with culture spewing out its ears. Turkey has so much to see that our measly 13 days barly even scratched the surface. Turkey shot right to the top of our list of places to return to.

Laundry Nirvana in Adana

info@iwasinturkey.com (varrin) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:44:26 +0000

On occasion, something seemingly mundane turns out to be quite an adventure. So it is with this tall tale of Turkish textile tossing...

I have been on the road for a week and a half now, just about long enough to run my wardrobe fresh out of freshness. I planned to do laundry in Frankfurt the day before coming to Adana but made a gross miscalculation. The trip to Adana left Monday morning. The laundromat there is closed on Sundays. Oops. Here I was, in Adana, maybe not the world's #1 destination for laundromat seekers, but now facing the dire prospect of recycling.