Road Trip

While we still had our rental car from the airport, we took another road trip to see some broken down buildings or historic note (ruins!)… First off on our day trip was Myra Antika Kenti:

From Myra, we headed north east to the ruins at Arykanda. The route there was circuitous – and involved a nice bit of rally-ready track – which I thoroughly enjoyed, Laurie not so much!

Our final trip in the car took us to Antalya (where we’d return said vehicle) and gave us an opportunity to visit the fantastic Amphitheater at Aspendos – still in use to this day.

Istanbul

We took a flight to Istanbul for a long weekend – during which the weather wasn’t particularly cooperative! However, we got to experience a wonderfully vibrant spot – even in early February!

The Grand Bazaar was interesting – but a little disappointing in that most of the items for sale seemed to be cheap knock-offs and mass produced rubbish. The building itself was very interesting – masses of avenues with all manner of vendors – and teeming with people.

We also went to the Spice Bazaar – but that was similar in that nearly every vendor had the same stuff!

Out and about in the streets was cold but fun, learning the tram system and finding all sorts of interesting spots…

And we took a river cruise up the Bosphorous…

The highlight of our trip to Istanbul – for me at least – was our visit to the Basilica Cistern. An amazing testament to ancient engineering – how many gallons stored here???

Van Trip

Our next door neighbor in the marina – Ken, organized a bus trip to go visit the local site at Olympus along with several other cruisers. It was a lovely day with interesting ruins followed by a visit to the eternal flame – and ending with a great lunch!

Our final week or two in Turkey was spent getting the boat ready for the coming season – including washing all the sails and making repairs…