Turkey

NOTE: To better view photos, double click and they will enlarge

It was a very long and hot bus ride from Sofia to Istanbul, but we made it and even managed to find our way to the hostel (Chill Out Hostel) in the city center with little issue. Of course that discounts the Turkish visas we had to buy at the border without having any $ or Euro or Turkish Lira. After a long look of annoyance from the Turkish visa officer, he grudgingly accepted the Bulgarian Leva we had in ample supply. You would think this a normally accepted currency at a ground transport border crossing, but he took it none the less and as there were no ATMs to be found, we were very grateful! The Chill Out is definitely a hostel but the people working there are just amazing. They were our first face of Turkey and set the mood for the entire 2 weeks. We spent the evening nearby and had a wonderful dinner and retired early. Wednesday we toured the old city and saw the Blue Mosque, Agia Sophia Museum (the Red Mosque) and the Cistern. Of course we had to sneak in a fish sandwich from the floating boat/restaurants near the Galata Bridge for lunch with the locals. It was a wonderful intro to Turkey. We had been introduced to a few friends via a Turkish buddy, Tolga, from SF. So, we rang up Dano and he met up with us for the evening to show us a little of Istanbul’s night life and met great friends of his from around the world, including his girlfriend Aysha, friends Alex and Banu. Dano is an American from San Francisco who moved to Istanbul 4 years ago and has immersed himself in the culture and loves it. Our initial stop in Istanbul was just 2 nights and Thursday, bright and early, we hired a car for an 8 day tour down the western Turkish coast of the Agean south along the Mediterranean coast, north to the Black Sea and back to Istanbul. Over breakfast at the Chill Out the morning before, one of our hosts, Oner (who to our amazing luck is also a tour guide) sat with us to discuss his favorite spots and highlights. In the end, he actually just pulled out some scratch paper and wrote us a suggested entire itinerary! Oner was so friendly and generous, seems to be the Turkish way. Charlie did some fancy driving getting us out of Istanbul with all of the honking and tailgating (not Charlie, the locals!). However, we forgot that outside of the US, rental cars are delivered and returned on empty, not full. So we were on the main highway out of Istanbul desperately looking for a gas station, running on fumes. At last the glorious yellow plumes of a Shell signed loomed over the horizon, but just barely…whew! On the road again. We headed West and drove to the Gallipoli Peninsula (yes, the same one immortalized by Mel Gibson’s earliest film) and caught a ferry across the Dardanelle straight and drove down towards the coastal town of Ayvalik, on the Agean. The drive down this part of the coast was lush and picturesque reminding us of the Chilean island of Chiloe. Shortly after disembarking the ferry, we got a great example of the dichotomy of Turkish traffic rules. Although they drive like mad men and pass around anything and any time, the speed limit is STICKLY enforced. Charlie found this out with our first speeding ticket of the trip (shockingly true!) 106 in a 100. Yes, 6km over the limit; which is about 3 mph. 100 Turkish Lira later and a good laugh with an incredibly friendly policeman, we were back on the road. However, upon arrival in our first port of call, we weren’t impressed at first sight. As we were to learn along the way, many of the villages along the Aegean (this changes along the Med a bit) have the poorer sections (read block housing) at the entrance of the towns, farther from the seafront. After making our way through and to the other side of the village, we found the Ayazma Butik Otel (sound it out). It was indeed a “butik otel” (ditto on the sound out) and we were their only guests so we got a deal, water facing room with private balcony and breakfast on the terrace included! Can’t beat that. We wandered through town and found a fish restaurant on the water for dinner. We can’t say enough about our entire experience here… yummy mezes, divine wine and fabulous fish! We turned in for the night in anticipation of ancient sites/cities on Friday. On our way out of town we stopped by the small waterside, hilltop outlook called Seyton (pronounced “cheytan”) Sofrasi. Unfortunately, it was a bit too hazy for decent photos, but the view is 360 degrees of Aegean Sea, islands and inlets. Amazing! Quick side note: written Turkish uses variations on “S” and “C” for a “sh” and “ch” sound. Sorry to our Turkish friends if we couldn’t figure that out on our key board!

From there we headed south for our main destination for the day, Ephesos (yes, that is the way it is spelled, spellcheck be damned)! We drove south using the ring round around Izmir (3^rd largest city in Turkey) stopping to take a lunch in Selcuk before a driving up to and walking around the ancient town of Sirence up in the foothills. This town in known for two main things: idyllic winding streets of wine stores and the ancient church of St. John. While the wine wasn’t spectacular, the people and the town were charming and the Church was eerie in its desolation and history. This is the location where Jesus left his mother Mary in the protective trust of John the Baptist to go back to Palestine to meet his fate. Be you a religious person or not, Jesus the man or Jesus the religious figure was an inspiring person at the least and Turkey is rife with pre-Christian and Christian history. Just mentioning this because it seems most westerners think of modern Israel and the tradition Mid-east as being the site of all biblical stories. We’re here to profess, not so! On to the ancient city of Ephesos. This is one of the largest and most intact Greek ruins sites and we were awe struck. We added several pictures, but you can’t really get the size unless you go there. They even had a public bathroom (ie. WC) with continuously running water (see picture of Rawson). Founded as early as 600 B.C. this was once a port city, but now is 15 km away from the coast. From there we settled on Didim to end our day’s journey. We found the town but not the charm. Driving all about the town, we stumbled on a tiny beach community and a pension for the night. It was nothing our folks would have enjoyed, but fine for us for a night. We wondered down to the beach for a waterside dinner which greatly made up for the town exponentially. Saturday we backtracked a bit and drove east inland to see Pamukkale, which in Turkish means Cotton Castle. Pamukkale was created when earthquakes gave rise to a number of very hot springs whose mineral content, particularly chalk, created this 2700 meter long 160 meter high natural castle. We decided that it looks exactly like a glacier, but there are people in bathing suits in the water. This is a site worth stopping to see if you are in the neighborhood, but 45 minutes was enough of the overrun of Russia tour busses and we were back on the road. On to Datcha!

Datcha (the name of the peninsula and a town on it) is kind of on the corner of the Aegean and the Mediterranean Seas. Datcha has a rich history, like most of Turkey, and has been under the rule of the Persians, Romans, Greeks, Ottomans and Turks… did we miss anyone? No matter who has had control the area, it’s quite a lovely little town situated on hills and the beach valley overlooking the ocean. We spotted the Bora Hotel and Rawson made her first negotiation! We got the big room with the water view for the little room price! Way to go. While walking along the boardwalk we ran into a fellow who we saw at the hotel, a local, and struck up a conversation. Like all of the Turkish people we’ve met he was very excited to speak to Americans. What a refreshing change after so many years of feeling like you have to travel “incognito”. Of course, the first question (as we have heard the world over) was: You like Obama? We won’t pander our politics here, but if you have any question in your mind that the WORLD is enamored with our new president and hoping for new kind of America, put it out of your mind and wash out your mouth with soap! Enough on that. Dinner was once again on the beach, about 2 meters from the water with waves practically lapping at our table. As we’ve said before… This does not suck! We could have stayed in this town/peninsula for at least a week. Picture the steep rolling hills of California highway 1 and put water on either side every time you crest a hill. You’ve now got the Datcha peninsula. Splendid! Sunday, lovely breakfast on the terrace and off to Kaş on the Mediterranean. Along the way… ancient ruins, lots of farm land, more police, no tickets. We arrived in Kaş, parked and looked for a spot to have a drink overlooking the water. Rawson had to use a restroom so badly that she just wanted somewhere, anywhere, it didn’t matter. So Charlie chose the upstairs bar that wasn’t even opened. But in true Turkish manner the fellow from the downstairs restaurant asked if they would open just for us. They did, even thought the band for that night was practicing for the show. A little bit of a strange spot for an afternoon drink, but a good one it turned out. One of the guys in the band hooked us up with a room in a B&B for a great price. We liked Kaş so much we changed our plans and stayed 2 nights. Fabulous meals, friendly people, stunning views… on and on and on. We could have spent a week there and will definitely go back. Beside gorgeous beaches and excellent restaurants, it is a destination for scuba diving and paragliding. Next time! Tuesday we had a short drive over to Myra, an ancient city that was part of Lycia. Actually the entire time we were driving along the Med, we were on the Lycian peninsula which was a collection of ancient Greek towns that formed a federation separate from the Greek mainland. Very interesting history in this region, the town of Myra is known for the stunning cliff tombs built for the elite of the civilization. Our final destination for the day/night was Olympos, not the one in Greece. As we drove into the town, if you can call it that, we felt that we’d moved into a totally different world. Olympos was an ancient city right on the Mediterranean. Today Olympos has ancient ruins, but is a little hippie dippie campie town with what they call Tree Houses, which are cabins made of raw wood. We weren’t sure at first, after coming from Mediterranean paradise, but we stopped at one of the pansyons (pensions) and had lunch and asked to see a room. It was exponentially better than we expected and CHEAP! So we took it, dumped our stuff and headed to the beach. We had a chill evening at the tree house and arranged for an early breakfast to get a jump on our very long drive on Wednesday.

Having decided to take a more cruisey time in Lycia, we had opted out of the long haul to Cappadoccia, and instead went straight north to the Black Sea coast. This 11 hour day was a haul, but we got to see some cool sites along the way. In particular, the town of Nicaea was cute and rich in history. If the name rings a bell, this is the site of the Council of Nicaea, called by Emperor Constantine in 362 AD to review all the “books” about the different beliefs of early Christianity. Unfortunately, the result was to burn every book the majority tossed out of the running. There were said to be over 300 writings from which the New Testament was chosen; among the burned was the book of Mary Magdalene. For glimpse of the old town, see the attached photo of several arches of red and white brick going down a path (sorry for Charlie’s shadow in the middle!). In the end, we landed in the evening (literally racing the sun) in the town of Agva on the Black Sea, a small town along a meandering river flowing into the Black Sea. After saying goodbye to the umpteenth dog that we wanted to adopt, we headed west along the coast back towards Istanbul stopping along the way in the beautiful town of Sile. This was the spot for us! Incredible overlooks of the sea and cool little coffee houses on the cliffs. Our whirlwind of the coasts complete, we rolled back into Istanbul in the afternoon to meet up with our good friend Angela Osborne who came to meet up with us for a few days.

Meeting up with one of Tolga’s good buddies, Kerem, we had a nice dinner and drinks out on the town in the cool little walking district of Nevizade (off of Takcim) and late evening cocktails at Alex and Banu’s. Kerem is an up an coming film producer in Turkey. An amazingly interesting and warm guy, watch for this man in the future. He will have an incredible sounding documentary with BBC coming out in the next year on some newly discovered ruins in southern Turkey dating back to 10,000 BC! That is not a typo. Next morning, early up and off to see the sites of Istanbul and meet up with some other friends visiting from the states by coincidence at the same time, John and Rachel. This evening we got to meet up with Kaan, another buddy of Tolga’s and to see his (and Dano and Alex’s) new project, a speak-easy! The space isn’t yet completed, but it looks amazing and we wish these guys the BEST OF LUCK with the new venture! H, you have an outstanding and eager invitation to Istanbul to guest bartender! Our final two days were seeing more of the local sites, a boat trip up the Bosphorus and gracious invitation (which eagerly accepted) to attend the Istanbul Fashion and Film festival organized and thrown by Dano in what had been an ancient Armenian church in the heart of the new town.

What can we really say? Turkey was arguable our favorite leg of the trip so far. The people, the places, the history…absolutely off the charts by any standard. If you haven’t been yet, put it at the top of your list. Our warmest and special thanks to Tolga for the intro’s and to all our new friends in Turkey, Kaan, Dano, Kerem, Alex, Aysha, Banu and the rest. Thank you and hope to see you in SF some day to return the hospitality! On to Jordan!

Bulgaria

Bulgaria-Greece

We arrived in Sofia after a grand weekend in Mallorca. It is a different world in Sofia. Charlie’s good friend Amy who is Bulgarian/American generously offered the use of her grandmother’s apartment in Sofia. We are very lucky to have had this option as it saved us a ton of cash. This is Bulgaria, however, and the first 24 hours in a cold, hot water-free apartment which hadn’t been lived in for a few years was, to say the least, an eye-opening introduction to the Balkans for Rawson. Charlie was on it the first morning and heated a big pot of water on the stove for a small bath for his new bride. This won him lots and lots of brownie points (thanks Nancy for all the good parenting). Luckily, the hot water DID start working (apparently it was the spring “prophylactics” process in the neighborhood where they blast clean the pipes). Uh, OK. We had nice weather the first evening of getting reacquainted with the city. Rawson’s first taste of Bulgarian food did not disappoint. It was just as good as Charlie has said all this time. Seeking out Pizza Ugo was easy, but it had been seriously remodeled in 11 years. Gone was the overheated little basement joint with a modest patio. Totally modern and enclosed patio was a great reentry into Bulgaria and we were looking forward to the coming weeks.

We spent Monday until Saturday morning in Sofia. During the days we toured around the city checking out old haunts of Charlie’s and getting our fill of Shopska salad and Rakia. At night, we visited with friends and talked about old times. However, the weather did not hold up for us. The city of Sofia is quite well situated at the base of Vitosha, a snowcapped mountain. We got a glimpse of the mountain the first day, but the mountain remained socked in clouds for the remainder of the week. Sofia in grey weather is not nearly as nice. Rawson found the contrast between the couture advertisements and shops, high end cars and SUV’s and the broken sidewalks and crumbling facades almost sad. Most of the shops were empty of customers, not unlike the rest of the world. As Charlie had prepared Rawson, the Bulgarian people at first blush can come across a little rough and unfriendly. However, once you crack the surface, or establish a friendship, they are amazingly warm and generous. Rawson got to see the extent of Bulgarian hospitality in all of our time spent Doichin and Maya Doichinov, old friends of Charlie’s.

We stayed in Friday night with some nice Bulgarian wine and cheese and took in a downloaded movie in anticipation of the weekend with Doichin and Maya at a mountain biking competition. We rented a car and headed to the Valley of the Roses, central Bulgaria. Along the way we stopped off in Koprivshtitsa, a 17^th century preserved town in the Sredna Gora mountains. The town played a critical role in the beginning of the Bulgarian Revolution against the Ottoman Empire in 1876. The Bulgarian writer and revolutionary hero Lyuben Karevelov (also the name of the street Charlie and Gannon lived on all those years ago) was arrested in Koprivshtitsa and a local Bulgaria fired the “first shot” of the April Uprising against the Ottomans, killing the first Turk and setting off the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire. We happened to show up just in time to see the reenactment of this battle, as it was Bulgaria’s Memorial Day of sorts. We had a fabulous show including emulated Turks on horseback storming the town, the first actual shot, the hanging of the bad guy and lot and lots of Bulgarian folk dancing, all of this in true 19^th century costume. It was spectacular. We shared a table at lunch with one of the “actors” and got a firsthand look at ALL of his guns, as well as a history lesson. What a fabulous stop. OK off to the races….. Doichin is one of Charlie’s closest Bulgarian friends from his days here in Bulgaria. Doi is a former mountain biking star and now has his own business, mostly making high end mountain bikes and importing and selling associated adventure sport gear. This competition is the biggest and most important in Bulgaria and about 50% of the competitors were riding Doi’s “RAM” bikes. Sick downhill speed fix. Another treat was after the competition when Charlie jumped up to play Hacky Sack with some Bulgarian kids. The titanium hip moves just fine and he impressed the almost 20 year olds with his revitalized skills. We headed to Bogdan Hostel a little ways away which is owned by some of Doi’s friends for the evening. Niko and Svilena own and run this true farm house and they are raising horses and growing all of the fresh veggies that feed the guests for the entire summer. Svilena is Bulgarian but has just moved back from LA after a 9 year stint. Her English is phenomenal, as is her coffee. Doi grilled up some of the best Trout we’ve ever had. Many thanks to our amazing hosts, Niko and Svilena, for putting us for the night! Sunday we all got up and went for a hike on the property before taking off over the Shipka Pass to Etara (outside Gabrevo), an 18^th century preserved town, for lunch and to see how things were way back when. It was very quaint but PACKED with Bulgarian tourists due to the long holiday “weekend” (Friday-Wednesday). We had just enough time before meeting Doi and Maya back at his parent’s country home to make it to Veliko Tarnovo to check out the castle which makes this ancient Bulgarian capital (1 of 3 in BG). We shot up the road and checked out this quaint town, saw the beautiful castle, had a cop take a photo of us and were off to Golyamo Dryanovo where Doi’s family’s villa is. For Bulgarians it is very typical to have a small house out in the country somewhere for spending weekends during the summer. We arrived prior to our friends, so Charlie grabbed his fly rod and we headed to the nearby pond where Doi had spoken about huge fish. Not understanding the process Doi had tried to explain, we bypassed cabin with the HUGE, mean Rottweiler and Charlie started casting. After about 10 minutes a man in his 60’s came over to explain that this was a private pond and he must ask permission and pay a small fee to fish. In Charlie’s Bulgarian, which has come a long way, he explained to the gentleman that he had misunderstood that you only need to pay AFTER for whatever he caught. The man was friendly and took an interest in Charlie’s fishing gear. He and Charlie discussed the fly rod and agreed it was suited best for Trout when the guy chuckled and said, in his most polite Bulgarian “put that thing away” referring to Charlie’s fly rod which would catch nothing on this pond. The full extent of Charlie’s futile effort was clear when the guy took us over to the cabin and began “chumming” the water for monster carp. Yeah, guess flies won’t stand a chance against dog food and bread!

Back at the villa we cooked up some more fish for dinner and had a grand time with Maya, Doi and Laura (their 5.5 year old daughter). After breakfast on Monday we took off toward Greece to meet up with some other friends in Athens, George and Laura Valais. We stopped for the night in a lovely little town, Litochoro, nestled at the base of famous Mount Olympus. We found a B&B, had a wonderful dinner in a fish restaurant (where Charlie had been 12 years earlier when he and Anthony had hike the mountain) and made a perfect evening. Tuesday’s plans were to hike the mountain, but it was socked in with rain clouds and we decided we had had our share of rain hikes in Patagonia to last a little longer. So, we headed towards Athens with a stop for lunch on the Pelion peninsula south of Volos, which is filled with coastal fishing villages. The Pelion peninsula is historically significant in that it’s said to be the only place in Greece that remained free of Ottoman rule due to the steep mountains and remote hilltop villages. We had planned on eating in one of these hilltop villages, Milies. However we arrived just after 2 busloads of high school kids and decided that was NOT the atmosphere we have in mind. Who likes hanging out with big groups of high school kids besides other high school kids? We rerouted to Afissos for lunch on the water, which was divine. We had timed things just right and have missed all of the tourists, so we had this paradise all to ourselves. Off to Athens to meet up with George and Laura!

We had two splendid nights outside of Athens with Charlie’s dear friends, George and Laura and their two lovely children, Jenie and Anton. Between the two of them we were fed some of the best meals of our trip! The first night Laura cooked up a classic Greek dish with celery leaves, lettuce and pork in an egg lemon sauce. The 2^nd night George fired up the grill and prepared an exquisite squid and massive fish, which we forget the name of now. During the day, and in between thunder storms, we visited the Acropolis and ancient sites around Athens. Well worth the long drive to Athens. Thanks for putting us up and showing us the Greek hospitality your country is deservedly well known for!

Back to Bulgaria! We spent the first night in Melnik, the heart of Bulgarian wine country. What a lovely ancient village, which was part of the First Bulgarian Empire in the 300s, not 1300s and is now the smallest town in Bulgaria with about 250 permanent residents. We stumbled upon a family winery where we tasted some wine and enjoyed the sun over the stunning natural sand pyramids. We had a traditional Bulgarian dinner and were off to bed at Kustata Nya Toni. A “kushta” is like a guest house in Bulgarian, usually smaller, often basic and family run.

Friday morning we downed some coffee and headed to Bansko, the #1 ski resort in Bulgaria. Archeology traces the inhabitants of Bansko back to the Roman Empire. Several structures outside of the town date to 100 BC. Charlie visited Bansko when he lived in Bulgaria, and it’s come a LONG way. Although the central square remains the same, the town has grown significantly around the center and sports several luxury hotels here as well as many new developments. Many of which are still under construction (too bad the economy has brought most of that to a screeching halt). We found a beautiful “kushta” above the restaurant where we had lunch, and at a quarter of the price of the Kempenski Grand which quoted us 150 EUR for the night, and the hotel is empty. We are glad we waited as it was arguably the nicest hotel we have had on the trip (beside the luxury retreat at Estancia Cristina in Patagonia).

Our final weekend in Bulgaria was spent stopping through Rila Monastery in (yes) the Rila Mountains, in route back to Sofia. The Rila Monastery is the most famous of the many Bulgarian monasteries. Nestled way up in the mountains, the architecture is simply spectacular. Ivan Rilska (after whom it is named) actually lived a hermits life in a cave in the 9^th century just up hiking trail from the modern (13^th century) buildings. The original structures were built by his students who hiked up the trail daily to learn from Rila. The current building were restored in the in the late 15^th century having been destroyed by Ottoman raiders earlier in the century. One last stop; Plovdiv. Plovdiv is one of the previous capitals of Bulgaria. In recent years some Roman ruins were uncovered in the city center. Plovdiv’s architecture has been heavily influenced by the western Europeans and is quite charming. A nice lunch on the main pedestrian stretch of downtown and back to Sofia. On our final day in Sofia we hiked on Vitosha, the mountain that overlooks the city. It’s like a wilderness paradise right outside of the city. Even in mid-May there was still a good amount of snow cover preventing us from doing the more serious hiking we had hoped for. But, hiking in the beauty of Vitosha is still just that!

We got to spend a good deal of time with Doichin and Maya during our time in Bulgaria, which was a real treat for both of us. We look forward to returning the hospitality when they come visit us.

We’re off to Turkey for the next two weeks and will be joined by some friends from San Francisco in Istanbul at the end of our stay. As we leave Bulgaria we also leave the last country on our trip where we (rather Charlie) speak their language. This should be interesting…..