Turkey Trot - First Class
Turkey Trot - Are We There Yet?
Turkey Trot - Ephesus
Turkey Trot - Mary's House and Basilica of St. John
Turkey Trot - Swissotel Efes
Turkey Trot - Taking the Bus and Priene
Turkey Trot - Putting on the Ritz
Turkey Trot - The Blue Mosque
Turkey Trot - Topkapi Palace
Turkey Trot - Hagia Sophia
Turkey Trot - Carpets and Grand Bazaar
Turkey Trot - Dolmabahçe Palace and Taksim Square
Turkey Trot - Bosphorus Cruise
Turkey Trot - Turning Blu
Turkey Trot - Getting This Turkey Home
I'm only about seven months behind in getting this posted. Hopefully it'll be interesting enough to make up for it!
Why Turkey? I got asked that quite often when I mentioned to people where my next big trip was planned. The short answer is that it's a lovely country with lots of interesting things to see. The impetus for this trip was my friend M. Many years ago when he was in the military he was stationed in Turkey and learned to speak the language fluently. Recently he'd made friends with a Turkish family here in Memphis. Now that he's semi-retired, he decided to rent an apartment from relatives of the local Turkish family. So for the months of August and September he'd be living in a second-floor apartment in Kuşadası (koo-SHAH-duh-see), a lovely city on the Aegean Sea. I'd been there briefly in 2007 when it was a port of call during a cruise of the Greek Islands so I knew there were lots of historical sites in the area and that I'd love to visit.
I checked with my traveling buddies, C and D, to see if they were interested in going. As neither had been to the area before, they were all for it. Even before M had all the details about his lodging we realized that with three of us visiting it'd likely be too crowded for his apartment, so we made our own hotel arrangements. A local travel agent friend put me in touch with an American who runs a travel agency in Turkey and they were invaluable at helping us get around and arranging a couple of tours. Yes, it cost more than we might have liked but we always had our own private guides and didn't have to worry about getting from place to place with what we had planned. Though our plans did change a bit while we were there!
Our flight plans had us flying American Airlines and British Airways, meeting up in London (C lives in the Chicago area while D lives in Southern California) and from there flying to Istanbul as we wanted to be together when entering the country. Since our flight landed so late at night we did a quick overnight at a Marriott Courtyard then it was back to the airport the next day to fly to Izmir, the closest airport to Kuşadası.
There we were met by M and our local guide, T, and were able to feel like we'd truly arrived. We had a whirlwind day of sightseeing the next day before basically vegging out on the second day, finally shaking off the jet lag. We had an adventure taking the bus to Kuşadası to meet with M and he drove us to some historic sites there and we stopped at one of the many local roadside eateries.
The next day it was back to Istanbul, where we'd spend the rest of our time. As we were using hotel points for our stays in Istanbul, we spent three days at the Ritz-Carlton (a Marriott partner) and two days at the Radisson Blu Bosphorus. It was a bit of a pain swapping hotels, but free - or near free - was reason enough to do so.
By the end of our time we'd seen quite a bit of the two cities and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The country - and indeed Istanbul itself - straddles the Turkish Straits which separate Europe from Asia so the country seems very Western at times while maintaining a bit of Eastern mystery.
My return flight was a few hours later than the one C and D took back on British Airway and I got to sample Turkish Airlines' hospitality for something different. It was quite the experience and hopefully these posts will reflect the good time we had.
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