Here are some of our favorite photos from the trip (each photo is a thumbnail linked to a higher quality picture.):
51) Nur Pastanesi, Kalkan, Turkey, March 7, 2022 - After getting back from our journey up the coast we had another down day where we focused on domestic tasks. The first priority was laundry so we would have clean clothes for our final week of vacation. Check! We also needed to resupply so mid-day we drove into downtown Kalkan to get groceries. We had also written a whole bunch of postcards in the morning so we took advantage of our trip into town to mail our completed post cards and buy enough stamps to start our next batch. Wanting to add a little treat to our chores we also found a pastry shop where we purchased a couple of different varieties of baklava (pistachio and walnut) to try after dinner that night. After returning to the condo for lunch we watched as a rain squall rolled through but then the sun came back out for the late afternoon which resulted in a colorful sunset. We made dinner in the evening and then definitely enjoyed our sweet treats afterwards. A slow day for sure but it was nice to relax after the busy loop up the coast.
52) Kalkan, Turkey, March 8, 2022 - The next day ended up being another down day. We started out with the intention of getting out to hike the Lycian Way but cool, overcast weather slowed us down in the morning and we never quite overcame that inertia. We weren’t completely lazy though as we did walk from our condo to downtown Kalkan, about a mile away, and then wandered around the narrow streets and steep hills of the old town area. Everything wass still closed - most of Kalkan doesn’t open for tourists until May - but it was still nice to see the area. We also stopped by the post office to drop off another batch of post cards. On the walk back we checked on two small grocery markets in the area where the condo is located but both of those were still closed as well. We made lunch and during a brief period when the sun peaked through the clouds, Jonna ate on the patio where she could pet our house’s feral kitty (every house seems to have at least one and often a feral dog too.) Please don’t tell our attention deprived cat Leon that we were cheating on him with a Turkish princess. The clouds had closed back up by the time Jonna decided to go for a swim. She reacted to the cold pool water the same as I am sure the cat would have. One foot in and right back out again. For the afternoon we listened to podcasts, wrote postcards, watched motorcycle races and otherwise relaxed. For dinner we drove into Kalkan to eat at a special restaurant only to find it was hosting a private event. We ended up at an okay place but we’d built up expectations all day so felt let down. We made up for it by finding another pastry shop where we drowned our dinner sorrows in more baklava.
53) Üçağız, Turkey, March 9, 2022 - We were back on the road today after two days relaxing around the condo. Our first stop, after loading up the car and wishing the condo farewell, was a restaurant in Kalkan for a filling Turkish breakfast. We weren’t brave (or hungry) enough to order the Turkish Feast but even the "Breakfast for two" was enough for all three of us. On the road again but this time we headed to the east again retracing the curvy coast road between Kalkan and Kaş. Just east of Kaş we turned off the main road and onto a winding secondary road through the farming villages of Sahilkilincli and Cevreli. These little villages are filled with inexpensive plastic covered greenhouses packed with tomato and cucumber plants. I hate to see all the plastic but I am impressed by the ingenuity of the farmers to grow hot house crops for cheap. The end of the road was in the little port of Üçağız. Why did we drive down a small, dead-end road you might be asking. Well, remember last week when we did a boat trip from Demre to Kekova Island to see the sunken ancient city of Simena? We made a very short stop at the modern village of Simena, now known as Kaleköy, which we thought was very charming. So our goal for the day was to take a boat to Kaleköy and stay for the night. We had found a cute little hotel, the Sahil Pansiyon, that had opened early for the season so we had booked that online and that came with a boat pick-up. The hotel owner turned out to be a sweet older gentleman with a small run-about boat. Us, our luggage, the owner, his son/son-in-law and all their groceries had the boat riding low in the water. Fortunately, we stayed afloat and the putt-putt over to Kaleköy was very pretty. The water was smooth and as clear as blue tinted glass. We could see the bottom probably 30 feet down. Stunning!
54) Sahil Pansiyon, Kaleköy, Turkey, March 9, 2022 - The hotel was just as charming and right on the water. The view from our 2nd floor room’s patio was straight out of a travel advertisement. Multiple shades of blue water with Kekova Island and its ruins as a back drop. We had hoped to sea-kayak as soon as we arrived but literally as we put our bags in our rooms the wind picked up and within half an hour there were white caps on the previously calm bay.
55) Simena Castle, Kaleköy, Turkey, March 9, 2022 - Instead, we hiked up to the castle overlooking the village and enjoyed the gorgeous (though blustery) panoramic view.
56) Simena Castle, Kaleköy, Turkey, March 9, 2022 - To my great surprise a spur of the Lycian Way trail comes into Kaleköy and goes through the ancient necropolis just outside castle walls. As a result I finally go to walk a little bit of the famous trail and got to wander among the numerous above ground tombs in the necropolis. Two-for-one!
57) Sahil Pansiyon, Kaleköy (AKA Simena), Turkey, March 9, 2022 - On our way back we stopped at a woman’s home/shop to drink fresh squeezed orange juice, enjoy a little cake treat and to pet her cats. She was also selling handmade bracelets so we bought a few to support her. When we had visited a week ago the big sign over a prominently located harbor-side restaurant proclaiming "Ice Cream Point" had definitely caught my eye so we made a beeline there next. Homemade lemon ice cream on a dock over the water was hard to beat. The lady that ran the restaurant recognized us from a week ago and in our broken respective languages we had a friendly short chat. She was flying a big Ukrainian flag in front of her place - a bold statement for a country with a very large number of summertime Russian tourists. We gave her a big thumbs up. A brief, fast moving line of clouds sprinkled just enough to create a spectacular rainbow with the rays of the setting sun.
58) Sahil Pansiyon, Kaleköy, Turkey, March 9, 2022 - After the rainbow an orange glow filled the western sky as the sun set. The cake and ice cream for late lunch lead straight into dinner in an enclosed room on the dock at the hotel. Fresh fish for Jonna and Heather, salad and fries for me. Our afternoon and evening in Kaleköy were just as lovely as we imagined when we saw the place a week ago.
59) Olympos Ancient City, Olympos, Turkey, March 10, 2022 - Our vacation was quickly coming to a close as we just had a few days left. After spending two and a half weeks exploring the southern coast we had already booked a hotel in Antalya for our last three days. In the morning, as we prepared to leave the peace and quiet of Kaleköy, we learned that a hastily agreed to peace talk between Ukrainian and Russian cabinet members would take place over the next three days in… Antalya, Turkey. Well, that is an interesting development! Nonetheless, our morning was relaxing with a Turkish breakfast on the dock with beautiful aquamarine water all around. After checking out our host bundled us back into his little boat for the trip back to Üçağız. Unlike yesterday’s boat trip this morning there was a light chop which resulted in a wave hitting the bow just right to soak us. Fortunately, we only hit that one wave wrong so for the rest of the ride we could enjoy the incredible scenery. Back on the road we wound through more farmland to the town of Demre where we got back on the D-400 for a bit. At Kumlova we again left the main road and took another curvy, scenic road through the coastal mountains and into a narrow valley. At the bottom of the valley were the ruins of the ancient city of Olympos. We had to park on one side of the Göksu river and then walk the rest of the way to the entrance to the ruins because the river was too high to ford in the rental car. Luckily there was a pedestrian bridge so we could get across. The site is an interesting one being in the mouth of such a narrrow valley and with a river running right through the middle. We walked all the way through the old city ruins and to the end at a pebble beach with the old city watch tower high up on a rock face above us. The old walls, a pier for the ancient bridge over the river, a mix of Roman temple and Christian church remains and some stone tombs were all visible from the central main road. We would have explored more but the boom of thunder and pitter-patter of rain caused us to scamper back to the car.
60) Kaleiçi, Antalya, Turkey, March 10, 2022 - We opted to skip lunch and instead drove straight through to Antalya. Police checkpoints were set up on the D-400 but otherwise things were much quieter coming into town than I expected given the peace talks, though I did see a few businesses with Ukrainian flags hanging out front. Our hotel is in the Kaleiçi, which is the old town. This is fantastic for having a great neighborhood to explore full of narrow cobblestone lanes and overhanging wooden balconies but driving through the middle of busy downtown and then into the absolute maze of the old town was pretty stressful. Add in a very full bladder and bumpy cobbled roads and I was very, very happy to find our hotel. The fact that they have a parking space for the car (even if it does cost 2 Euro a night) is priceless. After checking in we did a little walk around the nearby area. The view from the water front looking across the bay onto the mountains is amazing. (We have a similar view from the rooftop terrace at our hotel!)
61) IVA GastroBar & Sushi, Antalya, Turkey, March 10, 2022 - Finally, we decided to celebrate our being in the big city (Antalya is home to 2.5 million people) by finding something different for dinner. During our walk we had found an upscale sushi place and that was just the thing to give our tastebuds something unusual for a change. It was expensive compared to what we’ve been paying but not bad for a nice dinner at a fancy gastropub ($57 for three trays of sushi and drinks.) After dinner we walked back at our hotel and settled into our room which looked like a set decoration for a 18th century period drama but that thankfully had modern 21st century internet speeds.
62) Perge Ancient City, Antalya, Turkey, March 11, 2022 - For our last day with a rental car we chose to explore a few sites that are on the outskirts of Antalya. However, before venturing back out we first had a delicious breakfast spread at the hotel. The traditional Turkish breakfast has been a variety of dishes including fried eggs, a couple of different varieties of olives, three different types of cheeses, clotted cream, honey or honeycomb, a couple of different jams, some dried fruit, a plate of fresh veggies and greens, a big basket of bread and enough hot tea to caffeinate a large family. Once we got into the car we found that driving out of the old town in the morning was much easier than driving in during afternoon rush hour. Our first stop was driving to the eastern edge of the city to... you guessed it... see some ancient ruins. The site of Perge is the best excavated of the cities that we have visited.
63) Perge Ancient City, Antalya, Turkey, March 11, 2022 - The main road through the old city had been cleared and partially reconstructed so there is about 1/2 mile of columnated, paved road with some walls of the buildings along the road. I could visualize what it must have been like to enter the grand main gate and stroll down the road with shops and fountains and columns and statues lining the way. I also ran up to the top of the hill to the ruins of the Acropolis. Not much reconstruction up there but the view over the while site was impressive. The ancient city also has a nice bath complex, a partially intact stadium and a very well preserved theater.
64) Kurşunlu Waterfall, Antalya, Turkey, March 11, 2022 - With our daily required archeological site visited we then switched things up by driving to a nearby nature park where the key feature was the Kurşunlu Waterfall. This was a pretty little canyon with a curtain of water pouring into a clear, blue-green pool. Lovely and a pleasant break from all the ruins.
65) Düden Waterfall Park, Antalya, Turkey, March 11, 2022 - Our last stop with the car was another waterfall but this one right in the city. The Düden Waterfalls are actually formed by the runoff water from a water reclamation plant but a channel of rushing water has been formed into a powerful set of waterfalls with a manufactured cave system so you can walk behind the falls. It is a very lush city park with food vendors, park benches, little archeological digs with descriptions and lots of paths for kids to roam. The only downside was the large amount of trash stuck in the rocks, floating in the pools and drifting in the creek. Clearly all the street trash gets washed into this area when it rains and being in such a big city there is a lot of it. Still, we enjoyed our visit and, again, it was something different.
66) Hadrian's Gate, Antalya, Turkey, March 11, 2022 - We managed to return the car with just under 2,500 km on the odo so I think we got our money’s worth. From the rental car office we got a taxi back to old town and, since the taxi driver was unsure about our hotel, just had him drop is at the edge of the old district. I was happy someone else had to deal with the afternoon traffic downtown this time! We saw Hadrian’s Gate, the Roman era entrance to the old town, and then strolled the tiny lanes back to our hotel. We then went right back out to find lunch. With a recommendation from the hotel we found a fancy restaurant with a spectacular view of the bay. I had pasta while Jonna and Heather had ultra rare shrimp, or at least I assume they were rare based on the price we saw when they delivered the bill. It made the petrol we’ve been buying for the car seem positively cheap! At least it was yummy and the view was terrific. I celebrated my inexpensive lunch with a wild berry ice cream cone from a street vendor on the waterfront. A just reward!
67) Sefa Hamam Antalya Kaleici, Antalya, Turkey, March 11, 2022 - In the evening Jonna and Heather went to another hammam (this one 800 years old!) for another round of boiling, scraping and tenderizing while I relax as the hotel watching motorcycle races. They don’t know what they missed...
68) Antalya Archeological Museum, Antalya, Turkey, March 12, 2022 - This was our last day of sightseeing in Turkey and we made it a good one. We started with another hearty breakfast at our hotel...we are definitely going to miss the Turkish breakfasts! Next we found a taxi and had it bring us to the Antalya Archeological Museum. Wow, was this a great decision! The museum has a wide variety of displays ranging from Paleolithic all the way through to the Ottoman Empire. Seeing it all laid out just reenforced what we have been seeing for the past three weeks - Turkey has a fascinating and rich history that touches on so many key aspects of world history. All the Mediterranean civilizations are present but so too are many of the Middle Eastern and African empires like the ancient Egyptians, the Hittites, the Assyrians and the Persians. The museum was packed with artifacts from the Stone, Bronze and Iron ages. There were rooms with Classical Greek, Hellenistic, Lycian and Roman sculptures. One room was filled with the most delicately and decoratively carved Lycian vault tombs we’ve seen and, trust me, we’ve seen a whole lot of them lately. My two favorites were 1) a statue of a dancing woman carved from two different colors of marble. It had such vivid movement and grace despite having been broken and partially reconstructed.
69) Antalya Archeological Museum, Antalya, Turkey, March 12, 2022 - ... and 2) a statue of Hercules that was both lifelike and mythical at the same time, as well as presented so beautifully that it stopped me in my tracks. By the time we walked out of the museum we were just in awe of the combination of history and art that was on display.
70) Karaalioğlu Park, Antalya, Turkey, March 12, 2022 - At the very beginning of this trip Heather fed us a sweet, buttery desert called katmer that she had purchased from a delivery service in Kalkan. For the rest of the trip we have been asking for it in restaurants, bakeries, pastry shops and hotels and usually get either a blank stare or a lno, no katmer" in response. So being in such a big city, surely we can find katmer here, right? From the museum we had a taxi take us to a place recommended by our hotel’s owner and which had katmer in the business name. Well, there was a physical place but they were closed. We were out the cab fare and stuck without katmer. We flagged down another taxi and headed to a second place. We arrived, saw they were opening in 20 minutes and had katmer shown in the store front advertising. We were seated and once they opened we ordered. "No, no katmer". Defeated we ordered a künefe (a sweetened cheese and pistachio desert) instead. It just wasn’t the same but we did have an entertaining waiter so we enjoyed the experience anyway. After a very short cab ride we were deposited at Karaalioğlu Park which is a pleasant open space on the edge of the old town and which is decorated with contemporary public sculpture. We meandered through the park looking at the large sculpture pieces and enjoying both the warm sunshine and seeing the locals out enjoying their Saturday. The end of the park is on a cliff overlooking the bay and honestly the view there is one you would never get sick of. Calm blue-green water, the steep cliffs that border the bay and then the massive snow-capped mountains just across the water. We sat and enjoyed the panorama for awhile but the cool breeze eventually overcame the warm sun so we started moving again. We walked back through the edge of old town to the north were there was another scenic overlook, this one providing a breathtaking view straight down onto the Marina. The breakwater was covered with people out sunbathing on the rocks and setting up to watch sunset in a couple of hours. A line of fancy restaurants high up on cliff opposite the marina were jam packed with people sitting on patios - doing much the same thing. There was a mix of ancient walls, modern steel & glass restaurants, Seljuk and Ottoman architecture buildings housing shops and all manner of boats moored around the harbor. Another scene that wouldn’t get old. With sunset on the way and a few tasks that required internet still on our "todo" list we walked back through old town to our hotel. After some time packing and trying (unsuccessfully) to check-in for our flight we headed back out for a final meal with cousin Heather. We chose an Indian/Pakistani restaurant which turned out to be both very popular and very good. We had a happy time reminiscing about the last three weeks of traveling together as well as sharing photos from all our cell phones. Our walk back to the hotel was a little melancholy knowing that we will be off early in the morning to head to the airport and about the time our flight should be taking off Heather will be leaving via taxi to return to Kalkan for a week and then will be off on her next digital nomad adventure. Hopefully, she will land somewhere equally tempting so we will have an excuse to visit her again soon. For now we are hoping we can sneak out to see something during our 22 hour layover in Frankfort tomorrow!
71) Antalya, Turkey, March 12, 2022 - Our last day was mainly a travel day and I would usually let our Antalya pictures be the last ones. However, there were a couple of interesting experiences one our travel day so I decided to stick a few "last" pictures on here. We were up and out of the hotel earlier than their breakfast hours but last night we’d bought some spinach philo rolls which we ate cold while waiting at the airport. The airport was the usual mix of crowded lines interspersed with boring waiting. Our flight boarded and took off on time so nothing noteworthy there. The first memorable sight was the airborne view of the mountainous center of Turkey. After three weeks of seeing these snow-capped peaks from below it was nice to see them from the air.
72) Paulsplatz, Frankfurt, Germany, March 13, 2022 - Those mountains were pretty but 1.5 hours later we flew over the Austrian-Swiss Alps. Wow! It was crystal clear and looking down on the majestic Alps was beautiful. I wish I’d taken a photo. We landed in Frankfurt and immediately went into task mode. We had a "to do" list we had to sort out. First, was hitting up an ATM to get some Euros for our evening foray into the city. Second, was getting a rapid COVID test which is required for our flight to Denver tomorrow morning. It was a long walk to get the test and then a long walk back to the United counter so we could get checked in for that flight. Next was catching a cab to our hotel so we could check-in there. As soon as that was sorted we walked back to the airport (half an hour away) where we bought train tickets to the city center. We arrived downtown too late to see any museums but we just wanted to get a feel for the historic district so a walk around was fine. We walked Kaiser strasse, the main tourist boulevard, where we stopped at a surprisingly good Chinese restaurant to eat dinner. We then walked over to the New Old Town where we stumbled on a cool event. St Paul’s Church (which is no longer a church and is instead now a community center) was hosting the International Piano Forum and doing so as a fundraiser for Ukraine. They had a large screen set up in Paulsplatz so that people hanging out in the square could watch the pianists. We sat on the 1903 Unity Monument and listened to a very talented pianist play for about 15 minutes. We would loved to have listened for longer but decided to use our limited time to see a bit more of Frankfurt. Next to Paulsplatz is Römerberg square which is encircled by old style buildings (most of Frankfurt was bombed into ruins in WWII so both of these squares were reconstructed in the post war period.) Just south of these squares was the Eiserner Steg, a 1868 iron bridge over the Main River. We arrived there just as the sun was setting and it was a firey orange display reflected on clouds to the west and mirrored in the river. It wasn’t a particularly attractive skyline but nature’s light show still made it worthwhile. From there we walked back along the river bank all the way back to the train station. The return to the hotel was the reverse of earlier - train to the airport, walk to the hotel and we headed to bed early so we could wake up early the next day to catch our flight home. This was another fantastic trip!
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