Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
So far I have visited Old Town Istanbul and shopped in Taksim square, ate breakfast with movie stars in Bebek, and had tea just about everywhere I have gone. 7 of us decided to take the time we had before school to travel down to the city of Izmir. We were told by some Turkish friends that while Izmir is a cool city it would be pointless to stay there as it was a couple hours away from all the attractions we were hoping to see, so we started looking for Hostels in Selcuk, a small town near Ephesus. We would bus, or fly, or train, or bus, or fly, bus…we had a hard time figuring it out, down to Izmir then take a shuttle bus to Selcuk. Well the airfare went up so we decided to take a sleeper bus Monday night departing at 23:30 (or 11:30pm). It was almost a pleasant ride, with a little more leg room than an airplane and I was able to sleep, no surprises there. We loaded onto a ferry, the bus that is, to cross the Sea of Marmara. Once in Izmir we had no problem at all finding the shuttles to Selcuk and made it to our Hostel/resort (Attillas Getaway) around 9:20am. We ate a great breakfast and were on our way to Ephesus. What an amazing place. We literally climbed, walked, ran, and jumped where ancient romans had done the same. The city was huge, its largest population being 200,000! There were two amphetheatres, one that help 2,400 and one that held 24,000. Both were impressive and in the second we even got to hear an Italian man sing, beautiful. It was hot and full of tour groups but that helped make the city feel alive. After that we were shuttled to Selcuk for a carpet making tutorial (sales pitch). It was interesting and the guy was a great salesman. We then ventured off to take a look at one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world, the Temple to Artimus. There is only one pillar and some fallen stones that remain of this once massive temple, yet it still inspires awe. The pillar is some 50ft tall and imagining a building of that height made completely of stone and marble is incredible.
Some random notes, Turkish playgrounds always include workout toys. Like stationary bikes, or elipticals.
Wednesday we decided to have a chill day. One group went straight for Pamucak beach to lay out for the day, while another group, including myself, went to see the Basilica of St. John. It was pretty cool, most of the church had crumbled but almost every doorway remained standing, this made it easy to visualize what the building had been like. The view was incredible. The water has receded 7 plus km since the Basilica was built and the revealed valley allows one to gaze to the horizon, seeing the tip of the current beach line. After, we saw the Isabey Mosque and the Old Baths, both in good shape but fairly uninteresting. We decided to join the others at the beach. Pamucak beach immediately ranked the top beach I have ever been to. It was quite, beautiful, had cool water, and palm trees galore. We spent the rest of the daylight hours there, snacking at a nearby restaurant, and watching the sunset before catching a shuttle bus back into town and eating dinner at Atillas Getaway. The sunset was beautiful and included the entire spectrum of colors. Truly an amazing scene.
Thursday we were supposed to travel to Izmir spend the day wandering around the city of 3 million and head for Troy on an overnight bus; spending Friday morning in Troy. However, a few people were running low on money so we decided to nix the trip to Troy and go straight from Izmir to Istanbul that night. We took a bus from the Izmir Otogar bus station, through what appeared to be the slums of Izmir, to the port and Bazaar of the city. The ports truly put Seattle to shame as tanker ships dotted the sea. The bazaar was like any other bazaar in Turkey with the exception that the shop owners were more aggressive. After getting lost we managed to make our way back to the bus station just in time to catch our bus back to Istanbul. However, we would not be so lucky on the other end of the line. We were woken up at 7 am with the call that we were in Istanbul, we all hurried off the bus still rubbing the sleep from our eyes. When the bus left and we walked to the main "station" we realized our mistake, we were on the Asian side of Istanbul. Bogazici University is on the European side and to the north of where we were, we had no idea how to get back home. It turned out to be pretty easy, just took a shuttle to a ferry that wizzed us across the Bosphorus to a Besiktas where we took a metro bus home to the superdorm. A little drama to end out trip.
- comments