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Noyelles Travels
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Location Date Europe 
1495839600 South America 1491606000 Oceania 1489276800 Asia 1460329200 North America 1450310400 Africa 1367017200 -
- Turkey
Wednesday 28th October
Woke up at about 6 this morning to find we had docked in Kusadasi, in Turkey, the nearest point to the old city of Ephesus where most of the passengers went. We had a lazy breakfast & walked across the quay into the town which we had stayed in many years before. The town certainly had grown & was looking quite prosperous. We changed £20 for 86 Turkish Lire, which has had at least 2 noughts taken off it since we were last here.
After wandering up the street we stopped at a cafe for apple tea & spent the next 2 hours working on updating the blog as the Wi-fi charges on the ship are outrageous. d*** then had a haircut & Jane bargained a pair of shoes down from £20 to £10, at which point the owner intervened & wanted a further Lire 20, which we refused to pay. d*** tried to take back the £10 but the owner caved in, although not too happily & she got the shoes. It was sad to see Syrian refugee families begging in the streets as it must be very hard for them.
The ship left at 2pm but there were 2 others in port so the shopkeepers should be able to make some more sales. d*** had a 2nd acupuncture session so we will have to see how much it helps.
Thursday 29th October
Overnight we sailed to Istanbul & at one stage we woke up to see a huge floodlit, Dardanelles monument carved into the hillside. Jane was up very early to see the skyline of the city & took some great shots of the mosques against the dark cloudy sky.
After an alfresco breakfast on the upper deck we left to go into the city but were frustrated as we had to walk about a kilometre along the key side before we could get out of the port building. We decided to catch a tram into town but had another longish walk to find a stop & work out how to get on. They use a jeton or token system which lets you on to the tram stop & there are machines to buy the jetons but although they take coins & notes they are very fussy re the coins, rejecting a few of ours. We caught the tram & it went down to the local ferry terminal before we all had to leave it & catch the next one. This was repeated twice before we found one that took us further.We stayed on the tram until the last but one stop, a journey of about 15+km through a variety of suburbs. The places we saw were all neat & in good repair with many multi storey blocks of apartments & it all looked very prosperous. In one area the streets were lined with fabric & clothes warehouses as Turkey has a big garment industry. It was good to see how well the city appears to be at present, in marked contrast to a few years ago.
On our return journey we stopped off near the Blue Mosque & had lunch at an old cafe serving a traditional menu, as we had been there before. We caught up on things at an internet cafe & returned to the ship after spending our remaining Lire on some chocolates.
After dinner we went to a short lecture on 30,000 years of art history which was illuminating if somewhat attenuated.
Woke up at about 6 this morning to find we had docked in Kusadasi, in Turkey, the nearest point to the old city of Ephesus where most of the passengers went. We had a lazy breakfast & walked across the quay into the town which we had stayed in many years before. The town certainly had grown & was looking quite prosperous. We changed £20 for 86 Turkish Lire, which has had at least 2 noughts taken off it since we were last here.
After wandering up the street we stopped at a cafe for apple tea & spent the next 2 hours working on updating the blog as the Wi-fi charges on the ship are outrageous. d*** then had a haircut & Jane bargained a pair of shoes down from £20 to £10, at which point the owner intervened & wanted a further Lire 20, which we refused to pay. d*** tried to take back the £10 but the owner caved in, although not too happily & she got the shoes. It was sad to see Syrian refugee families begging in the streets as it must be very hard for them.
The ship left at 2pm but there were 2 others in port so the shopkeepers should be able to make some more sales. d*** had a 2nd acupuncture session so we will have to see how much it helps.
Thursday 29th October
Overnight we sailed to Istanbul & at one stage we woke up to see a huge floodlit, Dardanelles monument carved into the hillside. Jane was up very early to see the skyline of the city & took some great shots of the mosques against the dark cloudy sky.
After an alfresco breakfast on the upper deck we left to go into the city but were frustrated as we had to walk about a kilometre along the key side before we could get out of the port building. We decided to catch a tram into town but had another longish walk to find a stop & work out how to get on. They use a jeton or token system which lets you on to the tram stop & there are machines to buy the jetons but although they take coins & notes they are very fussy re the coins, rejecting a few of ours. We caught the tram & it went down to the local ferry terminal before we all had to leave it & catch the next one. This was repeated twice before we found one that took us further.We stayed on the tram until the last but one stop, a journey of about 15+km through a variety of suburbs. The places we saw were all neat & in good repair with many multi storey blocks of apartments & it all looked very prosperous. In one area the streets were lined with fabric & clothes warehouses as Turkey has a big garment industry. It was good to see how well the city appears to be at present, in marked contrast to a few years ago.
On our return journey we stopped off near the Blue Mosque & had lunch at an old cafe serving a traditional menu, as we had been there before. We caught up on things at an internet cafe & returned to the ship after spending our remaining Lire on some chocolates.
After dinner we went to a short lecture on 30,000 years of art history which was illuminating if somewhat attenuated.
- comments
Alison Loved Istanbul and your photos brought back memories. Had you been to Ephesus before. We spent many hours there and did notice of lot of tourists were from a ship. It all sounds so wonderful.