Those of you who know Yoyi and Rosi can imagine what the ascent was like – no guardrails and a breathtaking valley below. Luckily, we met only a couple of vehicles on the way up or down. At the top, the parking lot was right up to the drop-off, but I managed to find a spot where the girls accepted that I was not likely to drive off the edge when we pull in or out. It was impressive to see the buses park in the cramped lot, inches from falling over the edge.
My interest derives from my time in Berlin. In the mid 19th century, German archaeologists excavated the site, and absconded with the best relics, back to Berlin. There is an entire museum in central Berlin called the Pergamon Museum, one of the best museums of classical art in the world.
In particular, the temple of Athena (under renovation when Bela and I visited in 2005, and the magnificent Pergamon Alter of Zeus, which occupies all by itself the largest museum room you have ever seen. The remains at the actual acropolis site is a pile of stones that made up its foundation.
We planned a half day at the beach today, and asked at the tourist office for suggestions. We had also discussed this with some of the guests at the hotel the night before last. We ended up looking for a beach called Sarmısakh. (That letter is “ı” not “i” and is pronounced “uh.”
On our way to the beach: We had talked about sunflowers and eaten a lot of sunflower seeds, but we weren't prepared for what we came upon. “There we have it!” I shouted, and I quickly pulled over to the side of the road, raising some alarm among the passengers, who were in varying stages of unconsciousness. There before us lay a huge patch of sunflowers in blossom. We could barely control ourselves as we leapt out of the car to walk among the flowers and to take our pictures. What a special experience for Rosi, who is so taken with sunflowers. We spent as much time in the sunflower field as we had spent in some of my visits to ruins. And it was worth every minute.
The beach was situated at a tiny resort town that had little more than hotels and a couple of stores. We rented lounges and umbrellas near the water, and settled in for a day of doing nothing. We had not brought beach towels with us, so while the girls lay out in the sun, I searched for a linen store. All I found was a tourist shop that sells, among other things, beach towels. They had nothing with Turkish on it, nothing with the name of the town or the region. So I bought 2 nondescript towels. The storekeeper asked 30 YTL (new Turkish Lire), but I eventually paid 20.
Even I went into the water here. It was pretty cold, but incredibly clear. We waded out to about 4 feet deep and you could see the bottom as if you were looking through a magnifying glass. But it was not like the Caribbean; it was cold.
The girls did not want to move from their chairs, but I was eager to do so (as my family knows). So, for lunch, I went to the grocery and bought fruit and yogurt. We ate peaches, apricots, banana, plums, and yogurt for lunch. And we drank 2 liters of water.
Late in the afternoon, we had stayed our limit, and we left for Çanakkale, just past the ancient city of Troy. We didn't even stop at the historical site.
We drove through the mountains near the Aegean on a road that was reminiscent of the Big Sur highway. We enjoyed beautiful views and white-knuckle hairpin turns. We stopped for dinner at a roadside restaurant where the patio overlooked the Aegean from a height of about 1000 feet. We ordered some of the usual, but Yoyi became adventurous, and ordered a “kuzu biftek.” We were pretty sure that this would be a piece of meat – but what kind? Certainly not domuz (pork), and the waiter emphatically confirmed. He pointed to a goat walking by. (Actually, I think that kuzu is lamb.) It's nice to travel in a country where we are unlikely to be served a meat that we would rather not eat. They roasted the meat over hot coals, and the smell was wonderful. The portions were big and we enjoyed our meal, along with several flies who discovered that we were eating.
We finally made it to Çanakkale at dark, after witnessing a beautiful sunset over the mountains on the other side of the Dardanells. The instructions from the hotel were to follow the signs to either the ferry (feribot) or the central market (merkezi). Trouble was that there were very few signs to either. We drove back and forth until we finally homed in on the ferry port, and there was the hotel.
But that wasn't the end of our search. We drove into the street, but the hotel was on the other side of a wide park dividing the two one-way sides of the street, and there was no place to stop on our side. I proceeded up the street looking for a turn-back, but the two sides diverged. When we got to a cross street, we started to turn back into a street that we thought might be the right one, but it was crowded full of students who were wearing caps and gowns, so we went on to the next street. But the next street did not permit return to where we wanted to go, and only after a dozen turns did we find our way back to the street we figured to be our target. We turned and there were hundreds more graduated students.
We supposed that students should know how to speak English; so we asked, but none did. They all wanted to be helpful, and one young girl signaled for us to wait while she raced off, apparently to find an English speaker. Soon she re-appeared, waving her hands for us to wait; she was accompanied by another student, who said hello to us and asked if she could help. That was about the extent of her English proficiency. But they looked at the paper that showed our reservation, and gestured to indicate that we should simply stay on the same road, and the hotel would be on the right. After 2 blocks of dodging the hoards of students, we made it.
The Turkish people are very hospitable and helpful, in case you didn't notice yet.
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