Month: October 2005

Leaving Osmaneli, we started our climb up to the main Anatolian plateau, heading for Ankara at 900m above sea level. A couple of days down we arrived at Eskisehir – a lovely (and surprisingly modern!) university city with a canal and riverside cafes and parks, tramlines, and western shops of […]

‘Better late than never’ as the saying goes! It took us longer than we realised to write the newsletter, and even longer to compile the distribution list for it! Sorry if we’ve missed anyone off, in the words of James Brown ‘please, please, please’ email us if you would like […]

Two days out of Istanbul, we arrived at Osmaneli – a small town at the bottom of a tough climb up to the city of Bilecik – where we stopped to replenish our energy with lunch. Whilst looking for a restaurant in town (most of which were closed for Ramadan) […]

Having spent the night in the famous seaside resort of Kusadasi, we emerged early in the morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, to take in the sights of the famous ancient city Ephesos. The history of the city of Ephesos, which today lies at the silted-up harbour at the mouth of the […]

One of the visas we had applied for in Istanbul would take a few days to arrive, so we decided to fill the time with a quick visit down to West Turkey to see two amazing sights: Pamukkale, a natural formation of white limestone cliffs, and the nearby Ephesos, the […]

Having got our domestic chores out of the way, we set off to enjoy the sights and smells of ancient Konstantinople (as the Greeks still call it!). Sedef acted as the tour guide and interpreter, and Nic acted as the official taster in every food stall! We were miffed to […]

The road to Istanbul proved to be a real trial on our nerves and muscles: the quiet provincial road turned into a two lane heavily used main road with speeding lorries, series of ramps, and ever increasing headwind as we approached Istanbul. Progress slowed the nearer we got to Istanbul […]