Creative Meanderings

My ramblings and wanderings through life

  • Upon arriving at our hotel yesterday, we had thought that someone from the tour would have contacted us to confirm a pick-up time for this morning; however, we just went off of what our itinerary said. It was very trusting of us and of the tour company to assume we would pay attention to it. 😉 So, it was nice to be free to sleep in a bit, but I was still awake…

  • We had a very early rise again (5am) to be ready to leave on a ferry across the Marmara sea to Gallipoli. Gallipoli is famous from the war for the Australian and New Zealand forces coming to the aid of the British in an attempt to control the waterways and ultimately Istanbul. It was a rather brutal fighting ground where many, including Turks, lost their lives.There is an Australian film about this, I…

  • So, I had started to post on my days in Turkey, but then I decided to postpone them until I can put up pictures, otherwise, it isn’t as good to just read about it. Besides that, I need to have an abbreviated version of my pics since there are going to hundreds of photos to get through and most will be bored by them all without some explanation or shortened version of my…

  • Our last big archaeological tour stops were rather disappointing…. We headed first to Pergamum, which is one of the seven churches in Revelations, but there was not much of that aspect at the site. Mostly, it was a lot of rocks and ruins showing where buildings might have been. The most restored were the columns and theatre, but even that was not all that impressive. [shashin type=”photo” id=”7377,7376,7371,7370,6947,6946″ size=”small” columns=”max” order=”user” position=”center”] From…

  • We had a little bit of a later start this morning, which was nice. It also meant that we were finished sooner, but don’t let me get ahead of myself. Our first stop was to the Basilica of St. John. Apparently, the body of John is buried still under the ruins, but they have yet to excavate it says our guide…. I’m not sure how much I believe him. The more interesting part…

  • After our first-off morning dip and such, we were back on the ‘most uncomfortable bus’ for another long day of fun. Our first stop was still in Pamukkale at the Hierapolis Antique City and Pamukkale’s limestone pools. The city was very impressive in terms of wide spread space with ruins from days of old. In fact, there was a recent article about archaeologists finding the mythical ‘gate of hell’ in this area. We…

  • We had a very long day in the bus on the fourth day of our trip. From Kapidokya to Pamukkale, it takes about 12 very long hours. Along the way we made a few stops to see a few things. For example, we stopped in Konya for a visit to the Turkish whirling dervish temple. The whirling dervish is a type of Muslim sect where the whirling causes a meditative state. Nowadays no…

  • Our third day of our Turkey tour started a little later, which was a nice relief after the long bus ride the day before. We had our less than delicious breakfast at the hotel with me barely caffeinated with the coffee. There’s no kettle in the room so I had to make do. Later, we met the rest of our group and went off to see the sights. We started at the Goreme…

  • It was a very early start as we headed to the Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen airport or the domestic airport. We joined a few more people on the same tour. Once we arrived at the airport we were left to our own devices to figure out how to check in and on the plane. Luckily, we had enough time and experience to sort it out. Still, that is one strike against the company…. [shashin…

  • This will be a quick one, but we arrived last night in Istanbul. The flight was fine, though Qatar Airways is not really the five-star kind of airlines they advertise, at least not in the peanut gallery. 🙂 It took us a while to get out of the airport due to the visa lines. It is good to keep in mind that you need exact change and dollars or Euros to pay for…

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