Welcome to the Holy Land

Bump!

I wake up when the plane hit the land — I mean the Holy Land :-) — and I start looking around me: I'm alone in the last row, the only goy in a plane full of happy and noisy Israeli families coming back from their Turkish holidays — the Shekel is kinda high, these days ….

My thought goes to the preceding hours — and I feel the nightmare slowly fading away. I arrived from Olimpos to Antalya very late the night before, I woke up early and I went to the airport. Turkey did not want to let me go: after discovering that I cannot go to Israel via Cyprus (because you cannot pass the border from North to South, and from Turkey you can only go to the Northern part) I somehow managed to sneak in an Israeli return charter. But, alas! the girl at the travel agency forgot to add my name to the flight list. After a couple of hours of frantic phone calls eventually I passed the check-in. Three minutes before it closed.

So, this is how Israel looks: … nice!

After discovering that I can pay the train ticket (2.50 €) with my credit card The Big Smile shows up on my face! And it gets wider when, first on the train and then on the bus, I realise that almost everyone — including the elder and the young — speaks English.

I happily settle down on my couch in Yafo while I let the hot air, the smells and the sounds of Middle-East slowly soak my body. In a few hours I realise that it will be hard to leave this place.

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As usual, more photos of Tel Aviv here.

Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò

And the quest for the sun leads me to Antalya, in the very south of Turkey, and my thirst of blue would eventually be satisfied (see photos).

But the curse of the Ramazan Bayram (see this post) is still there: both of my hosts in Antalya are leaving for the holiday, and I grab the opportunity of see Olimpos, just around the corner.


So i grab a dolmuş to the bus staion, there the dolmuş to Olimpos, that leaves us to the main street, and from there — guess — a dolmuş to the city. City? Oops! There is no city: the place is just an agglomeration of pensions and bars lined on both sides of the only street that leads through the ruins to the beach.


But some of the pensions are of a peculiar kind: tree houses! Feeling my age slowly flowing away, I climb on the ladder to my new home.

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More photos of Antalya and Olimpos here.

Istanbul as it once was

After a couple of hours in Ayvalık walking up and down with my backpack — that is a bit heavier every day — I decide to just go to İstanbul and from there to the next stop.

Oh, by the way, you should be aware that in Turkey long distance buses stop during the trip for washing (see photo), so you can happily wait outside thinking about how different things can be in different places :-)

But, alas! things are not always as you wish: ten hours of bus and once in İstanbul, rain. And then rain, and cold, and rain … if you lived in Treviso you know what I mean.


So I go to a travel agency, with Cappadocia in mind. And then … Ramazan Bayram! Yes, a very important holiday in Islamic countries. Like all of the buses booked for the whole week. Me not happy :-(

But a great city always reserves you more options, and mine is discover remains of the old Ottoman city in between modern buildings. Here you have some sample, mostly in the Kadıköy district.

After the sightseeing I went to a random travel agency, and I bought the first ticket for Whatever.

That's in the south :-)

Buckatürk?

At the beginning of the Nineties, we used to play a quite popular board game: Trivial Pursuit.

I remember a day, playing in Ally's kitchen, when the question « Who is the father of all turks? » panicked most of us. And then somebody — with the beginning of a smile sprouting from his lips — said this single word: « Atatürk? »

Many years passed, and eventually I have an answer for that: reincarnation!



Further proofs of this theory here.

Back to kebap!

I'm back to Turkey, and hungry: sewing this flags to my backpack is a very tiring task!

There is the good old kebap, but Turkish food has many many options, so I tried to taste more. Here you have a small gallery, ranging from the afore mentioned Mr. K to more esoteric possibilities: a thing with eggs inside — the name will be posted as soon as I'll remember it — that you can't actually see because my American friend put all of the bread into it (for saving time?).

A portion of chicken with vegetables and rice — with the evil green-peppers as a side dish —; a carefully prepared in nouvelle cuisine style plate of Köfte with cheese.

But my favourite so far is this home-made dinner: mushroom soup, cooked and fresh vegetables, stuffed peppers, yoghurt and dates!

Of course, if you are looking for something a little more unusual, you can pay a visit to this bar at Izmir bus station: