As I start this current journal the clock is notching towards 11pm. That means I have been awake, more or less, for close to 34 hours, apart from the odd catnap on Alitalia.
The flight departed Pearson at 4:30pm, arriving in Rome shortly before 7;30 Monday morning,
In typical Italian fashion, they ran out of white wine about 20 minutes after bar service opened and the red ( Chateau du Plonk 2012 ( October?) was exhausted by the time they hit row 10 at mealtime- I was in row 11. The hostess tried to appease me with Italian beer, which, for the uninitiated, tastes like budweiser after it has been through dialysis!.
The connecting flight from Rome to Istanbul left promptly, 65 minutes late, but luckily the gas from the garlic laced chicken gave us enough extra thrust that we made up a half hour and arrived only 20 minutes late.
A cheap $5.00 per person shuttle got us within 10 minutes of various hotels in the area adjacent to Taksim, known as Beyoglu. A series of confusing sidestreets, mostly smaller hotels bars and restaurants eventually connect with Istikal Caddesi, a pedestrian street running several km northeast and ending in the now infamous Taksim Square. After a few minutes of aimless wandering between the Pera Suites and the New Pera Suites I found my home from home for much of the next few days. After a brief, halfassed effort at unpacking my gut slipped me a quick "time to eat" nudge.
After a supper of Braised octopus , tzatziki, mixed seafood grill ( smelt, sardines, squid, salmon, seabass and giant prawns and a Turkish beer to keep it swimming, a walk up the hill to Taksim was an appropriate conclusion to the night.
Sadly the recent riots have left the Square largely bruised and abused. Several busloads of police in full armour and riot shields were hanging around watching for , or perhaps waiting to start some trouble.
Needless to say, a quick exit seemed to be the wisest move.
The hotel The New Pera, is on a side street adjacent to several bars, which will hopefully quiet down before midnight OR offer 3 for one specials and free lapdances for local insomniacs!
Tomorrow the plan is a trip to the old section of town and its various Mosques or the Grand Bazaar-otherwise known in Canada as Giant Tiger!!
Luckily it is all downhill on the way there.
One slight change since the last trip in 2008? was a slight population change Then 12million ( officially) now- unofficially 18M!!!!!!!!
Monday, September 30, 2013
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Turkey, Here We Come
The trip is on.
And we are are at T minus 3 and counting.
Unlike past trips where I have used the services of various tour agencies like Insight and Trafalgar, this one is a "solo flight".
After travelling large sections of Eastern Europe a couple of years back, wanting to sucker punch a Momma's Boy from Florida by the name of Jeff who whined whenever he couldn't get his own way, I decided that I would henceforth avoid travelling on buses tours with annoying "sixty-somethings"- especially when they are actually younger than me but mentally seem ten years older.
If that isn't bad enough, I recal a bus trip in Greece when I was a "youthful" 55 year old and I seemed to spend most of my time waiting for the lard ass 20 something Americans to catch up.
Nuff bitchin!
The flight from Pearson leaves around 5pm Sunday and lands in Rome some 8 1/2 hours later. With only 2 hours between flights there is no time to squeeze in a bingo game in the Vatican before the next leg of the journey continues on to Istanbul.
With a variety of transportation options available, I have decided to wait till I get there and just "wing it"
If all goes well a general shuttle should get me within walking distance of the hotel. Hopefully my internal GPS will find me heading in the right direction and that street signs will be recognizable to my untrained ( in Turkish) eye!!!!! [ that is a brief reference to a Havana trip in 2011 when I found myself trying to navigate a grid system that was totally devoid of street signs resulting in a half hour of aimless wandering in the wrong direction in 32 degree heat!!]
At roughly 14 million population, that's a little too big of a city to be wandering aimlessly!!!
This will be my third visit to the city ( In actual fact 4th, since I was there twice during one trip to turkey!) Hopefully the gunboats won't be in the harbour and the riot police wont need to be on duty like last time.
Seems like every place I go I run into some form of tension. Last year it was teacher strikes in Peru and riot police locking down town squares and main protest routes.. The year before I was bumping into riot police in full gear while mobs were assembling in downtown Athens.
Hopefully this time, the only protests I will get is a little bit of resistance from a cork coming out of a wine bottle.
A two day sampler of Istanbul will be followed by a quick flight to Antalya on the Mediterranean coast where the plan is to spend a week exploring ancient Roman sites- kind of ironic after flying through Rome and being unable to see any there.
Perge and Aspendos are top of my agenda- an ancient city and a fully functional Roman Amphitheater. The top site in Turkey is actually the ancient city of Ephesus but having been there twice I will be giving it a pass. A 2 or 3 day trip into eastern Turkey is another possibility but may be impacted by the refugee crisis boiling over from Syria. But if I can, I will. Even Antalya itself is loaded with various antiquities and could keep me busy on its own for several days. Apparently the beaches provide a little alternative sight seeing so I am packing my 45 SPF tongue screen!
If all goes well and I have the time, I will be posting updates and hopefully photos of my travels. Hopefully my experiences will not parallel the experiences of Dr H Mubarak, a london MD currently arrested and detained in Egypt fir being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Cheers
David D
And we are are at T minus 3 and counting.
Unlike past trips where I have used the services of various tour agencies like Insight and Trafalgar, this one is a "solo flight".
After travelling large sections of Eastern Europe a couple of years back, wanting to sucker punch a Momma's Boy from Florida by the name of Jeff who whined whenever he couldn't get his own way, I decided that I would henceforth avoid travelling on buses tours with annoying "sixty-somethings"- especially when they are actually younger than me but mentally seem ten years older.
If that isn't bad enough, I recal a bus trip in Greece when I was a "youthful" 55 year old and I seemed to spend most of my time waiting for the lard ass 20 something Americans to catch up.
Nuff bitchin!
The flight from Pearson leaves around 5pm Sunday and lands in Rome some 8 1/2 hours later. With only 2 hours between flights there is no time to squeeze in a bingo game in the Vatican before the next leg of the journey continues on to Istanbul.
With a variety of transportation options available, I have decided to wait till I get there and just "wing it"
If all goes well a general shuttle should get me within walking distance of the hotel. Hopefully my internal GPS will find me heading in the right direction and that street signs will be recognizable to my untrained ( in Turkish) eye!!!!! [ that is a brief reference to a Havana trip in 2011 when I found myself trying to navigate a grid system that was totally devoid of street signs resulting in a half hour of aimless wandering in the wrong direction in 32 degree heat!!]
At roughly 14 million population, that's a little too big of a city to be wandering aimlessly!!!
This will be my third visit to the city ( In actual fact 4th, since I was there twice during one trip to turkey!) Hopefully the gunboats won't be in the harbour and the riot police wont need to be on duty like last time.
Seems like every place I go I run into some form of tension. Last year it was teacher strikes in Peru and riot police locking down town squares and main protest routes.. The year before I was bumping into riot police in full gear while mobs were assembling in downtown Athens.
Hopefully this time, the only protests I will get is a little bit of resistance from a cork coming out of a wine bottle.
A two day sampler of Istanbul will be followed by a quick flight to Antalya on the Mediterranean coast where the plan is to spend a week exploring ancient Roman sites- kind of ironic after flying through Rome and being unable to see any there.
Perge and Aspendos are top of my agenda- an ancient city and a fully functional Roman Amphitheater. The top site in Turkey is actually the ancient city of Ephesus but having been there twice I will be giving it a pass. A 2 or 3 day trip into eastern Turkey is another possibility but may be impacted by the refugee crisis boiling over from Syria. But if I can, I will. Even Antalya itself is loaded with various antiquities and could keep me busy on its own for several days. Apparently the beaches provide a little alternative sight seeing so I am packing my 45 SPF tongue screen!
If all goes well and I have the time, I will be posting updates and hopefully photos of my travels. Hopefully my experiences will not parallel the experiences of Dr H Mubarak, a london MD currently arrested and detained in Egypt fir being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Cheers
David D
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