Down the road

I had wanted to see the turquoise coast of Turkey for many years, even before our last trip over ten years ago. It is famed for thescenery and  beautiful blue waters ( hence the name) and Jim and I have looked into taking one of the " blue cruises" on sailboats along the very coast we were driving on. 

Of course driving gives one a very different viewpoint than you would get from the water,  but we could also cover a lot more ground in a week with our car. Plus, it is fun to have your own set of wheels and go wherever you want! 

I have included a map of the area, so you know where we are.

What I didn't realize was how many fabulous ruins lay along this coastline, tucked back, often on very small roads away from the main highway. Each of the yellow places on the map were once ancient cities.

Phaselis was our first such site-the perfect combination of being cool, and close to the highway! 

Eventually we figured out that these sites were denoted by a brown highway sign. But that took us a while...and most sites had a gate where they charged an admission fee that varied from site to site.

We were excited to find a small city set amid pines between two peaceful harbors. I could have stayed there for a week.

I find it thrilling to be able to walk along these roads and see the remains of shops, baths and market places and try to imagine it as it once was, humming with day to day life.

And I marvel at these intricately carved stones that must have been so beautiful when they were new, but have a real charm still with the patina of age. We still see the egg and dart pattern used, I fact it is a motif in my hotel room in modern day Istanbul. 

The harbor...but we can't linger too long. We have so much more to see! We had to bypass Olimpos and Chimera, unfortunately, as the hours were getting short and we needed to find a stopping place for the night. 

As we came down the steep hill into Kumluca, we saw miles of plastic greenhouses on the valley floor and soon realized that all those tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and eggplant served throughout  Turkey  were grown right there, in the vegetable basket of Kumluca.

We made a decision to stop and try to book a hotel, and found several nice loking places, but they were 23 kilometers back in the direction we had come from, but on a different road. The view from the rooms was so enticing that we made a reservation, then tried to use our gps to find it. After a while, the directions sort of petered out, though, and we were on our own. So that meant asking directions from the locals. Easier said than done in a very small, rural setting. Oh, we asked directions all right, from everyone to the police( jandarma), local farmers and shopkeepers, and everyone gave us directions- in Turkish, of course. After being sent one way then another and driving in a complete circle for an hour, we were about ready to give up when we finally asked a young woman and she gave us such confident directions that we eventually found the right road! Whew. We arrived just in time to enjoy sunset from the terrace.

That building in the foreground was where we ate a simple dinner of sea bream that night as the stars came out.

These are our Turkish slippers provided for us by our hostess . Everyone wears them! 

We ate breakfast on the patio outside, as we inhaled the sweet scent of orange blossoms. Most of the products were from her own garden. Olives from her trees, honey from the bees and orange marmalade made by hand. She was very proud of it all. 

This was her mother, dressed in the traditional style that nearly all of the older women dressed like, and you could find these very wide pants for sale in the market. I did not buy any no matter how comfortable they looked. They would definitely not play well in Portland.

I saw these strings of orange peels in the market too, and wasn't sure what they were used for, then realized later that they were for making the syrupy orange preserves. 

We were happy we found the place and happy to be getting on the road again. An hour down the road, however, we got a call from her telling us we left a charger behind... Not goin back.