Wait wait wait

Aircraft arriving Istanbul hit some birds so could not fly again. New plane flown in for us. Departed 24 hours late. Comfortable hotel in Istanbul. Mixed with the Turkish jet set around the swimming pool. Onward arrangements put us 24 hours late arriving Christchurch. So should be home mid afternoon Tuesday. Xxxy

The adventure continues

Our onward flight was cancelled at 9pm last night so we were forced to spend the night at the luxurious Renaissance Hotel, then spend the morning lounging beside the pool. All very trying.
But back at the airport we queued for hours to get our new tickets.  In the Emirates lounge now having a cuppa.  Hopefully the rest of the journey will be trouble free.

Hurray, clever old me! I have turned off the predictive text correction which translates any mis-spelt words into whatever it feels like.

Istanbul coda et fine

Arrived airport. Taxi was early so a hurried departure from hotel. Now waiting for boarding. Looking forward to seeing you all. Xxx

Istanbul reprise

Wow we had a lie in this morning as Bursa is not far from Istanbul (6:30am). Visited leather factory and resisted the urge to buy. Then across a ferry over a corner of the Sea of Mararma and into the big smoke. To the grand bazzar later then a farewell dinner. Tomorrow on our own in the morning and in the afternoon we start the long journey home - forgotten what it looks like.

Hazelnuts for sale to tourists. Works out around NZ $70 per kg!

Bosphorus from the bridge

Cunningly hidden in this picture there are about 20 million satellite dishes. See how many you can count.

Pamukkale and Hieropolis - WOW!

Location, location -that was definitely foremost in the Romans' minds when they built the city of Hieropolis above the beautiful cascading white terraces of Pamukkale.  They are not only stunning but cover a huge area, and as an added bonus flow over with warm mineral water. The ruins of Hieropolis are impressive too and it was obviously a large weallthy city in its time. A very long drive today to Bursa where we visited a mosque. Very lovely, and in daily use. Then on to the hotel. Nice room with a courtyard below  in which is set up lots of tables covered in white, plus a stage with loud speakers. It is apparently a henna party which will stop at midnight but until then it could be noisy. Not really what we wanted.

Colossal cave

You are in a maze of twisty little passages all alike. Or thats what it feels like. This hotel is huge. Way out on the back blocks where there are thermal pools similar to the pink and white terraces.

The place is called Pamukkale. 

But before we got here we visited ruins of Ephesus. Spectacular. And a traditional carpet weaving demo.

Hot as hell Troy and Pergamon

A blistering 44 degrees today phew! We are all fried to a crisp. First stop was Troy and very interesting. Tour guide has lots of knowledge on it and not too hot there. Lunch was "different" - we went to a village and were taken in small groups to various houses where we were given local food. Lovely hostesses but the food was dripping in oil, plus some of their home made wine, not what we are used to though. Then a long drive to Pergamon which we was really good but in 44 degrees heat we were all sagging a bit. Forecast is for 32 in the shade tomorrow so a wee bit cooler than today. The hotel we are in is very poor compared with yesterday's which had amazing service and food. This one has no service at all and most of us ended up bringing up our own bags and the set menu was set to a choice of one thing. And it is purportedly 5 star. Ephesus tomorrow and looking forward to that.

                             Troy

Our hostesses

 
                               Pergamon