It appears all Asia-bound flights leave LAX in the late evenings, which would explain the larger crowd compared to when we flew out to Turkey 3 months ago. Yes, this is a “larger” crowd, which pales in comparison to the pre-Thanksgiving domestic crowd. The key to pandemic traveling is to know when the peak days … Continue reading Pandemic Travel – Asian Edition
Well, that sure didn’t take long. I didn’t expect that I would be hopping on a plane 2 weeks after arriving back to the States from our 2-month Turkey trip. The original thought was to fly to Taiwan sometime in January or February of next year. However, the trip serendipitously came together within 24 hours … Continue reading Going To Taiwan
It is nice to be home after 2 months on the road. The weather is a warm 78 degrees with not a cloud in the sky, versus the high 50s we left behind. The 13-hour flight back was manageable and passed surprisingly easily when occupied by 7 movies back to back. I don’t normally watch … Continue reading Home Sweet Home
Last night was one of the best sleep I’ve had in a very long time since arriving in Turkey. The muezzin did wake me up, but I was able to fall right back to sleep. As much as we gripe about the daily 6AM wake up call, Joe and I both agree that it is … Continue reading My Favorite Turkish Food
Our second to last day in Turkey. It’s been an incredible trip, but also a long two months. Don’t let anyone tell you that traveling is easy. Other than holing up in a resort for a week, traveling is work. All the planning, logistics, and navigating take time and energy. We had initially planned to … Continue reading Back In Istanbul
When traveling it is always best to learn to expect the unexpected. The best laid out travel plans can sometimes be derailed, and spontaneity may land you with a serendipitous find. Trabzon isn’t your typical Turkish holiday destination. Most people stick to Istanbul, Cappadocia, Pamukkale, and the Western coast. Very few venture into the Black … Continue reading The Unexpected
Another whole day of traveling. Normally this wouldn’t be wise use of time but, when retired, we’ve got nothing but time. Too be honest, I like being in airports. Of course, lounge access improves the airport experience tremendously. Malta traffic at 7:30AM! Unlike Turkey’s lounges, Malta’s lounge requires 24hr advanced reservation in order for them … Continue reading Travel Day – Malta to Trabzon
Today’s our last full day in Malta, and sad to say that I am so looking forward to going back to Turkey tomorrow. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Malta, but when we’ve seen all the spectacular sights in Turkey, Malta is, uh, slightly underwhelming. If we could re-do our trip, we would have traveled … Continue reading Last Day In Malta
Malta is an archipelago of 3 islands - Malta, Gozo, and Comino. To get from Malta to Gozo, one can take the 20-minute car ferry (from Cirkewwa ferry terminal) that runs every 30-45 minutes throughout the day. Joe and I have actually never taken a car onto a ferry, so it was pretty exciting for … Continue reading Gozo
We checked out of the Airbnb to go pick up our rental car in St. Julian. Going to St. Julian from Valletta was the easy part - hop on the Valletta-Sliema ferry that runs every 30 minutes. Like their buses, they don’t run on schedule either. Leaving Valletta behind It only took 3 minutes to … Continue reading Driving On The Left
To learn about the history of Valletta, it is impossible not to learn about the Knights of St. John (St. John the Baptist being their patron) who first started out as hospitallers in Jerusalem to care for the sick, poor, and injured pilgrims. However, they slowly became a Catholic militarized force as they came under … Continue reading Valletta
Today was a whole day of travel. Left our Airbnb in Antalya at 10:30AM, flew in to Istanbul at 2:30PM for our connection to Malta, and landed in Malta at 6:30PM. Antalya domestic terminal lounge Istanbul international terminal - life goes on. Istanbul international terminal lounge is probably the biggest we’ve been to. Although it’s … Continue reading Travel Day – A Day Spent in Airports
Ephesus is probably the most well known and intact ruin in all of Turkey. Aside from that, none of the other ruins in this country have garnered much attention from tourists. To be quite honest, we didn’t know much about the ruins in Anatolia until we reached Fethiye a couple weeks ago. As we were … Continue reading Sagalassos – A Hidden Gem
Today was purposely scheduled to be a light day because Joe needed to keep an eye on the post election market. It actually ended up working well, as I was tired from yesterday’s excursion up to the mountains. We made the short trek to Antalya Museum, which contains most of the finds from excavations around … Continue reading Antalya Museum
We’ve been on a roll with respect to traveling to sites via public transportation. Today we took the tram to the Antalya bus terminal to catch the dolmuş to Korkuteli. There are two separate terminals, one is the ilçeler (counties) terminal and the other is the sehirlerarasi (intercities) terminal. Korkuteli bus is at the counties … Continue reading Termessos – Eagle’s Nest
Today’s trip to Aspendos was slightly more involved than yesterday’s trip to Perge. After getting off the tram at Aksu station, we had to catch the bus to Serik. This bus has a more provincial feel - check out the fringes dangling from the roof, and all the little evil eyes hanging off the window. … Continue reading Aspendos
Antalya has a number of Pamphylian (Pamphylia is the ancient geopolitical region encompassing modern day Antalya) Greco-Roman ruins in the area. Perge is one of these ancient ruins, which has been extensively excavated since 1946 (still ongoing) giving visitors a chance to visualize what the ancient city looked like back then. While we were in … Continue reading Perge
Traveling within Turkey is actually quite easy. There are buses and dolmuşes (minibuses) that’ll bring you anywhere you need to go. So instead of keeping the rental car, we took the 3 1/2 hour mid sized bus to Antalya for $5 each. First, we needed to catch the city dolmuş to get from our Airbnb … Continue reading Travel Day – Fethiye to Antalya
The rain finally stopped late this morning, so we decided to go for a walk around lunchtime. We remembered that today’s the Friday food market, where all the villagers bring in all their produce into town to sell, so we set off for the market. The market is huge! They have all sorts of produce … Continue reading Local Market
Thanks to the rain, we’re stuck in the apartment for the next 2 days, which is a welcome change. A chance to rest and do nothing but to catch up on the news. If only California could get some of the rain Fethiye is getting right now, the wild fires would be put out in … Continue reading Gold & COVID
