A day and a half’s travel to Ankara from Istanbul and on into Cappadocia is enough to make you realise that Turkey’s public transport infrastructure is greatly superior to that of much of Australia, despite Turkey being a relatively poorer country. We left the Hotel Ersu and walked to a conveniently close fast tram stop. Cost for any length of trip: a flat YTL1.40, roughly 1 Aussie dollar.
Continue reading ‘22 hours in Ankara’
Monthly Archive for April, 2009
link to Hydra is impossibly beautiful album
Hydra has historically been a fishing and maritime island port, and was an important naval base for the Greeks during the Revolution after 1821. Today it is a holiday getaway for wealthy Athenian Continue reading ‘Hydra is impossibly beautiful’
The Grand Prix Maria Callas 2009: Koreans show the world how it’s done! Grand Prix Maria Callas
We attended several sessions of this big international singing competition, held in Athens every two years: one Heat was at the Athenaeum, just below the Acropolis in the Plaka, on Tuesday March 10. Continue reading ‘AN INTERNATIONAL SINGING COMPETITION IN GREECE’
Mount Olympus
link to Enipeas Gorge walk album on Facebook
Litohoro is a little town underneath Mt Olympos,
Mt Olympos from our terrace
frequented by walkers, climbers and some wealthy people who do neither. We were very comfortable in the Pension Papanikolau, run by Martina who came here 20 years ago from Germany on a holiday, and married a local. It’s the kind of place you never want to leave, but we had to journey on to Istanbul via Thessaloniki. Continue reading ‘Mount Olympus’
In front of the Blue Mosque
Since arriving from Thessaloniki on the Monday night train, we have been very busy, working hard at sightseeing etc, Friday we went ferrying up and down the Bosphorus, and climbed an ancient Byzantine (Genovese, they were allied against the Venetians) fortress. Saturday (today) we are rushing out to the Topkapi Palace. Why? because we are leaving on Monday for 3 weeks in the wilds of Anatolia, leavened by a few days on a gulet. This is our own homemade “Turkey encompassed” with a little help from our friends at Kirkit travel, a company run by a very nice friend of Kim Sanders. Continue reading ‘In Istanbul’
The totally unique and overpowering White Desert was a highlight of our 5 day safari in Egypt’s Western Desert. White desert album
Wind-sculpted from rock
At Khan il Khalili market
The situation of women in Egypt is every bit under the thumb as I expected and could get worse – more and more seem to be in full hijab which is very weird. Continue reading ‘Under the veil’
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