Chios Island, Greece

I really love ferries, they're not fast but they're just a delightful way to travel. You could fly to Chios and probably get there quicker but there's something about taking a boat. We spent an enjoyable hour talking and watching seagulls and looking at the passing coastline - not much distance between these islands. We arrived at the island to discover a quaint town, nestled around the small but busy harbor. We walked around from one side to the other to find out hotel, Chios Rooms. It's like a bed an breakfast without the breakfast. The owner, Don, was absolutely delightful and extremely helpful. He mapped out every place we wanted to visit on the island, recommended the best restaurants, where to rent a car and generally provided us with everything we needed. The rooms are in an old renovated house with a great view of that same small harbor. There's a corniche to walk around along the harbor while across the narrow street there are lines of stores and restaurants and bars with a fierce nightlife (it was spring break and there's a college in town). They definitely kept late hours.
The kitchen area in the place also served as the meeting area where everyone came to talk, drink tea, coffee or wine and swap stories and travel destinations.

Chios Island, Greece

Beautiful blue skies, lots of green trees, light breezes, and ume blossoms. No, it doesn't qualify as Sakura blossoms but plum blossoms are pretty close. The streets were filled with lots of beautiful trees...

We headed off in the morning towards the coastal city of Cesme. From here we would be taking a ferry out to the Greek island of Chios. While there's a long history of fighting and atrocities between the Greeks and Turks, for the most part they get along these days - for the most part. Depends, of course, who is telling the story. For our part, we found all of them to be totally wonderful and helpful.

Getting out to our ferry was a trip in itself. You know, I waxed eloquently about the bus system here but, to be fair, the city is large and buses aren't fast....and fortunately we left an hour earlier than we thought we needed to....and it turns out that was a very good idea. The bus ride from Patrick's place to the Cesme bus took almost an hour, followed by another hour from there to Cesme (sounds like a long time but then again, it took an hour to drive the 40 minute bus route back home - and I technically wasn't stopping on every street corner - just lost a lot). We finally did succeed in getting our tickets, and making it to the ferry terminal. Then the question came up...which ferry??? Thanks again to Patrick's skills, we discovered that we had to weave through about 30 trucks to get to the far side where our ferry lay waiting for us. Ah well...old but dependable. 

As we left we had a good view of Cesme Castle, an Ottoman castle built in the 1500's.

Maps

At the museums, we also found an absolutely stunning map on the wall. It was totally made out of a clay type of material with gorgeous embosses identifying significant, historical, locations across Turkey. The work was spectacular. Patrick is planning on stitching a picture together to show the whole thing...when he does I'll post the link. For the time being, I will just post a couple of representative pictures, one showing Chios, the Greek isle we will be sailing to next, and one of Smyrna, Izmir today. 

Camel Wrestling

We headed off into the hills around the downtown area to peruse the Archaeology and Ethnography museums, conveniently located next to each other. There you could see some beautiful jewelry and sculptures throughout the history of Turkey, included when they were ruled by both the Greeks and the Romans. The Ethnography museum had a lot of artifacts that included local arts and crafts and shared more of the customs of the Turkish people, though, admittedly, they were influenced by the various groups of people who ruled the area over time. One thing has lived on and is practiced even today - camel wrestling.
I have to admit, when I saw that, along with the picture of the two camels going at it, I pictured something akin to a bloody bullfight or cockfight - and I really wasn't too interested in it. However, I did look it up and discovered it wasn't at all what it looked like. So...here goes. 

It starts out with men walking through various villages with their huge male camels, complete with elaborate saddles, more or less bragging that their camel can beat up your camel any day. Well, of course, there's always some other camel owner who disagrees, so a match is planned, along with lots of publicity so that people who want to can come see big huge camels grunt and groan while they wrestle each other to the ground. (I won't mention that there's also lots of betting on these wrestling matches.)
Now...the camels have to be enticed to fight each other. Turns out that in nature, it's common for camels to head butt each other and push one another around to be head honcho of the pack and to, of course, have exclusive mating rights. Knowing that, the camel owners parade a cute young cow in front of the two males to get them all excited. You can tell when they're excited because white foam and saliva starts coming out of their nostrils and mouth (hmmm...saw lots of that when they were running too....naah). They then proceed to push and shove each other around. Sometimes they'll even get a leg around their opponents leg and then use their weight to topple them over. They keep this up until one of them finally turns and runs away. This is where the excitement starts...usually the bull turns and runs...right toward the crowd. The crowd, realizing that this one ton camel is heading right towards them, with a second one in pursuit, begins to scatter. The antics of the crowd trying to get out of their way is described as the most exciting part of the whole thing. 

Turkish Food and Farmer's Markets

It was absolutely wonderful to discover the huge quantity of fresh fruits and vegetable available in Turkey. The farmer's markets were wonderful AND held twice a week within walking distance of Patrick's house - heavenly. They even have some farmers producing organic produce. The markets were huge - almost twice the size of the one in Santa Barbara. You would not believe the olives that were available there. I never knew there were so many different kinds! I'm not a fan of regular black olives but I must admit I like some of the seasonings that they add to their olives.
The market was totally packed - and everybody walked to get to it. Izmir, with its well developed bus system, is a walking town. People use the bus to get everywhere, hence there are lots of walkers everywhere. Not only that, Patrick knows everyone!!! It's amazing how many times we stopped to talk to someone he knew or someone who knew someone he knew. He's been busy developing lots of connections.
We enjoyed the fruits of our journey for breakfast - the "typical" breakfast includes olives (of course), white cheese, frequently feta, fresh bread, cucumbers, tomatoes, cream curd with a tad of honey and walnuts as well as a couple of types of jams.

The biggest disconnect of the whole things are the meals in restaurants. When I saw all the fresh produce, I anticipated lots of veggie options and cooked in the homes, there are but..if you go out, at least to the little "fast food" places, that's not so. The breakfasts there have lots of sweet pastries or potato, cheese, or meat filled flaky pastries, Borek, - good but oh my goodness you can get full. Most menus are very heavy with meat - lots of lamb to be found there. There are tons of different pastry dishes, primarily stuffed with meats. There's also the traditional kebobs, that can be found everywhere. Dolmas are popular, stuffed grape leaves. Sometimes they are stuffed with rice, other times with meat. Good thing I had my tasters with me. They do have quite a few soups and lentil soup is quite popular - and generally made without meat. Thank goodness Patrick could speak Turkish to ask!! They do have quite a few great salads and they're always so tasty - the tomatoes even taste like tomatoes!
Ah...and then there are the sweets. The Turkish people love their sweets and oh lala are there ever a ton of different ones to try! Even I, with my usual quest for sweets, found it to be too much. However, they are delicious - the baklavah was absolutely melting and the halvah was addicting. I need to stay clear away from those!

Izmir Asansor

Using the GPS system (the Garmin system we brought and Patricks ipod touch map) we made our way to the Asansor. The Asansor, French for elevator, is another of Izmir's older structures. This particular elevator was built in 1907 to help the women and children (as well as, obviously, the men) to climb up to the Halil Rifat Pasa Caddesi, the mountain that overlooks the town. Originally, people had to climb 155 steps to get up there. Now at the top is a small viewing area and a restaurant and bar that affords an excellent view over Izmir and the sea. The area surrounding the elevator has also become known as Asansor, and is a lovely area of cobbled streets and old fashioned buildings, including Izmir's largest synagogue.

You can see for miles from here, though it was hard to tell which islands we were seeing in the distance. I believe it might just be a curve of the land, meaning we were still looking at the opposite side of Izmir. The land and city curls around the bay, with ferry service between all points. The final picture is of the small city street leading up to base of the Asensor. 

Izmir, Turkey

Our latest adventure has taken us to the land of Turkey. Our friend, Patrick, now lives in Izmir and invited us to visit him this spring break. He has waxed eloquently about the wonders of Turkey and the fabulous people and now we know why. It was absolutely stunning.
We started the day out with a trip to downtown, the bazaars as well as the Aegean Sea. We started off at the clock tower, located right near the bay in a downtown park that encompasses the bazaar, and the promenade along the sea. The tower was a gift to the Turkish ruler at the time (somewhere around 1900) from the German ruler. It is set in a nice park and is the local hang-out and meeting place. It's connected to a large park on one side that crosses the main road and then rambles along the water way (the Aegean Sea enters in this area into a port - even had a French Cruise ship in here). It's covered with awnings in places and you can see how the newly growing vines are being trained to cover some of the walkways - very nicely done. The other direction has a small mosque and the entrance into the bazaar.
The bazaars are extremely similar to the suqs found here in Doha. All of the small shops open out into the walkways and plaza areas, lots of eateries - most with outside seating, lots of people hawking their goods. It's amazing the things you can find. My favorite was the juice sellers - with fresh squeezed pomegranite juice for about $1.20. Amazingly delicious!

We joked around that our trip was a journey from one internet hotspot to the next. Here's one of our early discoveries...as Jeff and Patrick checked out where we were and how best to get to our next destination.