2018 Eastern Mediterranean Trip - Day 39, Still more Ruins

This is going to be the Ruin-a-thon of all trips. In part this is because the western part of Anatolia is incredibly fertile and has been a source of rich agriculture that has been a foundation of civilized wealth for the same time period. Now in all due respect as with so many thing in our travel experience life, Wife and I brought this upon ourselves. When we explored visiting the Aegean Turkish area, we saw the great number of highly rated historic sites that all came from the Greek/Roman period and made them the priority on which we searched for a guide.  We also made a decision we wanted to work from a fixed base unlike in Jordan so we would not need to pack and unpack

The consequence of that decision is we are having long days because it takes a lot of travel to get to the various places we are looking to visit. Combine that with the internet problems and I've decided to make a change in blog posting tactics. I will be posting mostly commentary until we leave Turkey which is this coming Wednesday. Then we descend like the Mongol Hordes upon the poor family of #3 in Amsterdam ravaging them of their frites and liquor. AND making use of their certainly better internet to finally get the freaking hundreds of pictures we are taking of the great ruins of Turkey. This will allow me to give the time and focus to the pictures and the descriptions that they deserve.

Today we drove a long way and saw two very different sets of sites. You will see all that in the pictures when they get up. This trip to Turkey has been very different than the trip we took three years ago when we were in Istanbul primarily because we are using a guide for the bulk of our visiting, we are in a physical location where we are quite isolated, and our days are packed with the agenda we've created. We had some times where we felt there was a lack of attentiveness to our needs by the team (hotel owner and guide) that led to a bit of discontent yesterday. But we communicated well and feel they heard us and today was much better.

I want to talk briefly about visiting Turkey for those of you who know the score of Americans who are terrified and think coming here is like coming to Syria. THAT KIND OF THINKING IS CRAZY. Turkey has been a secular country for almost a century. The area we are in is like California. I asked about issues with Ramadan and was almost laughed at. This is a prosperous, liberal part of the country and has been a joy to visit. And it is really cool. So get off your you know what and come here.

This is an UNPAID promotion for Western Turkey Tourism. LOL

Talk to you tomorrow.