We’ve made it to the Coast!

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

Hello!

Well, we have left the pleasures and wonders of Pamukkale behind, and made our way to the coast to Marmaris.  We’ll be overnighting here and catching a ferry to Rhodes tomorrow morning.  But first, dinner last night!

Mushroom salad (with pickles!!)

R's Lamb Shish

We had decided to go for a walk before dinner and possibly check out some of the other eating options.  However, when we got downstairs, it turned out to be raining!  (Which we could certainly have noticed from our balcony, had we been paying attention!)  So, dinner at the Hal-Tur again!  This time, we both ordered mushroom salads, which were fine – even though there were also pickles diced up in there, which I don’t like.  Then, Robert had lamb shish that came with chips and rice and veggies, and I had the meatball sis, which came with the same – and was truly delicious!  I am beginning to tire of chicken, I must confess.  At any rate, back up to the room about 9, and fully expecting yet another difficult night with the nightclub/hotel next door. 

My meatballs!

 

 However…Surprise!  Not a sound, so why they would make noise on Monday night, but not on Tuesday night is anybody’s guess, but we were just thankful to get a quiet night’s sleep … until about 2:30 a.m. when I opened our window so that we could enjoy the lightning and thunder that was rolling in, along with the raindrops coming down.  So nice to fall asleep listening to rain!  

Up this morning at the usual 6 a.m. and repacked and down for breakfast at 8 a.m.  We took the suitcases out to the car first, and oh, my! Talk about a mess!  I know that the air has been very, very dusty the past few days, and the mess it made on the cars was incredible!  It must have been raining mud instead of water.  They all looked like they’d been through a sandstorm; so much for clear skies!  Paid the bill and were on our way about 8:30 a.m. and heading for Aphrodisias.

Two years ago when we were here, we very much enjoyed our visit to Aphrodisias, and as it was generally on our way to the coast, we thought we would revisit. 

Afrodisias

Loved the way they've stacked up these "faces!"

The only problem was with the wind; it was truly incredible.  The car was buffeted all over the road; not sure we have ever experienced such strong winds while driving before.  And the air was, again, full of dust.

Beautiful theatre!

Hadrian's Bath!

Wonderful frieze, rather like Elgin marbles!

Finally got to Aphrodisias, and did a quick tour of the outer grounds, and then some quality time in their wonderful museum. There have been people on the site since the Chalcolithic period, but the city itself was originally founded by the Greeks, who dedicated the city to Aphrodite.  It was later Romanized around the 0 to 100 AD period, but had great difficulty with earthquakes through the centuries.  There is evidence that the site was also the home of a very large sculpture studio and pupils wanting to learn the art came from great distances. 

Wonderful stadium

Temple, but I can't remember to whom...

The sculpture decorating some of the friezes is amazing, and everywhere you look you will see faces or sarcophagi very highly decorated.  The theatre and the stadium are still in wonderful condition, and the baths dedicated to the Emperor Hadrian are still being excavated.  The site has been the home base for NYU’s professors and students for many years, who return every summer to work.  All in all, a really lovely site – in spite of the wind!

From there we pushed on to Marmaris, where we are tonight.  After dropping everything at the hotel (very nice place; we’re in room 36 on the third floor, with small balconies on two sides.  Absolutely lovely grounds and pool area; rooms themselves are a bit old fashioned but functional) we decided to find the cruise port so we’ll know where we’re going tomorrow morning.  As it turns out, we’re only about 2 km from the cruise port, so hopefully everything will go smoothly tomorrow morning!  (I deliberately put us a bit out of town, and on the cruise port side so that we wouldn’t be fighting major traffic tomorrow morning!)  Then we drove through Marmaris on a journey of discovery … and we have discovered an INDIAN restaurant!!!  Where we will be heading soon for dinner!!  Yipee!!  Of course, our favorite Indian dish is chicken Tikka… (Marmaris also has a Coldstone Creamery…that was a big surprise!) But we are obviously back in the land of the tourists, that’s for sure!

More later!

m

xxx

Me in Taj Mahal restaurant!

Fabulous starters!

Back from a TERRIFIC dinner!!  We went to the Taj Mahal in downtown Marmaris.  The food was fabulous, but the service was truly GLACIAL!  We got there just a few minutes after their opening time of 5 p.m.  We started with vegetable pakoras and vegetable samosas – truly some of the best we have ever had, although their “hot” red sauce was truly ketchup with onions added!  Then, after waiting almost 35 minutes, the rest of our dinner finally arrived.  We shared chicken tikka and a ground beef masala with pilau rice and garlic na’an.  YUM!  Everything was wonderful!  And it made SUCH a nice change from Turkish food!  (We love Turkish food, but we’ve been eating it now for five weeks and are SO thankful for the change!!)

Then back to the hotel to overnight and get (yet again!) reorganized for the move to Rhodes, Greece in the morning!

Much love,

m

xxx