And so a relaxing day!

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Hello!

Let’s see…I need to catch up on dinner last night.  Robert had decided that, as we were now next to the Mediterranean, he wanted to have FISH for dinner.  We asked for a recommendation, and were told about the Marin restaurant, which was – surprise! – down by the beach, not very far away.  We walked over there about 7 and got an inside table.  The place seems to cater to Germans, and they had menus in Turkish, English and German, which was nice.  (The fact that they even HAD menus was also good to know!)  Our only problem was that the front of the restaurant was open to the outside, and of course, one of the tables was half-inside half-outside – meaning that, of course, one of the folks could smoke!  UGH!  However, it wasn’t too bad as there was a nice breeze blowing away from us.

We both ordered salads to start – tomato, cucumber, onion and greens in a nice vinaigrette. 

Our starter salad

Robert's bass ... all of it!

My main course was spaghetti Bolognaise, and it was delicious!  Robert ordered sea bass – and of course got the entire fish all to himself!  One really nice thing was that they lightly toasted the bread for the table, and it came with BUTTER with sage in it!  YUM!  I have to admit, I really do miss butter with bread!  For dessert, we were served a very nice fruit plate, which included apricots (VERY popular in Turkey!) with a chocolate sauce … YUM again! 

My spaghetti -- favorite comfort food!

Fruit plate with chocolate sauce

Got back to the hotel about 9 and went right to sleep.  Up again around 6 a.m.

While the weather forecast had predicted possible rain, we awoke to another blue sky and sunshiny day; just beautiful!  I had a real problem finding hot water for my shower, so had a repeat performance of Bogazkale with lukewarm water…not my favorite way to shower, that’s for sure, but as long as I came out cleaner than I went in, I suppose it was a success.  We went down to breakfast at 8, taking the computer with us, as the signal strength in the room is very low.  (Although to be honest, I had no problem last night posting the blog at all!)  As we are outside the tourist season (which I believe here is June to August) we were given plates of food rather than the usual buffet – cucumber, tomato, olives, bread as well as offered eggs, which we declined.  

Then, about 9, we headed out for our one and only sight for the day – Diocaesarea, about an hour’s drive away, up in the hills behind Silifke, a town about 20 km up the coast.  The town had actually started life as a Hittite city, but there were no remains still existing.  Rather, the current village of Uzancaburc is built on and around the Roman remains.  

Ruins alongside the road!

Part of a well-preserved necropolis

The last time we were here, we saw a great many Roman remains, and enjoyed them very much.  Then I discovered the Hittites, and decided that the Roman stuff was just WAY too modern for me.  However, I decided to stop being a “ruin snob” and enjoy what the area had to show us.  In this case, along the road to Diocaesarea, it was very similar to the Via Appia Antika (Appian Way) in Rome, with even some old cobbled roads.  Under Roman law, bodies had to be buried outside the city limits, and in this case, there were tombs and necropoli (Latin plural of necropolis?) along the road side as we drove toward the city.  Some of the ruins are in excellent shape – and we very much enjoyed exploring some of them.

Part of a cobbled road

Interesting sarcophagus

Then, we hit the town itself.  Wow!  I had no idea that it was so incredibly well preserved! 

Stunning pine forest!

Amphitheatre

The huge temple of Zeus had most of its original columns still standing upright! It was built at the beginning of the 3^rd century BC by Seleucus I, and is the oldest known temple in the Corinthian order in Asia Minor!  And the western gateway was beautiful!  There was actually a small group of British tourists that were there as well – all with very professional looking cameras, long lenses and even one person carrying around a tripod!  We stopped first at the amphitheatre, sited beautifully on the edge of a hill, and then walked around the town.  Everything was labeled (Turkish/English) and it was really fun to explore!  Just an amazing place!

Roman arches

Temple of Zeus

More Temple of Zeus

By now it was about 11 so we decided to head back to Kizkalesi for lunch and naps.  It took us an hour to get back, but the drive, down yet a different side road, was really lovely.  Clouds billowing up in the distance, though; wondered if we might get some rain after all!

More Zeus!

Column detail

Sarcophagus

As we weren’t sure what we wanted for lunch, we headed back to the Marin restaurant, confident we could find something good on their menu (the English one!).  However, for lunch, they were serving outside, right next to the water, and we got a lovely table under a huge umbrella all to ourselves!  We both ordered their green salad to start – which turned out to be the usual cucumber and tomato; excellent.  Then I had something that looked like phylo wrapped around feta cheese, and then rolled up like a cigar!  It came with a yogurt dill dressing, and was wonderful!  Robert ordered a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich, and he said it was great.  Then, back to the hotel for our long-awaited naps … up again about 5 … not sure either of us will sleep tonight … not sure either of us will want dinner, either!

Temple of Tyche

Western city gate

Tomorrow we leave this lovely place and head back into the scrum that is Adana, a very major Turkish city…hopefully it will go better than Gaziantep, that’s for sure!

Today's salad

Robert's toasted cheese and tomato sandwich

My phylo pastries filled with feta!

Much love,

m

xxx