What is it about me and museums??

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Hello!

Selcuk is just south of Izmir about 60 km

We had dinner last night on the top floor of Hotel Bella, and it was wonderful! 

Because it was raining a bit (or at least dripping) we had to eat with the curtain sides down, which obscured the view somewhat. 

Two eggplant dishes and green beans

But the usual nest of storks was doing well – but it is getting difficult to actually tell which are the adult storks and which are the “babies!”  They’ll be flying on their own very, very soon! 

Cheese stuffed mushrooms

The Hotel Bella (sister to our Hotel Nilya) does either an a la carte menu, or a set menu for 25 TL (about $12 or $13).  The set menu includes soup, last night a delicious artichoke soup, two starters of our choosing apiece, one main course with rice and veggies, and dessert!  A really terrific deal, especially as it was 25 TL two years ago when we were here!  This time, Robert chose the aubergine salad and the cheese stuffed mushrooms, and I picked the roast aubergine and a green bean salad.  We shared them all, and each one was better than the next!  For main courses, I took the spicy ground beef kabob and R took the chicken kabob.  Both were excellent.  All washed down with an excellent local white wine.  Finally, we had something that they called “cheesecake” but was actually some baklava with chocolate and vanilla ice cream. 

A lovely ending to a truly wonderful day!  Back and in bed by 10-ish.

And they called this "cheesecake?"

Up this morning at the usual time, and down for breakfast a bit before 8 a.m.  The Hotel does a wonderful breakfast – a set of plates and dishes as opposed to a buffet, but they also do REAL scrambled eggs – I added some feta cheese to them, and they were wonderful!  Then, out to the car and our journey into Izmir (over 2,500,000 people!) to their archeological museum, which is listed in our Hittite book as having some remains to see.  

We took the highway as opposed to the toll way, and got into Izmir about 10 o’clock. 

Interesting stelle in the museum garden

We were able to find the archeological museum – even though it was between two switchback turns on the road down to the harbor!  We were able to actually find a parking structure to leave the car, and headed up the hill to the museum.  Well, the museum has three floors – and guess which floor was now CLOSED for some unknown reason?!  You’re RIGHT!!  The floor that we had come to see!!  Really can’t believe this has happened again, but Robert just laughs.  Guess that’s about all that one can do!

From the Roman collection

From a chalcolithic local site

Interesting chalcolithic cult vessel

From the museum, we set out to see if we could find an English-language book store for something new to read on the flight home. 

I do like some of these cult vessels!

We actually found three bookstores, but their selection of English language books is TERRIBLE; not worth buying, actually!  However, one of the bookstores backed on one of the roads that runs by the harbor and had several restaurants, so we stayed for lunch.

Lovely vessel in the shape of a shell!

We both had BIG salads!  R’s had lettuce, onion, tomato and cheese.  Mine had rocket lettuce, tomato and cheese – and was great!  We also had cigar borek, which are the rolled filo dough stuffed with feta cheese.  Very good!  Then back to rescue the car and head back to Selcuk.  This time we took the toll way, and were back here about 3 p.m.  Very happy to have seen Izmir, but feel that now we’ll never need to head there again!  I’m considering the Selcuk Archeological museum either late this afternoon (like Ephesus yesterday) or first thing tomorrow morning before we leave.

Our original plan had been to have us stay 3 nights in Selcuk, and then do one really long 9+ hour day back to Istanbul on Friday.  However, I’d rather tackle Istanbul earlier in the day, so we are moving tomorrow to Bursa, where we’ll overnight and then head to Istanbul; it’s only about 3 hours from Bursa. 

More later!

m

xxx

PS.  Okay, now it’s really getting ridiculous!  I got Robert to walk down the hill to the Selcuk Museum … only to find that – yet again, it is CLOSED for renovations.  We drowned our sorrows in fresh glasses of orange juice, and headed back to the hotel!

m

xxx