June 11, 2011. Update:

We last left off with Lazy Bones having just been loaded onboard the cargo ship Beluga Shanghai in Singapore, bound for Lavrio, .

With Lazy Bones on her way, we rushed to the airport for our 12 hour flight to , Turkey, arriving at 6:30am. After a long drive from the airport, we arrived at our hotel, too early for check-in, so we wandered around Istanbul, got new sim cards for our phone, and had lunch--, of course! If Turkey has a signature dish, it has to be the , which is basically any meat on a skewer cooked over coals. Everywhere you go, the main meal choices are kebabs, and each place claims to have the best. One restaurant said they had chicken kebabs, lamb kebabs, beef kebabs, even kebab kebabs! They also insist that you try some of their (appetizers), like , bell peppers, tomatoes, and (rice in vine leaves), all cooked in plenty of olive oil and usually served cold, along with , and a -style puffy bread. A Greek-style salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, , and olives is also a standard accompaniment.

Istanbul is certainly an exotic city, packed tightly with people, shops, apartments, hotels, and mosques. Our small hotel was in the Sultanahmet district, the heart of Old Istanbul with all the famous sites only a fifteen minute walk away. Street vendors were everywhere, selling roasted corn and , and (sesame-coated bread rings). The cobbled streets leading back to our hotel twisted and turned so much that we got lost almost every day returning from a day’s outing.

Of course, Turkey is famous for its carpets, and everyone is a carpet salesman, or at least it seems that way. They are planted near all the major sites, and they all begin with a friendly smile, offering to help you with directions, letting you know they have a cousin living from wherever you are from, or saying it is not a good time to visit the mosque as it is closing soon (not always true). After a friendly chat, you are being led to their shop of a thousand carpets and offered wine, tea, and candy. We learned to avoid conversations, unfortunately, because 95% of them led to a carpet shop!

After a traditional Turkish breakfast at our hotel, consisting of bread, salty white cheese (which we loved), olives, tomatoes, cucumbers, plain , and ham, we walked to the Blue Mosque. Constructed in 1609 by Sultan Ahmet, it has six minarets and tens of thousands of blue tiles inside that give the huge mosque its name. The domed ceiling is magnificent, as well as the 260 beautiful stained glass windows.

From the mosque we visited the Basilica Cistern, a massive underground complex built to store water (80,000 cubic meters) for the Great Palace and surrounding buildings. Its roof is supported by 336 huge columns, some of which have carvings of Medusa upside down. Fish swim in the clear water under the dim colored lights. It is a cool, dark, quiet, and peaceful escape from the world outside.

Wanting some exercise, we headed off to have lunch at the Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn seaway, which separates Old Istanbul at the Eminonu shoreline and modern Istanbul across the bridge at Beyoglu.

On our way we got lost in the Grand Bazaar. The largest covered market in the world, it has over 4,000 shops along sixty streets that wind around like a labyrinth. It is impossible to retrace your steps! Hundreds of shopkeepers try to lure you into their stalls to buy anything and everything--Turkish arts and crafts, rugs, antiques, jewelry, linens, clothes, leather items, etc. Everyone bargains, so it is quite a lively and chaotic place to visit.

We finally made it out of the bazaar and found our bearings. Once we found Eminonu, we had lunch at one of the many fish restaurants under the bridge and watched the constant stream of ferry boats moving up and down the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus.

After lunch we hopped on one of the ferries touring the Bosphorus Strait, which divides Europe from Asia, so the west bank is European Turkey and the east bank is Asian Turkey. They call it the “two continent cruise”.

On our way back to the hotel we ran into the Spice Bazaar, another huge covered market worth wandering through. There are huge mounds of spices, nuts, honey, dried fruit, olives, and Turkish delight, a very sweet jelly-like candy with different flavors and nuts, stacked in pyramids. We also saw all kinds of cheeses at very inexpensive prices. They even touted herbal love potions and natural Turkish Viagra!

The next day we took in the beauty and grandeur of the Topkapi Palace, which takes almost half a day to see. Mehmet the Conqueror started work on it in 1453, and it grew and changed with the centuries and the sultans who lived there. The Harem is one of the most popular sights, where the sultan had his “family” of up to 300 girls (Murat III had 112 children!). Rooms exhibit fine collections of Ottoman treasures, jewelry, porcelains, weapons, etc. With little signage and no map, it is easy to get lost trying to find your way around the expansive Palace and courtyards. Those sultans really had it made!

Istanbul’s most famous monument is the Aya Sofya (St. Sophia), the largest cathedral in the world. Completed in 537 by the Roman Empire, converted into a mosque in 1453, and proclaimed a museum in 1935 by Ataturk, the president, it is famous for its interior with its magnificent domed ceiling and beautiful mosaics.

We took a tram and then a funicular train to visit Taksim Square in Beyoglu, the modern side of Istanbul. We found a Mexican restaurant for lunch, a very much-appreciated break from kebabs. We strolled down a street lined with name-brand stores, galleries, and upscale restaurants and bars, stopping at a hotel near the Galata Tower to have our first glass of raki (aniseed-flavored spirits) at their rooftop bar while enjoying the view of Istanbul with the seven magnificent mosques built on the city’s seven hills.

After four action-packed days of seeing Istanbul, we flew to Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, and rented a car at the airport. We were glad to have our GPS, but it was no match for the one-way twisting narrow streets in the cities of Turkey, built originally for horse-and-buggy traffic. We actually had to pull our side-view mirrors in to navigate some of the streets lined with parked cars! Our goal was to visit the coastline, the ruins, and the marinas along the way so we could figure out our plans for cruising and where to leave Lazy

Bones for the winter. We drove along the coastline as much as possible to enjoy the views of the beautiful blue sea, the boxy white houses stacked on the hills and cliffs overlooking it, and the patches of brilliant red poppies alongside the roads.

We drove to the Cesme Peninsula and looked at a few marinas ($3000/month). We had lunch at one of the fish restaurants on the waterfront esplanade. Fish is comparatively expensive in Turkey, and usually means a very small (eight to ten inches) whole fish with skin and bones. One restaurant offered to filet a sea bass about fifteen inches long for $150 Turkish lira (about $100 US)! We had lunch for a lot less, then headed to our hotel in Izmir. We got lost, and a friendly Turk offered to help us by asking us to follow him. Unfortunately, he had the wrong hotel in mind so we had to start all over again and eventually we found ours. The small hotels are not easy to find, as they are usually on narrow, one-way backstreets with tiny signs.

We left Izmir the next morning for the ancient city of Ephesus, the grand- daddy of the ruins. Built in 300 BC, it is one of the Mediterranean’s best-preserved classical cities. It is the place to get a feel for what life was like in Roman times. It can get very crowded with busloads of tourists pouring in, but it makes it easy to visualize it as a busy trading and cultural center with an estimated population of 200,000. The Great Theater, holding 25,000 people, is still intact and is occasionally used for performances today. The library, terraced houses, and marble streets are also quite impressive. There are no restrictions to where you can walk or climb, we guess because marble is so durable. Ephesus was truly a highlight of Turkey and one of our favorite ruins.

We had lunch in Selcuk, surrounded by sections of ruins here and there throughout the town, then we drove to Kusadasi to look at more marinas. Kusadasi is definitely geared for tourism, with package hotels, tons of restaurants and bars, disco clubs, and an artificial beach lined with umbrellas and lounge chairs.

From Kusadasi, we visited three ruin sites much less frequently visited than Ephesus, but still important and impressive. Priene (Temple of Athena), with five columns standing and hundreds of other sections of columns lying around like giant stone wheels, was built in 300 BC. Miletus, with its Great Theater holding 15,000 people and covered walkways around each tier of seating, is a reminder of a once-grand city built in 700 BC. Didim is home to the Temple of Apollo with 122 columns, the second-largest temple in the world.

We continued on to Bodrum, the region’s premiere party town, with its waterfront cafes and a thumping club scene at night. We visited the Castle of St. Peter, quite an impressive landmark on the south side of the bay, and walked along the waterfront. We saw vendors twirling “” ice on a big stick as if it were pizza dough This is a special type of whose texture and resistance to melting includes thickening agents , a flour made from the root of the Early Purple Orchid, and , a resin, which imparts chewiness. They say there is so much ice cream being sold that the flowers they use are being depleted.

A beautiful sight along the waterfronts in Turkey are the rows of gulets, the traditional wooden tourist yachts available for one-day tours to two- week coastal cruises, moored side by side as far as you can see. An average of 120 feet long and well- varnished, they are gorgeous to behold, but we are told they are made of pine. We are also told they will become our headache when we start cruising the coast of Turkey, clogging the anchorages and becoming our closest neighbors, with little regard for rules or courtesies.

Marmaris was our next destination, where we originally wanted Lazy Bones to be delivered. It is a stunning natural harbor with an attractive waterfront lined with outdoor restaurants. We visited the huge and upscale Netsel Marina, with 1,200 boats. then drove to Marmaris Yacht Marina about seven kilometers from Marmaris. We met with the marina office and confirmed our berth for the winter. They have about 650 boats in the water and 1,000 on the hard. We have to give them an exact splash date, which is written on the rudder, because the boats are stacked five to six deep and if we were to try and splash before our date, many boats would have to be moved, all at our expense!

We met our British cruising friends Jackie and Brian on Songster for dinner at the marina. They had their boat shipped to Turkey from the Maldives. It was great seeing them again after our last get-together in Thailand. We hope to catch up with them again in a few months.

Our hotel had beds made of rocks, so we walked down the street and booked ourselves into Club Aida, a mini club med which we used as a base for several days. The suites were large, the food was good, and the price was right. We drove to Bozburun on the Datca Peninsula, which was very pretty with its pine-clad coastline, secluded coves, and quaint fishing villages. We also drove to Fethiye, a broad bay scattered with pretty islands, to see their marinas. After seeing all the marinas along the coast as far as Fethiye, we are very happy to be keeping Lazy Bones in Marmaris for the winter. It is well-protected and reasonably priced.

Our last night at Club Aida was Turkish night, with a big barbeque and ladies making fresh pita bread. The food was great, the entertainment was what you would expect, complete with belly dancing and a whirling dervish performance, and a great way to end our mainland visit to Turkey.

When we return to Turkey next year, we will visit Cappadocia, where they have the phenomenal fairy chimneys, underground cities, and beautiful balloon rides over it all.

On May 14, we took the ferry from Marmaris to Rhodes, had lunch, and caught a flight to Athens to start our Greek land adventure while waiting for Lazy Bones to arrive, which she did on May 29th. We will cruise in Greece for several months, then Turkey for several months, ending up by mid-October in Marmaris for the winter for Lazy Bones while we fly home to L.A. Our next update will highlight mainland Greece.

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All the best, Jeff and Gayle SV Lazy Bones