Orthodox Easter - April 18 - 21, 2009

Spring has sprung and part of that in Cyprus are the Easter celebrations. Here is the schedule for the activities in our village.

Saturday - 22:00 Bonfire
24:00 Candle lighting at Church
00:15 Fireworks

Sunday - 19:30 Traditional Games
21:00 Fireworks
21:10 Traditional Dances
22:00 Fishing apple and candy with mouth
22:30 Stone Lifting

Monday - 07:00 Church
16:00 Football - singles vs married
20:00 Kouklia Youth Club Theatrical
22:00 Kouklia Youth Club Live on Stage

Tuesday - 16:00 Hunting of Treasure
16:30 Bike Race
20:30 Bingo

So we took most of it in and

really enjoyed the opportunity to celebrate. The fireworks were first class and there were lots of laughs with friends in the village to fill the air with joy and spirit. We may have mentioned before, but Easter here is bigger than Christmas.

During the day the weather was so superb, we couldn't resist the chance to explore on the motorbike so these pictures show a bit of what is in our sites. The adventure continues...

Istanbul, Turkey - April 8th - 12th 2009

And here we are. We finally made it to Istanbul.
Thursday we took the shuttle downtown and overdid it as usual. So little time, so much to see. And line-ups! I think we quite forgot that it was Easter weekend and the tourists were out in full force (never mind that we were two of them!).
We started at the Blue Mosque - check this site out for more fantastic photos -
http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=Blue+Mosque,+Istanbul&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=V6LkSZ32OMmM_QbIm6GiCQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title
Then of course this site for all the facts and figures -http://www.sacred-destinations.com/turkey/istanbul-blue-mosque.htmOur next stop was Aya Sophia or Hagia Sophia where we also hired a guide which was well worth it. Not only did we move to the front of the line, Ibrahim also explained things that we would have just glanced over. I am sure it helped that he was a retired teacher. We really enjoyed our tour.
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/turkey/istanbul-hagia-sophia.htm
Next was the Cistern, with 336 marble columns and more as you can find out here -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_Cistern
Lunch was truly a find. We happened upon a restaurant that is apparently famous among travellers and readers of the Lonely Planet travel guide. The Pudding Shop was reknown in the 60's as a meeting and/or message point. This site explains it all -
http://www.puddingshop.com/Pudding_Shopx.html
p.s. the food was excellent and very Turkish.
The next several hours were spent at the Topkapi Palace. I have never seen so much gold and so many jewels in one place. Can you believe an 86 carat diamond? -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topkap%C4%B1_Palace
and for more photos -http://www.pbase.com/dosseman/topkapiand more to come later.
Meanwhile, we were to meet Curtis and Itir in Taksim for dinner. First they took us to the British Embassy to meet some friends for a drink, then on to the Rejans Restaurant for a lovely meal. It is a Russian restaurant hidden in one of the side streets of Taksim, that we would never have found by ourselves. It was an excellent dinner and we had such a great time catching up.

Friday we resumed our marathon. Our first stop was the Topkapi Palace, since we hadn't managed to see everything the first time. This time we managed to make it to the Harem too -
http://www.msadventuresinitaly.com/blog/2009/03/03/visit-a-harem-imperial-harem-in-topkapi-palace-istanbul-turkey/On to the Grand Bazaar. How we managed to find our way out again simply amazes me! -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Bazaar,_Istanbuland for more photos -
http://images.google.ca/images?hl=en&q=Grand+Bazaar,+Istanbul&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=t7HkSdf4OcXM-AabgcmSCQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title

On Saturday, we had a boat tour on the Bosphorus -http://www.pbase.com/andrys/bosphorus
We did well with the buses and found our way near to where Curtis and Itir live. Curtis picked us up and we went over to their place for a visit. I finally got to meet Isabel. What a cutie. She is very smart and switched between Turkish and English depending on who she was talking to. She is very active, but did manage to sit for a few minutes and colour. We also met Itir's Mom who is lovely. She helped Itir with dinner and we were treated to a traditional Turkish menu. Itir is very sweet and emailed me the names of what we had -
Starters -Cerkez Tavugu (Circassian Chicken)
Karniyarik (Eggplant Stuffed with Lamb)
Kirmali Borek (Borek with Minces Meat)
Main Course -
Hunkar Begendi (Sultan's Delight)
Desserts -
Keskul (Ottoman Style Almond Pudding)
Revani (Semolina Cake)
We were very spoiled and had a lovely evening.

Sunday morning had us up at the crack of dawn, which at least meant that we were back in Kouklia by noon, and starting back on the social treadmill by going out for lunch with friends.
A lovely way to end a very interesting albeit busy holiday.
Love,
Laurel and Dale

Izmir, Turkey - April 5th - 8th, 2009

This is a little slow in getting out, since we have had so many social engagements since we got back - Birthday Parties, Luncheons, Bridge, etc. Fun, but hectic - so much for the laid-back Mediterranean lifestyle.
I believe we left off after our last visit to Turkey with Paul and Cheryl. Well, since we still had time left on our three month visa, we decided to fit some more in. Our prime goal was to visit Dale's nephew Curtis, his wife Itir and their daughter Isabel in Istanbul. Our secondary goal was to visit Ephesus and environs, which we did on our way.We landed in Izmir and drove south to Kusadasi where we stayed at the Liman Hotel (Mr. Happy was the proprietor). We walked around town and poked our nose in at the Caravanserail, which was a fort to house the traders and their camels and livestock on the ground floor, while they carried out their trading on the second floor. It is now a hotel and the stalls are now carpet, leather, pottery, jewellery and souvenir shops. We also visited the Bazaar which was also endless streets of more shops. It is a lovely harbour town and a stopping point for cruise ships as well.
On Monday we started our sight-seeing in earnest.  Ephesus was established in the 9th century BC, and is also famous for its part in the rise of Christianity due to St. Paul visiting and speaking to the Ephesians.  It was a very large settlement, and we were glad to have taken the audio tour.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EphesusIn and around Ephesus we visited the site of the Seven Sleepers -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sleepersand the house of the Virgin Mary -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_the_Virgin_Mary  More about all the above -
http://www.allaboutturkey.com/efes.htm
Lunch was an excellent Turkish pizza in the town of Selcuk.We stopped for a quick peek at the Isa Bey Mosque, which is unusual in its asymmetry -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%B0sa_Bey_Mosque
on our way to St. John's Basilica -
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/turkey/ephesus-basilica-of-st-john.htm
Tuesday we headed out to Pamukkale which was about three hours from Kusadasi. To get there one must pass through Hieropolis which was a very large settlement and necropolis -
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/turkey/hierapolis-pamukkale.htm
Pamukkale means 'cotton castle' in Turkish, which you can see why from the photos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamukkale     

This was another phenomenal site/sight. It was certainly worth the drive and even the (very expensive) soak in the ancient pool was something that had to be done since we were there.
As you may have noticed from the photos, the weather was variable; some rain, some sun, some clouds, some wind, sometimes all the above. Thankfully by the time we got to the pools we had some sun, since the change rooms were chilly and set away from the pool. The reason it is called the ancient pool is that you are swimming and soaking among ruined columns and blocks from Hierapolis. The water was lovely and warm, but it didn't quite erase all the aches and pains of travel (especially since it is supposed to cure everything!).
Wednesday we managed one more archaeological site on the way to the airport. Priene -
http://www.sacred-destinations.com/turkey/priene.htm
Then on our way back to Izmir to continue on our journey to Istanbul.
To be continued . . .