Month: December 2014

Small Comforts: You throw the toilet paper where?

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There are a few small comforts that we run into now and then that really make us feel better while traveling…

So, this may a bit more information than you all want to know… However, this was huge. When we hit Dublin, we were back to the land where we could throw our toilet paper in the toilet… and flush it! We hadn’t been able to do that since Montenegro! Yes, it really does seem like a first world kind of problem, but still! There is something excellent about not having to toss the toilet paper in the trash after use and constantly sitting next to full bins while doing your business!

Here is a picture of a super cute baby seal, because we are definitely not going to show you a picture of dirty toilet paper!

Here is a picture of a super cute baby seal, because we are definitely not going to show you a picture of dirty toilet paper!

Dublin, Ireland

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As we mentioned in a previous post, we decided to come home to the USA for the holidays. We searched for airline tickets and saw that we were likely going to have a layover in Dublin! We had never visited Ireland before, so we made it a couple day layover and spent 3 nights in delightful Dublin!

Where We Stayed

We struggled to find an affordable accommodations in Dublin. The hostels were mostly booked, which surprised us after experiencing so much walking dead tourism in Turkey. We eventually settled on a private room in someone’s apartment through Airbnb (after experiencing our very first rejection on that site… what?!). We had a nice room with great working heat, which was important for December in Dublin. Our host was friendly enough, but it was a bit weird having to share a bathroom with a complete stranger. We definitely prefer having an entire apartment to ourselves.

Our neighborhood
The common living area
Our nice and warm bedroom

What We Did

We managed to pack an amazing amount of stuff (and expense) into our two days.

Hop-On Hop-Off Bus – There are many buses of this sort in Dublin, at least 3 different companies that we saw. We ended up choosing the one that was cheapest and had the most informative website. We were quite happy with the Green Bus! The tickets we purchased were good for two days and they had two different routes. We ended up using them both days and did both routes! We haven’t done a lot of these buses, though we did use them in Johannesburg and Cape Town, because we typically prefer to walk or use public transit. Dublin is a walkable town, but given that we were there in the winter and it was very cold, this bus was the perfect option. We used it to reach the Guinness Storehouse and Kilmainham Gaol as well as to view Temple Bar, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and Phoenix Park. Our second day, we used it to view some of the newer areas of Dublin, called the Docklands, though we didn’t get off at any of the stops. The live commentary provided on this second tour was quite funny as well!

We rode the Green Bus
O’Connell St
Post Office
Christ Church
Phoenix Park

Guinness Storehouse – Our first stop on our Hop-On Hop-Off bus tour was the Guinness Storehouse. We were expecting that this would be a bit like a brewery tour, but it turned out to be more of a museum. It described how to make beer but also spent a good amount of time on the history of Guinness. The Storehouse is 7 stories tall and in the shape of a Guinness glass – making it the tallest Guinness glass in the world. We enjoyed the museum displays, the explanation of how to correctly taste a Guinness, the class on how to poor our own perfect pint of Guinness, and finally sipping our Guinness at the Gravity Bar on the 7th floor with a 360 degree view of Dublin! The cost was quite high (18€ per person, OR 16.50€ if you book ahead online), but we did enjoy ourselves.

The Guiness Storehouse
The lease that Arthur Guinness signed – for 999 years
We made our own Guinness ad
We learned the perfect way to drink Guinness with this taster
Eric demonstrates the correct way to sip Guinness
Learning to pour our own perfect pint
Savoring our pints in the Gravity Bar on the 7th floor
View of Dublin

Kilmainham Gaol – Our second stop on the bus tour was the historic jail, Kilmainham Gaol. It opened as a prison in 1796 and didn’t close until 1924. Throughout its history, it held many criminals who had committed crimes ranging from small misdemeanors up to murders. However, it is most well-known for holding Irish revolutionaries who were fighting for independence from British rule. The most famous were those who planned and participated in the Easter Rising of 1916. General public opinion was actually against the Rising after it happened because of how much damage it did to Dublin, but when the leaders of the Rising were executed by the British at Kilmainham, many people began to support the Rising and helped push the country toward their larger violent rebellion, and eventual independence.

When you visit the jail, you will be required to take an organized tour through the site. The tours are filled on a first come first served basis, so we ended up having to wait about an hour and half to get on a tour. If you have the option to stop by in the morning, pick your tour, and then return later, that would be most convenient. However, if you end up having to wait, they do have a pretty interesting museum of the history of the jail that you can wander around in.

Irish flag outside the jail
Some of the cells
A hallway of the prison
Kilmainham Gaol
The spot where the revolutionaries of the 1916 Rising were executed

National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology – This was our third stop on our bus tour, though we ended up having to walk from the beginning of the bus tour on O’Connell St. The bus would have taken us there as it went round again, but we were going to have to wait for about 15 min. By this point we had only about an hour left before the museum closed, so instead of waiting, we took off walking! Most of the sites in Dublin are quite close to each other and we made it fairly quickly. The museum was large (and free!) and we truly wish that we had more time to explore it. The treasures that it is famous for are the Ardagh Chalice and the Tara Brooch. We managed to see the Tara Brooch, but our real interests were in finding the “bog bodies.” A friend that we had met in Greece had told us that the Dublin museum had a really interesting exhibit which showed several bodies that are thousands of years old that have been amazingly preserved in Ireland’s bogs. It was fascinating to read what the archaeologists were able to deduce about the death of each of this people. Things like skin, hair, and clothing were still preserved.

Tara Brooch
Galleries
A Viking skeleton with sword
The preserved arm of a bog body

Literary Pub Crawl – This was a new adventure for us! Dublin has a very rich literary history- writers such as WB Yeats, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, and and James Joyce made Dublin their home. Neither of us knew much about any of these authors, nor had read anything by them. But, Della thought that maybe this would be the perfect way to learn more about them, especially as we were in Dublin… and it couldn’t hurt that beer was involved. We really enjoyed the pub crawl! We went to 4 different pubs throughout the evening. At each one, we enjoyed our guides. They made sure to tell us stories either about the history of Dublin or about one of the many authors that contributed to that history. They also sprinkled in several small performances, either scenes from different plays or books, or from letters from the authors. One of Della’s favorites was a performance of a letter that was written by Oscar Wilde about his visit to Leadville, CO. We also enjoyed the beer and were excited that we won the trivia contest at the end of the evening!

Duke’s
Our guide performing

The Old Library and the Book of Kells – The historic Trinity College is located in Dublin. One of the interesting things to see on campus is their old library. The Long Room is a beautiful wooden room; the walls lined with two stories of old books. It definitely made us feel as if we were exploring Hogwarts or something! The library also houses the Book of Kells which is an ancient manuscript of 4 Gospels. It is impressive because it is intricately decorated and has been around since about 800 AD. We thought the Book of Kells was a bit overrated, but we really enjoyed the Long Room!

Trinity College
The Long Room
The Long Room
The Long Room
The Long Room
The Book of Kells – we couldn’t take pictures of the real one. This was a replica in the Long Room
The Book of Kells – we couldn’t take pictures of the real one. This was a replica in the Long Room

Free Walking Tour – We were quite excited to be back in the lands of Free Walking Tours! It is always nicer to do the walking tours on your first day in a new place because they give such nice overviews of history as well as a lay of the land. We did this on our second day due to scheduling issues, so we had seen a few of the sites and heard a bit of the history already, but we still enjoyed the tour immensely. We had a very good, animated tour guide, who made the tour quite fun. We started near the Dublin Castle where we heard about how the most exciting recent visitor was the Queen of England who hadn’t visited the country since Independence. There was a lot of fear about how the visit would go, but apparently it went really well! We then traveled to Christ Church Cathedral which is one of Dublin’s most iconic structures. It was built about 1000 AD by the Viking King who made a pilgrimage to Rome and then decided to convert to Christianity. Our guide told us a very sad story that right around the cathedral was a Viking city. The ruins were found in the early 1900s after the local government had purchased the land and planned to build government buildings in the area. The ruins they uncovered were apparently some of the best preserved Viking ruins in the world. Archaeologists fought to have the ruins preserved, but after a long court battle, the contractors and local government won and the ruins were destroyed and built over. Ultimately, only one building was constructed and now the local government has stated that it regrets that the ruins were destroyed. What a sad story! We then moved into the Temple Bar area where we heard about the history of arts in Dublin. They are very proud of being the home of U2 (which we now feel like we have a connection to based on the stories we heard about them in Sarajevo). Finally we headed to Trinity College and St. Stephen’s Green where we heard more about the Potato Famine and some of the current politics. Our guide also invited the group to join him for a meal in one of the pubs after the tour. We, and a few others, took him up on the offer and we enjoyed chatting with him about his life and some other information about Dublin. We found the tradition of the 12 Pubs of Christmas pretty interesting!

Dublin Castle
The back of Dublin Castle
Christ Church Cathedral
The government building built over the top of the Viking ruins
Temple Bar
The arts center where U2 got its start
St. Stephen’s Green

Where We Ate

Our first night in Dublin we were pretty tired from the long plane rides, so we took the easy way out and just got Chinese takeout from a place within a quick walk from our apartment.

On our second day, we had our first meal at a “real” Irish pub. We arrived early for the Literary Pub Crawl, so we just ate at the pub that the tour was starting from, called The Duke. Eric had an Irish stew with lamb, potatoes and carrots, and Della had bangers and mash (sausage and mashed potatoes).

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As we mentioned before, after the Free Walking Tour we went with our guide to get a late lunch at a pub. We were pleasantly surprised that the pub we were led to was one of the same ones we had been to on the Literary Pub Crawl the previous night. The tour had special prices for some of the items, so we took advantage. This time Della got an Irish stew, and Eric got a “collar of bacon” which was basically slices of ham cut from a carving table.

The outside of O'Neill's, taken on the Literary Pub Crawl

The outside of O’Neill’s, taken on the Literary Pub Crawl

Final Thoughts

We really enjoyed Dublin and wish we could have spent more time there. We also wish we could have explored more of Ireland. However, we experienced a lot of sticker shock about how expensive it was!

Small Comforts: Drinking Tap Water

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There are a few small comforts that we run into now and then that really make us feel better while traveling…

It hadn’t really been that long, but we didn’t drink the tap water in Turkey without purifying first. A lot of people buy water, but we normally use our Steripen to make the water safe to drink. This is really a simple and easy process, but still gets tiring after awhile.

We were excited to be able to drink straight tap water starting when we passed through London on our way home for the holidays.

Enjoying a FREE tap water at a restaurant at Heathrow

Enjoying a FREE tap water at a restaurant at Heathrow

How We Returned Home From Istanbul For $352.60

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Once we decided to shake up our itinerary and head home for the holidays, we had to figure out how to actually get there. Luckily we hadn’t yet booked any onward flights from Europe, so we switched our focus from finding tickets from Turkey to Asia to finding tickets from Turkey to the U.S.

We had more miles in the American Airlines AAdvantage program, so we were focusing on awards using the Oneworld Alliance. There was nothing direct back to the US, so we started searching what our layover options in Europe would be. The easiest options routed us through London, but these seemed to have higher fees.

We then saw that one place were you could get a direct flight to the US with not too bad fees was from Dublin, Ireland. We were intrigued about the possibility of seeing a little bit of Ireland, so we arranged our flights to have a three-day layover in Dublin.

This meant that we actually booked two different award flights. The first flight used British Airways Avios to get us from Istanbul to Dublin (with a layover in London). These flights cost us a total of $110 in fees.

Enjoying a flavorful beer in the London airport... exciting after a few months of uninspiring brews!

Enjoying a flavorful beer in the London airport… exciting after a few months of uninspiring brews!

Flying British Airways into Dublin

Flying British Airways into Dublin

The second flight was then to get from Dublin to Dallas, with a layover in Philadelphia. We used AAdvantage miles to book this, but it was actually a combination of a US Airways flight from Ireland and then and American Airlines flight from Philadephia. These flights cost us a total of $242.60 in fees.

Enjoying a Yuengling beer and a cheesesteak in the Philly airport. Brought back good memories of the years we lived in Delaware!

Enjoying a Yuengling beer and a cheesesteak in the Philly airport. Brought back good memories of the years we lived in Delaware!

In the end, the fees to fly directly from Istanbul back to Dallas would have been less, but we thought it was worth it to have a chance to spend a few days in a new country!

Flashback Friday: Christmas

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Flashback Friday is a picture series where we “flashback” to some of our favorite memories – from either our prior travel or from home. We hope you’ll enjoy some of our remembrances!

We feel really fortunate that we were able to spend Christmas with our family and friends this year. We weren’t expecting to be able to, which made it that much better!

That being said, we decided to celebrate this flashback Friday with a little throwback!

image

Eric celebrates Christmas with his sister Suzanne and their cat, circa 1996

 

Della celebrates Christmas with her sister circa 1993

Della celebrates Christmas with her sister, 1992

Budget: Turkey

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This is one of our Budget series of posts to give you an idea of how much we spent traveling around the world. Here we will look at Turkey. Check our posts to see what kind of activities we did and where we stayed!

*Note: We are writing this budget post for the time we spent in Turkey after the visit from Della’s family. This budget does not include what we spent with them. Keep in mind, on that note, that it does not include some of the most famous tourist attractions in Turkey.

In Turkey we used the lira. We converted to US dollars using the current conversion rates at the time of our visit. It was approximately 1 lira to 0.44 dollars.

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Total Spent (14 days): $1065.16

Accommodation: $357.50

We stayed in several pensions, one hostel in a dorm, and an airbnb apartment.

Activities: $103.91

This included entrances to a few sites, a couple of museums, and a Turkish hamam.

Alcohol: $31.73

This includes wine and beer purchased mostly at corner markets and grocery stores. Alcohol was relatively expensive in Turkey and not as easy to find as several of the other countries we visited.

Food: $314.96

We did not do a lot of cooking in Turkey except in Istanbul. We normally ate out once to twice a day. Luckily, breakfasts were almost always included with our accommodation.

Miscellaneous: $86.49

This is high for our miscellaneous costs. It included some souvenirs and Christmas gifts. We bought much more than we might have because we knew we were returning to the USA for the holidays so we weren’t as worried about buying things.

Transportation: $129.18

This included many buses and even a plane ticket! It was so nice to be back in a place where transportation was affordable!

Visas: $41.40

Turkey was one of the few countries that required a visa purchased in advance. It was easy though, just an online purchase!

This divides out to $76.08/day which is under our $100/day budget. However, it does not include the bigger tourist site attractions that we did with Della’s family during our first stay in Istanbul.

*We chose not to include the time spent with families in our country budget because it becomes harder to give an accurate version of how much it costs to visit the area. First, we are more than a couple so accommodation prices change a bit. We also end up traveling a bit faster when we are with them so we spend a bit more than we might chose to if we were traveling alone. In addition, our parents sometimes play the “parent card” and cover expenses that we would have paid for ourselves, so it just gets complicated! However, when we update our overall expenses and complete average per day of the whole trip we will include absolutely everything we’ve spent.

Istanbul Part iki (2)

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We headed back to Istanbul after our time in Antalya. We were able to get a pretty decent flight on Pegasus Air.

Getting There

Booking our flight was easy, but figuring out how to get to the airport in Antalya was not. It was really a shame because we were pretty sure that we should be able to get there via bus or train from Kalieci. But the more we looked, the more we realized it wasn’t as easy as we might have hoped. It was going to be a long walk to a bus stop that we weren’t sure was there, or a trip all the way back to the the main bus station on the train and then a connection. No matter which way we though about it, it was going to be slightly unsure and take an awful long time. We had told our hostel that we wouldn’t need airport transportation, but in the end, semi-embarrassedly rethought our choice and asked for a ride. It was a little pricier than we would have liked, but it was a straight shot exactly where we needed to go.

Where We Stayed

We found a nice Airbnb apartment in the happening Beyoglu neighborhood of Istanbul. It was quite easy to find because our host (who seemed to run apartments for a living) gave us a helpful PDF of information and maps. The neighborhood we stayed in was slightly dirty and slightly sketchy, but we were very near Istiklal street (think long outdoor mall which was always, and we really mean always, morning, noon, or night, filled with people – tourists and locals alike) which was a huge plus. The apartment itself was quite pleasant though a bit small and dark. It was on an underground level so we didn’t have a great windows. On the bright side, it had an excellent shower!

The hallway of the place was amazing though
Eric posing to show off the included slippers with the apartment
The drying rack took up the whole hallway
Chilling in the living room

What We Did

Shop Near Istiklal – We knew that we would be heading home for the holidays, so that meant that we finally had the chance to freely buy souvenirs without worrying about how we were going to carry them around the world with us! We also knew that it might be a great time to find some one of a kind Christmas gifts. We had originally thought we would head back to the Spice Market which we had visited during our first time in Istanbul, but after exploring the markets near Istiklal Street, we found everything we had hoped for at the most convenient prices!

Markets near Istiklal
The top of Istiklal
Istiklal

Explore the Huge Media Markt in the Fancy Mall – As we mentioned above, we realized that now would be the time to buy some souvenirs for ourselves. One thing that had caught our eye was a cool double decker tea pot that we had seen used everywhere on the Turquoise Coast. We hadn’t seen if for sale in any of the tourist markets so we started exploring the grocery stores. We found one that seemed both too small and too expensive. Luckily, we remembered that we had seen this giant store called Media Markt in the fancy mall on Istiklal Street. The store took up 3 full levels of this place! We decided to check it out and found the teapot we wanted… on sale! Score!

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Watch a Movie – We were walking down Istiklal Street one evening trying to decide what to do. Suddenly our eyes alighted on the movie theater in the mall. It was showing Alayci Kus (Mockingjay)! Avid readers might remember that Della had been rereading the Hunger Games trilogy for just this reason. We had assumed we’d attempt to see the movie when we got home, but after a quick check, we saw that they were showing it here in Istanbul in English (with Turkish subtitles). It was an opportunity too fun to miss! We quickly bought tickets realizing that the show was starting about 5 min ago! We were stressed realizing that the tickets had assigned seats, and that the previews had likely already started. Luckily, this wasn’t a problem as there turned out to be an usher to take us to our enormous, comfortable, leather seats. We had never been in a movie theater this comfortable. It was fabulous! We settled down to enjoy the movie… Exactly one hour in, and in the middle of a tense action sequence, the screen suddenly went dark. We were expecting the other patrons to yell or throw things at the screen (we wanted to!) but everyone got up quietly, a patron flicked the lights on, and everyone went out to the Burger King to grab some coffee… After a quick double check with Google Translate, we confirmed our now growing suspicion that we were on intermission. The movie flashed back on (again in the middle of the intense battle sequence) about 10 min later. Overall, we loved the experience and really enjoyed the movie too!

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Visit Chora Church – Chora Church is a bit far from the larger sights of Istanbul, but we ended up being able to catch a bus from right outside our airbnb apartment which took us across the Golden Horn and dropped us quite close to this beautiful church. Its real name was Church of the Holy Savior Outside the Walls since its original location was outside of the city walls. The Church is mainly a tourist destination today because of the large number of well-preserved Byzantine mosaics and frescoes from the 14th century. Rick Steves had a walking tour that guided us through the most important of the works. The outer nave contains mosaics depicting events from the life of Jesus, while the inner nave depicts scenes from the life of Mary. The parecclesion, a small chapel on the side that held tombs, contained the frescoes which depict scenes from the afterlife. We were a little bummed that the main chapel was closed for renovation, but it sounded like we did get to see the majority of the interesting pieces of art.

Amazing mosaic
Amazing mosaic
Amazing mosaic
frescoes

Do Rick Steves’ Walking Tour of Istanbul’s Walls – The Chora Church is located right next to the remains of the Old City walls dating to the reign of the Emperor Theodosius II in the 5th century AD. Rick Steves also had a walk along these walls, so we decided to check it out. The most interesting part was at the very beginning, when we climbed some steep and slippery stairs to the top of the wall. This gave us impressive views in all directions (although they would have been even more impressive if the day wasn’t overcast). We continued the walk along the walls and finished at a Muslim cemetery located just outside one of the gates. The tour would have had us continue on through an interesting neighborhood, but we were wet and cold so instead just caught a bus back to Beyoglu.

Cat on the roof
Streets of Istanbul
Atop the walls
Cemetary
Walking the walls
Old Synagogue
Climbing the city walls
Overcast Istanbul from the city walls

Where We Ate

Since we were on Istikal Street on multiple occasions, we took advantage and ate out on the street a couple of times.

The first restaurant, Otantik Anadolu Yemekleri, specialized in authentic Anatolian food. They had a woman who sat in the front window and made fresh gözleme, a “Turkish pancake” made of thin dough filled with something savory. Our favorite dish was a mixed appetizer tray that had two different types of what they called dumplings and a thick wheat porridge.

Making gözleme
Enjoying our freshly-made gözleme

On our final day we wanted to find something Turkish but also cheap. We found a small cafe on a side street that met these criteria. The most interesting dish was what Della ordered: a “kumpir'” or baked potato. What made this interesting was the toppings they put on it: a huge variety of items including hot dog, peas, olives, onions and different sauces. Dana had actually gotten one of these when she was in town and we thought it was just a fluke, so we were excited to see that we could find one as well!

Small Comforts: A Standing Shower

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There are a few small comforts that we run into now and then that really make us feel better while traveling…

We mentioned in a post awhile back about how we find it a little strange that many of the showers in Europe were not what we were used to. The shower heads most often were about chest or waist level. Even if they were above your head, they were clearly meant to be taken down and used in your hand, because they were angled so that they would spray all over the bathroom. We also experienced a lot of showers without shower curtains or showers with no lips to prevent water from getting everywhere. There were also a fair amount of showers where the shower heads were just right over the toilet and you knew that you would just use the whole bathroom as your shower (see example below).

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Notice the shower head just sitting on the wall!

 

This changed when we came back to Istanbul for the second time. In our Airbnb, we had a lovely shower with a stall and a shower head that stood tall above our heads! The water was even warm! It was excellent! (OK… Full disclosure: this was not the ONLY situation where we had a nice shower. But, this one was great AND we hadn’t written about it yet!)

OK, so we didn't get the whole shower in the picture... Oops. But take our word for it that it was good and the shower head was above our heads!

OK, so we didn’t get the whole shower in the picture… Oops. But take our word for it that it was good and the shower head was above our heads!

 

Antalya, Turkey

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Our final stop on our tour of the Turquoise Coast of Turkey was the city of Antalya. It is a large city, with a population of over a million people, so it was quite a different feeling than our visits to Patara and Kas! The biggest tourist draw is the large old city called Kaleiçi, which dates from the city’s heyday as a port during the Roman Empire.

Where We Stayed

We decided to stay in Kaleiçi itself in order to be close to all the sites. On booking.com we found a nice small place called the Marina Hostel that, as its name suggests, is near the harbor. We took a chance and booked beds in a 6-person dorm room… and lucked out and had the place to ourselves all four nights! The hostel also came with a nice Turkish breakfast every morning.

Our bunk beds in the dorm room we had to ourselves

Our bunk beds in the dorm room we had to ourselves

What We Did

Explore Kaleiçi – We wandered around the streets of the Old town on a few different occasions to take in all of the sites. As we wandered the narrow, winding streets past old Ottoman-era houses, we found a few of the older relics, including:

  • Yivli Minare (the “Fluted” Minaret): this tall distinctively-shaped minaret, built in the 13th century, dominates the “skyline” of Kaleiçi
  • Clock Tower: the clock has been modernized, but the tower itself is old. It stands on the square which marks the entrance to Kaleiçi
  • Hadrian’s Gate: the ancient gate which was built for the Roman emperor Hadrian’s visit in 130 AD
  • Kesik Minare (the “Broken” Minaret): In the middle of Kaleiçi you find half of a minaret standing over ancient ruins which have been the sight of a Roman temple, a Byzantine church and then a mosque
  • Hıdırlık Tower: we sat near this Roman -era tower and enjoyed views of both the water and of two different couples having wedding portaits done
  • The Harbor: The weather in Antalya was generally overcast, but one afternoon it cleared off, so we headed down to the harbor area, which dates to the 2nd century BC, and enjoyed an Efes beer while watching the tourist boats come and go
Headed out to explore Kaleici
The streets of Kaleici
The streets of Kaleici
The Fluted Minaret and Kaleici
A statue of Attaturk, commerating the founding of modern Turkey
We ran into one of the largest clowders of cats we’ve seen
The clock tower
Hadrian’s Gate
The Broken Minaret
Wedding photos in front of Hidirlik Tower
The ancient harbor
The ancient harbor
Looking out over the ocean
Enjoying an Efes beer overlooking the harbor

One thing we did notice when wandering around the district was that shopkeepers were pretty aggressive with trying to get you to come into their store. We thought they were more persistent than those in the famed Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, maybe because they were getting less business in the low season. We ran into one man in particular who was pretty interesting. He knew of a few towns in Colorado so he was able to get our attention. Of course he then invited us into his carpet shop but we had to decline as we quickly walked away. We ended up running into him the next two days as well, and of course he remembered us each time! The last day in town we purposefully avoided the area where his shop was so we wouldn’t have to again explain to him that we weren’t going to buy a carpet.

Antalya Museum – We took the Antalya’s “nostalgic tram” out to this large archaeological museum. By this point, we had seen a few similar museums, but we still enjoyed seeing the different exhibits that included the Stone Age in the Antalya area, ceramics, Roman-era sculptures and sarcophogi, and finally a small exhibit on life during the Ottoman era. Our favorite exhibit was a room with different sculptures of Greek/Roman gods found at the nearby site of Perge, mainly because each statue included a sign with extensive text describing the myths around the god.

The Nostalgic Tram
Riding the Nostalgic Tram
One of the goddesses
A sarcophogus decorated with scenes from the myths of Hercules
A sarcophogus for a dog

Kaleiçi Museum – This small museum had a few different exhibits that we spent a couple of hours touring. In an old Greek Orthodox church, there was an exhibit of 18th century pottery from the Çanakkale region. Also, in the upstairs area there was a fascinating exhibit with pictures of old street vendors from Istanbul in the late 19th century. We really enjoyed just seeing all of the different types of vendors there were! Back in a restored Ottoman-era house, the main exhibit showcased life in Antalya during that time, with mannequins set up in different rooms showing scenes from preparations for a wedding: serving coffee to guests, a henna ceremony for the bride and a shaving ceremony for the groom.

The Cannakale pottery exhibit in the old church
Some of the pictures of different vendors in late 19th century Istanbul
The bride-to-be’s henna ceremony

Some Random Ethnographic Museum – When we were looking for the Kaleiçi Museum, we stumbled across a place that we thought was it. It was a restored Ottoman-era house, and the ground floor had mannequin displays of cultural artifacts from Antalya and its sister cities. The upstairs area also had a few rooms set up as displays. We were confused that there was no admission though, and there was only one person in the building, and she seemed to be doing something else. Since we found the actual Kaleiçi Museum, we aren’t really sure what this was, but it was a nice, free way to spend a little time!

The nice ground floor of the museum, made in the traditional style with smooth rocks. We later learned that they would pour water in between the rocks in the summer to provide for cooling
One of the rooms with a cultural display
Not a mannequin

Where We Ate

Kaleiçi had a good number of restaurants along its cobblestone streets, but some of them seemed to be shutting down for the offseason. One night we ate at a place near our hostel that the Lonely Planet had recommended called Yemenli. Eric enjoyed an appetizer of a local white bean salad where the beans had been mixed with tahini.

This is a picture of the entrees. The one in the foreground is a vegetarian stuffed eggplant served with rice

This is a picture of the entrees. The one in the foreground is a vegetarian stuffed eggplant served with rice

The best place for cheap eats near Kaleiçi is a string of fast food-esque restaurants near the main entrance to the district. Every time we walked by this area the waiters would try and entice us to come in. We enjoyed one of the streets of this restaurant area which was covered with umbrellas. It was a little bit of a walk from the hostel, so we only ate in one of these restaurants. We chose one that had a good soup collection since the night was chilly.

The restaurant row under the colorful umbrellas

The restaurant row under the colorful umbrellas

Final Thoughts

Antalya was a nice place to visit, especially with all of the dining and activity options offered compared to previous stops along the Turquoise Coast. However, even this large city felt a little bit of a low season slowness, so if we came back we’d aim for warmer weather.