We traveled today from Cesme to Pamukkale, which is about 200 miles southeast. Having forgone the $400 private car service, we instead went the full on bus experience – churning through a total of three buses before finally getting to our hotel. While a little underwhelmed by the Tripadvisor choice in Cappadocia, we decided to stick with them one more time and are booked for the night at a place called the Melrose Hotel.

Pamukkale’s claim to fame is the white hillside on the outskirts of town, formed by thousands of years of mineral-laden water bubbling up from a hot spring and leaving calcium behind as it cools. The Romans liked the place so much, they built an entire city at the top called Hierapolis, whose primary attraction was the baths fed by the springs. Many of the ruins are still visible, but for us, they are a side note next to the natural wonder of the travertines.

A big problem with nature is that it occurs on such a scale that it’s hard to capture with a picture. We still joke about the hundreds of pictures we have from Arches National Park in Utah that were all “must haves” at the time, but after getting them home, looked mostly indistinguishable from one another. Pamukkale is no different, so for anyone interested in looking at a hundred pictures of white rocks, I know a guy, who knows a guy that has some.

The site is a lot more controlled now than it has been in the past (before it became a UNESCO site, some jackleg thought it would be a good idea to carve a road right up through the middle of it so lazy people wouldn’t have walk to the top). For $15 a head (which they use to fund maintenance and restoration), you can walk across the travertines in your bare feet (no shoes allowed) and lounge in the series of pools that have formed along the trail. There are pretty strict rules about staying in certain areas (security guards whistle you down if you try and go off the beaten path), but sadly none dealing with men wearing banana hammocks or women seriously straining the holding power of bikini fabric.

As the afternoon passes the temperature falls pretty quickly, so we head down into the town to find some dinner. Like most places we have been so far, it is pretty quiet, but definitely built to accommodate a horde as summer wears on. While some warmer days would definitely have been appreciated this trip, we’re thankful we came the time of year when we did.

The Melrose turns out to be one of our favorite hotels so far, restoring our faith in Tripadvisor, its clean, quaint, and the owners are almost annoyingly friendly. There is a large part of me that wouldn’t mind spending a bit more time here, sitting out on the patio with something engaging on the Kindle, but tomorrow its back on the bus and off to the Turkish Riviera.

We’ve had some mellow days on vacation, but today we may have set a new standard for laziness. Even though the sun was out, we spent most of the morning puttering around the hotel room, talking with the boys and trying to figure out where (and how) we are going next. We want to see Pamukkale, but that means a 4-5 hours bus ride, so the direct flight to Antalya holds some appeal as well, even though it means missing one of the popular sights. Ultimately, we decide on the bus, and the rest of our plans start to fall into place from there.

By around lunch time, we rally enough to leave the hotel and walk to the travel agency, hoping that there is a tour going direct to Pamukkale that we can catch a ride on. Sadly, there isn’t one going tomorrow, but for the bargain price of $400, the agent offers to drive us there in his car and give us a private tour. As tempting as that is, we opt for the scheduled bus service and set up our reservations.

Pretty much exhausted by the flurry of activity, we head back to the hotel, picking up a few snacks on the way at the no frills grocery store we call Costco. Throughout the afternoon, we make some half-hearted attempts to go down to the pool (even though it is sunny, it is quite windy, so the beach is out), but Angela is consumed reading Tripadvisor reviews for hotels in Antalya, and I am content enough with my Kindle that it just doesn’t happen.

That we’re perfectly happy spending an entire day in our room is probably a reasonable indicator that we’ve done all we need to do in Cesme, so in that light, good that we will soon be on the move.

We started out early this morning (as Angela so likes to do). At 7:00 am, the rental car we arranged for today arrived at the hotel, and after a few minutes of paperwork (written entirely in Turkish) we pick up our wheels. As we give it a quick once over to note existing damage, it’s hard to miss the custom paint job all along the driver’s side.

We hope to see a couple places today and the theory is we can do that faster on our own than if we arrange for seats on tours, which we would have to do over multiple days. Before getting on the highway however, we stop to experience one of the unique gifts of Turkey – $10 a gallon gas.

Our first stop is Pergamon, which lies about an hour north of Izmir and two hours from our hotel in Cesme (or, as it turns out, three if you get lost). As historical sites in Turkey go, it is less well known than Ephesus, but both of our guidebooks recommend it, so it seems like a worthwhile trip.

The actual site sits atop a hill that you get to by gondola, and in many respects, the location is as impressive as the city itself. On the summit though, there is no break from the weather, which is freakishly cold and windy, with some rain mixed in once in a while for good measure.

In general, sites like these have undergone far less restoration in Turkey than in other countries, so, while some structures have been partially rebuilt, much of what exists are just ruins of old buildings and foundations for what was once there. Overall, we find it interesting but not spectacular, a clear indicator of just how spoiled we have become.

Our next destination is Ephesus, which unfortunately sits about an hour south of Izmir. This has been on my list of places to see ever since we were in Greece, but after Pergamon, I’m a little nervous that it won’t live up to my expectations. I take it as a good omen though that by the time we arrive, the sky has cleared and the sun is shining brightly.

Even by our unrealistic standards, Ephesus is amazing. The site itself is huge, and while most of the buildings have long since collapsed or been destroyed (including the Temple of Artemis which was one of the original Seven Wonders), enough remain or have been restored to give a good sense for just how big it once was. Several of the main streets still exist, and it’s not hard to wander down the marble avenues and imagine how it looked as a vibrant city thousands of years ago.

For me, the two most fascinating buildings are the Grand Theater (the picture below is a stitched together panorama so looks better if you click it and blow it up to full size – for a sense of scale the tiny blue spec on the very left side is Angela), with its 44,000 person capacity (the largest in the ancient world), and the library, which in its day was the third largest in the world (after Alexandria and Pergamon). Even the community bathroom is interesting in its own weird way – a place where you could hike up your robes with 40 or so of your neighbors and catch up of the day’s gossip while taking care of your business.

By the time we drive back to Cesme it is almost 7:00 pm. We have no further need for the car, but there is still a bit of the $125 worth of gas we put in the tank left, so I feel morally obligated to drive aimlessly around town until we’re on fumes. My quest for value loses out to my innate laziness though, so we drop off our custom ride and head back to the hotel.

It was a good day, a despite the dodgy weather to start and several hours of driving, I’m happy with the result. There are only a few specific sights that we have left on our list (Pamukkale and Olympos) which we will tackle from Antalya once we move there in a few days.

We’re feeling a bit more energetic today, and since I’m too red to be laying out in the sun more, we decide to check out a few of the little towns near our hotel. To get around locally in Turkey (other than Istanbul where there is a metro), the preferred means is a network of privately run micro-buses called dolmas. These follow a set route, but have no fixed stops, so they just pick people up wherever they are along the route and drop them off whenever they want to stop. The system works pretty well, and few a few Turkish Lira, gets us around pretty easily.

The first place we visit is Alacati, about 5 minutes from our hotel. Its claim to fame is that many of the old houses along the narrow, cobblestone streets have been converted to restaurants, high end shops, and bed and breakfasts. As the roads are barely wide enough to fit a car, it a quaint, mostly pedestrian part of town that reminds us a lot of parts of Greece. Making it even better, we happen across a place giving free donuts, quickly catapulting Alacati to one of my favorite parts of Turkey.

As with the area around our hotel, quite a few places aren’t yet open for the busy season, but we manage to find a couple of things for the boys, and the obligatory doner stand for lunch.

Hopping back on the dolma, we go into the old part of Cesme. The highlight here is an old fort overlooking the bay that is open to the public. Its not a major stop on any of the formal tours, so there are no crowds to speak of, and aside from a handful of areas undergoing restoration, nothing is off limits. There is also a small museum dedicated to the Battle of Chesma, which I found a little odd given that it was a battle the Turkish side (then the Ottomans) lost.

On the dolma ride back to our hotel, some of the local schoolgirls take the time to remind me how handsome I am. Angela wants to believe they just didn’t know much English, and she can get a little feisty at times, so I just nod my head and agree.

Today was a down day, and even though it wasn’t particularly warm, the sun was out and we took full advantage by parking ourselves in a beach chair and doing a whole lot of nothing. Clouds came and went with enough frequency for me to convince myself there was no need to dip into out small stash of sunscreen, and by midday, I was rewarded with the somewhat inexplicable combination of lobster skin on my left arm and right leg. This development was soon followed by the annual lobster migration, as they make their way from the beach to the nearest pharmacy for aloe gel.

Otherwise, not much to report. We did a little wandering around town and picked up some information on tours and car rentals for the coming days. We also spent a fair amount of time debating where to go once our time here is complete. Being sun starved up to today, we have debated the merits of going to Cyprus (about a 90 minute flight) or Rhodes (two hours on a ferry). Ultimately, after studying the forecast, I think we have settled on sticking to the original plan and moving down to Antalya, albeit a little sooner than expected.

With the exception of the mornings after a Turkish rave (those will be the pictures of us with the glow in the dark necklaces), I usually get an hour or so of time to catch up on emails and such before my trusty travel companion rolls out of bed for the day. So today is no different as I set myself up in my window office and get connected.

What is different, is that I as work, I hear the recurring sound of hot air balloon burners going off. This area is a pretty popular place to take a balloon ride, so the first half dozen times, I don’t think much of it (the staging area is close to our hotel so a couple of balloons taking off in the morning is no big deal). After about the 50th time, I get curious enough to leave my office and take a look out the front door. What greets me it this:

I don’t count them all, but I figure there has to be at least sixty balloons, all taking off into a beautifully clear, blue sky. It’s a mesmerizing sight, so much so that at the risk of grave physical harm, I wake up Sleeping Beauty to come take a look.

Not surprisingly, things get a little more boring after this. After breakfast, we catch the shuttle back to Kayseri for our flight to Izmir. We are in search now of some sun and warm temperatures and hope to find it when we get to the beach.

Our final destination is Cesme, which is about an hour drive out on a peninsula from Izmir. It’s a $120 cab ride, so we opt for the bus (two ultimately), which proves to be completely painless, other than the two blocks we have to walk with our luggage to the hotel.

We know it is early for tourist season in this part of the country, but as we check in, it feels downright spooky. Other than the bellman and the desk clerk, we don’t see anybody. Not a single person in the lobby. No one in the restaurant. Nobody by the pool. It is not until we finally get to our room and look down on the rows of beach chairs that finally spot one other actual guest (a dark spot on an otherwise sea of white).

Throughout the town, the pattern is the same as we walk by closed restaurants, empty stores, and vacation houses with their storm shutters drawn. I can’t help but think to myself that I should live in a place where when it is 70 degrees and sunny, that its considered a day not even worthy of going outside (versus Seattle, where such a day would be talked about all week for how amazing it was).

This is our last full day in Cappadocia, and for the most part it is a free day. Over breakfast, we debate our options, which range from renting a scooter and going to some sights further out, to renting mountain bikes to see some sights closer in, to spending the day shopping. I, of course, really want to shop all day, but being the giver that I am, settle for walking back up towards the open air museum to see one of the churches that we closed the day we arrived.

It’s quite a nice day today, so after leaving the church, we head off down a side trail that leads up into the hills. Because the area is so large, only certain areas (like the museum) are restricted, so visitors have access to miles and miles of trails that lead up into the caves. Granted, exploring is more my kind of thing than it is Angela’s (she’s a stay on the marked trail kind of girl), but she humors me in this case, particularly when we see a trail winding through the bottom of a valley that calls out to me like a Siren.

After scrambling down to the valley floor, and following the trail for about a quarter mile, the more rationale of the two of us begins to question the wisdom of wandering down an increasingly overgrown trail, that leads to who knows where, and on which we haven’t seen another living soul. I don’t know if it is the tiger blood or the Adonis DNA talking, but defeat is not an option, and after some convincing that Tusken Raiders aren’t real, we press on.

In short order, we see another hiker coming down the trail in the opposite direction, and he gives us a bit of a preview of what lies ahead. There is only about a quarter mile left before running into an impassable drop, but knowing we aren’t headed towards a terrorist hideout or a meth cave calms the rest of the people on our tour.

As we proceed on, the walls of the valley quickly close in, and soon the trail is only a foot or so wide and we are squeezing around boulders. On the flight over, I watched the movie 127 Hours (about the hiker that got his arm pinned in terrain like this and had to cut it off), so that pops into my head from time to time, along with a huge sense of relief that Angela didn’t see it. The scenery is amazing though, and the absence of any other people very peaceful.

Coming up to the drop, it quickly becomes clear that defeat is indeed an option, so goddess in tow, we wind our way back to the main road. Having been a good sport on my little adventure, it seems appropriate that return the favor for Angela and we head off to town to shop. To make a Groundhog Day story short – yes, we looked at carpets, no, we didn’t buy one.

We stop for dinner at a place we found the day we got here that has moussaka we are craving (I don’t know what it is about eggplant, but it always tastes better on vacation), and then back to the hotel for our last night as the Flintstones. Changing her mind on a few last minute trinkets (or at least that’s the story she tells me, even though I did see her eying up the overweight bus station manager with the horrendous BO) Angela heads back into town while do a little work from my window office, and on that glorious note, our Cappadocia adventure comes to a close.

One of the great things about a room right next to the hotel office is that it comes with its own built in wake up call, as people gather in front of our door early in the morning, striking up loud conversations in a variety of languages. Mrs. Van Winkle just covers her head with a pillow (brave woman) and goes back to sleep, while I use the new found time to catch up on some work before calling the boys.

As with most days, we head off to breakfast with no idea what we want to do. So when one of the hotel staff comes by and asks if we want to go on a tour, we figure why not? Cappadocia is pretty spread out, so this solves the problem of renting a car and driving around on our own trying to find the places we want to see. The only catch is that the tour leaves 10 minutes later.

With limited time, we dash back to the room, skip the shower (a little gross, yes, but not near as gross as the bathtub in our room), hold our breath long enough to brush our teeth, toss a few things in a day pack and head for the door. Each tour advertises a maximum of 12 people (some of the stops are small caves and tunnels where big groups won’t fit), so we’re not at all surprised to get on a bus with 26 people, and for the guide to happily tell us this is the largest group he has even had.

About 40 minutes from Goreme, we stop at the Derinkuyu Underground City, an eleven level subterranean complex, that by some estimates, was occupied by as many as 25,000 people (and is only one of over 200 such complexes discovered in this area so far) seeking refuge from attacking armies. Originally built about 3,000 years ago, the network of tunnels and rooms was constantly expanded by successive civilizations, until they were abandoned altogether in the Middle Ages.

Another hour on the bus takes is to the Ilhara Valley, a 16km canyon honeycombed with houses and churches cut into the rock walls. It is believed that as many as 30,000 people inhabited the valley, predominantly Christians seeking to avoid Roman persecution. We get dropped off part way along and hike about 4km down to a collection of restaurants where the bus will meet us. In the “it’s a small world” category, at lunch we meet a couple from Calgary, one of whom is a pharmacist (unfortunately a hospital pharmacist, so not a user of our software, but she has knows of it and people that use it).

Our last stop is the Selime Monastery, another complex carved into the rock, which is one of the largest religious buildings in Cappadocia. Of the churches we have seen so far, these are by far the biggest, spanning multiple levels (that the guide advises we don’t go up to because it is dangerous, but seriously, doesn’t that just make it more likely that we’ll go?), and complete with ornately carved and painted columns.

Now no tour would be complete without the obligatory stop at the “local craft center”, and this one is no exception. We get the five minute demo of how onyx is carved and then are shuttled directly into the showroom, where spectacular deals await. I don’t want to gloat, since it probably doesn’t happen to everyone, but because our group is so large, we get offered a special 10% discount on anything we want to buy.

Tour over, we return to Goreme at around 6:30 and grab a quick dinner before heading back to the hotel to see our new “deluxe” room. As promised, this one is in one of the caves (the pointy building in the picture below), and compared to the hovel we slept in last night, is like checking into the Ritz Carlton. Other than being just slightly over 6 feet tall, and with walls so think that the only place I can get wireless internet is by cramming myself up into the windowsill it is a HUGE trade up, which makes for two very happy travelers.

Despite the early hour, things went surprisingly smoothly this morning getting from our hotel in Istanbul to the airport for our flight to Kayseri. Our book warns the drive can take as long as an hour and a half, but at the time of the morning we are going, and on a Saturday to boot, it is over in about 35 minutes, putting me at the airport the recommended 2 hours before my flight for what may be the first time ever.

With plenty of time to spare, I try to grab a little shut-eye at the gate, but waiting along with us is the Turkish equivalent of our Sammy – a boy with only two volume settings – loud and louder. He wants to say goodbye to every plane that leaves, and I think is worried that all the way across the tarmac the pilot might not be able to hear him.

We are flying Pegasus Air, which is the Southwest of Turkey, and like Southwest packs the passengers in pretty tight. No frills to speak of, but the plane is quite new though and the flight pretty short, so overall a totally painless experience.

Kayseri is one of two airports in Cappadocia, and is the busier of the two, even though it is the furthest from the places most tourists come to see. We are ultimately headed for a place called Goreme, about an hour away, and according to the information desk, can get there by taxi (expensive) or by taking a total of three buses (painful). As we are talking through the options, a Japanese couple asks us if we are also going to Goreme and if we would be interested in splitting the cab fare. Door to door service at half the price is a pretty easy choice, particularly when the other passengers don’t really speak English, reducing the risk of having to engage in idle chit chat.

The main draw of Cappadocia is the surreal desert landscape, populated with thousands of towering rock formations carved from the volcanic deposits. For millennia, these towers served as the homes for the regions inhabitants, who tunneled and carved directly into the rock to create entire communities. Many of these “fairy chimneys” (an early legend was that the towers and rooms within them could only have been made by fairies) have been converted to hotels, and a tourist “must do” experience is to stay in one.

We booked three nights in one of these caves on Expedia while in Istanbul, so after arriving in our cab, we’re anxious to see what all the fuss is about. Alarms start going off though as the desk clerk (who is also the bellman and concierge) repeatedly checks his state of the art reservation system, flipping the pages back and forth a few times and asking us if we have our booking number. As it turns out, they aren’t really that diligent about letting services like Expedia know when they are out of rooms, so have continued taking reservations and are now overbooked. After some discussion, we settle on taking a non-cave room for the first night, and then moving into a “deluxe” cave room for the remaining two nights.

Now this particular place we chose because it was listed as an “Expedia Pick”, and upon cross checking with Tripadvisor, we found it had reasonable reviews. Walking into the room we ask ourselves what those people have been smoking. Over the years, I’ve stayed in worse, but not by much, and probably not with a very unhappy traveling companion in tow. As some special extra touches, we soon come to learn that they only turn the heat on for a few hours in the evening, and that the bathroom window needs to stay open all the time to vent the sewer smell coming up through the drain.

The heater of course, wouldn’t be an issue if it weren’t freezing outside…in May…in Turkey. What ever happened to global warming? If I ever see Al Gore, I swear I’m going to hit him with my shoe (or preferably, one of the sandals that I brought all the way over here but haven’t been able to use). Nasty bedspread aside, it takes all the smooth talking I can muster to cajole Angela from the bed, where she has cocooned herself, coat still on, trying to warm up.

As it is late in the day, our options for activities are limited, but a short walk up the road is the Goreme Open Air Museum. This is on our list to see, so today seems like a good day to get that out of the way. To our pleasant surprise, the sun has started to break out, and combined with the uphill hike has made the temperature tolerable.

The museum is really just a collection of churches and associated rooms (like kitchens, bedrooms, and so on) carved into the rocks by early Christians, who used the caves as a place to hide from the ruling Romans, who had a tendency to feed Christians to the lions. In their day, the ceiling and walls of the churches were covered with colorful frescoes, many of which remain and are in surprisingly good condition.

As churches go, these are quite small, so to see them you enter in packs of 20 people or so, listen to a guide describe the scenes depicted, and then exit to make room for the next group. We’re not part of a tour, so its luck of the draw as to what language the guide speaks when we are in any given church. In some cases we hear the full story in English and find it quite interesting, while in others, we try to cobble together bits and pieces from whatever words in German and French sound like English and then make up the rest.

Afterwards, we wander around the tiny downtown looking for a place to eat and a grocery store to pick up a few things to have on hand in our room. To our indescribable disappointment, noodle soup, our comfort food when on the road, is nowhere to be found in Turkey, and we return to the hotel empty handed. Its dark and cold, by the time we get back, so are thankful the heat has been on in our absence. Nevertheless, we both err on the conservative side and opt for full dress sleeping attire before plopping down on the raggedy mattress for the night.

The Olivium – that sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Something you’d travel thousands of miles to see like the Hippodrome, or the Coliseum. Well for some people, perhaps, but it has never been on my bucket list. Nevertheless, on our last full day in Istanbul, and both out of “must sees” and tired of crowds, our destination is a Turkish outlet mall an hour or so away on the metro.

So after actually sleeping in a bit for a change, and booking some reservations for flights and hotel in Cappadocia (our next stop), we’re off. While we’re open to whatever we may find there, the real attraction is deals on leather goods. A few nights ago, I bought a jacket at a shop on Istiklal Street that I affectionately refer to as my Fonzie coat, so now we are in need a little something for Leather Tuscadero.

Getting to the mall is surprisingly easy, particularly since we don’t know exactly where it is, but only the metro stop to get off the train at. As far as we are out from the center of town, its clear we’re not in the touristy area anymore, and it’s a nice change to be able to see typical Turkish life.

The mall itself is a bit of a disappointment (for me at least) but we do manage to find a few things (some dress shoes for me and a handbag for Angela, who swears she only has three at home). The highlight for me was actually not even in the building, but a bakery across the street where we picked up a small box of pistachio baklava, by far the best I have had here.

By the time we make it back to the hotel it is after 6 pm, so besides getting some quick dinner (falafel again), catching up on some work that I need to get done (blah), and packing our stuff up so we’re ready to check out in the morning, we’re pretty much done with Istanbul. Our flight out is at 8:40 am from the smaller (but further away) of the two city airports, so we need to be up early and to the bus by 6:00 am.