Over the border we go....

We spent our final two days in Turkey in Antakya, which is the closest biggish town to the Syrian border. The town seems nice enough, although we didn't do too much exploring. We did however book ourselves a taxi to take us over the border, we'd heard that the the bus trip can take ages as you have to wait for all the passengers to be processed at immigration and when travelling the two kids, that's one chance we didn't want to take.

As expected, our driver was 30 minutes late, then just as we were leaving town he informed us that he was going to pick up his wife to join us on the trip also... She seemed really lovely, although the only words we could understand from each other were çay (tea) and passport... LOL

We were kind of nervous about crossing the Turkish/Syrian border. The official rule state that you need to have a visa before going to Syria, because 'officially' they don't issue visas on the border unless you come form a country that doesn't have a Syrian embassy. Because NZ doesn't have a Syrian embassy we could get our visas, Alain on the other hand was in a bit of limbo with the 'official' rules. The Syrian embassy in Australia would issue him a visa that would be valid for 3 months from the date of issue, which was no good to us because it would have expired before we even got to Syria. The Syrian embassy in France wouldn't help him at all because he lived in Australia, so we were kind of buggered. We'd heard of other travellers getting their visa at the border after a bit of a wait, so we decided to test our luck too...

Thank goodness we had our taxi driver, he helped us navigate our way through the chaos at the border. After lots of money (US$68 per NZ passport and US$28 for French passport), lots of waiting and to-ing and fro-ing we finally had the prized Syrian visa stamp in our passport. Hooray...!!

Goodbye Turkey... Hello Syria!

Goreme fa so la ti do...

Where we stayed - Rock Valley Pension

Valley just behind Goreme

Imagine our surprise when we woke up on the overnight bus at around 5am, just in time to catch our first glimpse of the outer-space-like rock formations which Goreme is famous for. The place is just so far out and unlike anything we have ever seen before. It really is extraordinary!

Goreme Open-Air Museum

We spent a morning exploring Goreme's wonderful Open Air Museum as well as visiting the unusual Uchisar Castle. We also joined a tour and visited the amazing underground city of Derinkuyu (at one point we were more than 80 metres below the ground... eeeekkk!!) and took a 3.5km hike through the beautiful Ihlara Valley before ending up at the Selime Monastery.

Derinkuyu underground city

We loved the pension we chose to stay in. The Rock Valley has wonderful staff who continuously played football with the kids and they'd take them into the kitchen and fill them up on cherries and chocolates, they'd also give them cuddles at any given opportunity. Another great point is that other families were staying at Rock Valley too, so the kids had the opportunity to play with other children. They befriended 3 beautiful Belgian sisters, one of whom Dallas took quite a shining too, he even gave her a flower one day and told her she looked pretty when she placed it behind her ear...

Dallas and Charlotte

Goreme is a fantastic little town, and I'd recommend it to anyone who is going to Turkey!

Ihlara Valley

Goreme Open-Air Museum

Cool pottery tree

Derinkuyu underground city

Goreme Open-Air Museum

Goreme's mental rock formations

Antalya

Where we stayed - Ozmen Pension


We spend a couple of days in the beautiful old part of Antalya called Kaleici. We didn't do much whilst there thought, we mainly wandered around the cobblestone lanes taking in the sights and drinking cheap Efes beer at our local German run pub. We spent a few hours at a beautiful beach on our last day, just trying to kill a few ours before catching our overnight bus to Goreme.

Cirali

Where we stayed - Canada Hotel

Olympos beach

We decided that we needed o take a bit of a holiday from our RTW trip to give the kids a much deserved break and time to recover, so we spend 5 blissful days in Cirali. I'd read on Trip Advisor about a hotel called the Canada Hotel which was run by a Turkish/Canadian family (surprising aye). It has received rave reviews about the awesome food they serve and the place apparently was fantastic for families. Boy, oh boy were those reviews right!

Beautiful Olympos beach

As soon as we arrived, Carrie was there to warmly greet us and made us feel extremely welcome. After quickly checking in we dumped our backpacks and headed straight for the pool and basically stayed there until just before dinner was served. Dinner at the Canada hotel is a true Turkish experience. First they give you a delicious soup, followed by at least 6 or 7 different varieties of meze (salads, olives, stuffed grape leaves etc). After munching your way though that your starting to get a bit full, but the food keeps coming. The main dish is then served, which always consists of meat/fish and rice/couscous. This of course is then followed by dessert. I don't think in the whole 5 days we stayed we even came close to finishing at least half of the food they served us...We gave it a bloody good try though!

Water-rats

Cirali is a cool little town, with not much more than a few mini markets and a handful of restaurants. It has a beautiful beach (pity it's a stone beach though) which is backed by towering mountains and the ruins of Olymos are a short stroll down the beach.

Olympos beach

One day we hired a car and took a trip down the cost to Kale. It's the town where St Nicholas (aka Santa Claus) came from. We had a quick nosey at his church, which also contain the remains of this tomb although his actual remains are no longer there. They got carted off by some Italian merchant ages ago. Whilst in Kale, we headed in land a bit to Myra. Myra has tombs carved into the cliff face and has a nicely preserved Greco-Roman theatre. The site is also packed with Russian tourist, which I found rather odd too...

Fun with stones...

Olympos ruins

Swimming in the fresh water river - Olympos

St Nicholas - aka: Santa Claus

Myra

Pamukkale

Where we stayed - Melrose Allgau Hotel

Pamukkale's Travertines

After Selçuk we headed inland to Pamukkale, a town best known for it's white travertines (Turkey's version of NZ's Pink and White Terraces) and the magnificent ruins of the Roman city of Hierapolis. If it weren't for these two attractions, Pamukkale would be a total dump of a town best avoided.

Walking through one of the pools on the way up the hill

Alain really enjoyed visiting the travertines and Hierapolis, I was less than impressed though. While I did really enjoy the ruins (the theatre is just awesome), I thought the travertines were past their prime due to the dwindling water supply. I'm sure once upon a time it must have been amazing.

Travertines

Luckily, the hotel we stayed at was lovely (apart from the arsey assistant manger who tried to rip us off). The owner Mehmet was great and picked us up and dropped us off at the bus station for free and the hotels two pools were a huge hit with the kids.

Cauliflower waterfall??

Tomb being engulfed by the Travertines

Ruins of Hierapolis

The Theatre

The Latrines

Tomb

Selçuk - Where it's happening

Where we stayed - Jimmy's Place

The Library of Celsus

For such a small town, Selçuk certainly has alot going for it. Firstly, it has the amazingly beautiful ruins of Ephesus, the ancient city of Anatolia right on its doorstep. You can also find the hilltop ruins of the Basilica of St John (which also contains the tomb of St John) and the Virgin Mary's final home is just down the road. It also has a HUGE weekly market, which we were lucky enough to witness during our stay. You could honestly buy anything from a donkey harness to a toilet brush. We picked up a kilo of strawberries for a meager 50 cent...

Hilltop view of the ruins of Ephesus

We had a wonderful time visiting Ephesus. The site is still so beautiful it is easy to imagine how grand this city once was. We decided to pay the extra fee so we could visit the Terraced Houses and I'm so pleased we did. The Terraced Houses are where the affluent residents of Ephesus used to live and you see the marvellous mosaic floors and delicate fresco's that used to adorn their homes. Whilst walking around the ruins, Mia finally lost her second wiggly tooth, luckily this time she didn't swallow it!

Gappy teeth

Nike - The goddess of Victory

Whilst we were at Jimmy's we discovered that one of his key staff members is married to a kiwi chick from Hamilton (of all places). She came down to the guesthouse for a chat and bought her 2 year old daughter with her. Kassia (the daughter) took quite a shine to Dallas and kept trying to cuddle him and hold his hand. It was very cute.

The Terraced Houses where you can see the beautiful mosaic floor and the fresco's on the walls

Ancient fresco

The Library of Celsus

The Theatre

Couldn't help but laugh at this sign which was outside the Ephesus entrance.

The Basilica of St John

The baptising pool

Self explanatory really...

St John's tomb

The baby turtle we spotted whilst walking around the Basilica of St John

Gallipoli

Where we stayed – Crowded House Hotel


I had been looking forward to this part of our trip for some time, so I was pretty excited to arrive in Eceabat. Eceabat is a sleepy little village which is on the Gallipoli Peninsula side of the Dardanelles, so it has the best access to all sights I’d been longing to see.

Beach Cemetery

We choose to stay at the Crowded House Hotel and I’m so glad we did. Ziya (the co-ower) is just superb. Dallas had been complaining of having a sore ear for a couple of days, so we asked Ziya if there was a doctor in the village we could possibly see. Not only did Ziya take us to the nearby medical centre (which was free by the way), he also came with us to see the doctor to translate for us, and then took us to the pharmacy to get the necessary antibiotics. He then helped us arrange our tour of Gallipoli and our next bus tickets. All of this happened within 30 minutes of us arriving at his hotel… His hospitality and efficiency was just AWESOME!

Pretty self-explanatory really.... ANZAC Cove

The next day we along with 6 Aussies joined ‘Bill’ a local guide on a tour of the Gallipoli battlefields. I learnt more about the Gallipoli campaign in the 5 hours we spent with Bill than all my years at school. He was so informative and it was great to also get a Turkish point of view on the war. It was a pretty emotional day, but one that I will never forget.

The legendary John Simpons grave

Ari Burnu

Chunuk Bair - the main New Zealand memorial

ANZAC Cove

Poem by Ataturk

Lone Pine - The main Australian memorial

Chunuk Bair - the main New Zealand memorial