First Time In Turkey

I know the blogging has been skipping around a bit now -- but that's because I'm a bit behind and there is a lot to write about. On Thursday, we landed in Bodrum, Turkey (I've already written about the afternoon).

It was strange taking the tender in -- generally when we go to a new country it's via plane (or even train back when I backpacked through Europe in college). Coming into a resort port on the tender made it still feel like the Greek Islands.

The port facilities are a bit of a walk from the main part of the town. Our one certain destination was the Castle of St. Peter. It was also one of just two watersport days on the ship (the first was back when we were on Milos), and we had promised the girls we'd let them do that for part of the day.

The Castle is all the way on the other side of the harbor, but it is well worth the walk. The streets took us first along harbors and the beach, and then through a shopping area (most stores were just opening).

We had no idea just how interesting and big the castle would be. The castle was built by the Order of the Knights of St. John (our friends from Rhodes too) back in the 1400s. We were able to go into the different towers, walk the walls of the castle, and go into various buildings in the castle. The views were incredible. At one point, Maddy said something that would warm the heart of any parent of a teenager. Unprompted as we were walking along the fortress walls, she exclaimed aloud "this is cool." Teenager seal of approval.

Although we could have used Graeme Jones or his equivalent, we still got a decent sense from some of the few displays. On the tender back to the boat, everyone who had been to the castle was raving about it.

One amusing aspect of the castle was that there were red arrows for the long tour, and green arrows for taking the short tour. Except that the arrows were so far apart that everything was totally random and there was no hope of consistently following one or the other option. We saw both types of arrows on our self-made tour, and they were generally pointing at us.

Because the girls (especially Torie) were eager to get back to the boat for the watersports, we skipped going to see the Mausoleum (one of the seven wonders of the Ancient World), and the 2400 year old theater. Instead, to keep our word, we headed back toward the boat. The streets were more alive at that point, although the shopkeepers were much less pushy than in Rhodes.

We stopped for lunch along the water at Blanca Restaurant on Cumhuriyet Cad (Cad is Turkish for street). Carol and I shared a two person meal of lamb, gravy, mushrooms, peas, and corn cooked inside an amphora. They brought the amphora to the table, with a fire still burning below it. Then, they broke open the amphora (makes it hard to reuse!) and served the dish. It was the tastiest local dish we'd so far.

Once we got back to the boat, Maddy, Torie and I headed down for a quick swim off the lowered back deck. The watersports guy then fired up the speedboat and took the girls tubing. It was a lot of fun for them as the water was rough and they got going quite fast, with huge bounces in the air. (I rode along in the boat, bouncing along.)

Julia had come down at some point, so we got her on the boat as well. At one point when Torie was riding bounced six feet above the water before slamming her down. Another time, Maddy got almost as high. Julia did not find the tubing as much as the other two.

I intrepidly took a ride, although I didn't last as long as the girls did. I actually took the last tubing ride of the day, as the waves were getting quite choppy as the wind picked up. Mark, the watersports guy from Australia, shut down the tubing. We headed back and went for a brief swim, but the current had grown so strong it was deemed unsafe. Poor Carol was all set for a swim, but when she saw how strong the current was, she wisely changed her mind.