Brucato's Turkey3: Arrived in Kayseri!

Hello!

Up this morning about 7:30 am to a very overcast kind of day. According to the weather reports we have been checking, it looked to be raining in Kayseri and starting to snow in Corum – and I was a bit concerned about making the four hour drive between the two cities in bad weather.

Heading into Kayseri

We had breakfast downstairs about 8, and were in the car and heading out of town by about 9 am. The Anitta, a very, very nice hotel; we will miss it!

Our room at the Hilton Kayseri

View from our window

More view from our window!

It turned out to be an interesting and somewhat difficult drive to Kayseri. The road went up in altitude, the temperatures got colder, and there was a fair amount of snow on the ground and on the roads. It seemed like the snow plows were already out, and the roads had a lot of grit on them; we never really had any problems, other than the fact that our car had no fluid to wash windows – and our windows were very quickly a mess! We did stop and get some fluid added, and that seemed to help somewhat. [Except that the plastic reservoir to hold the window washing fluid seems to be cracked, so most of what we poured in ran out onto the ground! – R] At any rate, slow and steady was our pace, and we got to Kayseri somewhere around 1:30 pm. Our Hilton Hotel is right smack dab in the middle of town, which at least gives us some latitude for eating and shopping and seeing the sights! We have a lovely king room on the 8^th floor, and overlook the main mosque in town, as well as the Kale (castle), with the mountains (snow covered!) in the background.

Got everything into our room, and decided we would head to the local mall and see if we could find some (late) lunch. First, though, we had another shipment of laundry to go out – this may go down in history as the trip-with-the-most-expensive-laundry, but some things just needed to get done, and we are using points for many of the Hilton and Hilton-related hotels.

Center of town; Kale (castle) in the background

Mosque across the street

Our tram!

(Oh! And while we do have Eurosport 2 in our room, we do NOT have Eurosport 1, so we may be out of luck for any more Australian tennis on TV!) I did inquire at the desk if by any chance the hotel had a self-service washer and dryer, and of course, no such luck! So … outside with Emmy, our GPS, as well as a map we had received from the desk.

To say that it wasn’t really all that easy to get oriented to which direction was is an understatement, but eventually we did find our way to one of the two shopping malls in town. R took photos of the outside, and the inside really looked like any other shopping mall in the U.S. except many of the women were wearing headscarves. It actually was quite mild (about 40 degrees F) and pleasant outside, so we very much enjoyed the walk. Up on the third floor, and voila! My very favorite fast food, Arby’s! Nobody there spoke a word of English, but with the help of photos and a few words we’re picking up, we were able to get the lunch we wanted – me with an Arby’s classic and R with an Arby’s “special” sandwich, which he very much enjoyed.

Forum Kayseri shopping center

More Forum Kayseri

We walked through a few stores – a toy store, which was fun, and a book store – but the bookstore was SO crowded and hot, that we decided against staying. Back out into the weather, which was growing cloudier, and decided to take the tram back to the hotel.

After our experience in Eskisehir with needing to find a ticket kiosk, I looked for one that was marked bilet (ticket) and sure enough, that was the right place! We got two tickets that actually worked, and in a few minutes, we were on the tram heading back to the hotel. It stops very close to the hotel, and in a few minutes we were back here. Now that we know which way the trams run, I think they will be fun to take.

Lunch at the mall!

Dinner at the hotel!

Tomorrow we plan on seeing town things, including Kayseri’s archeological museum, where I believe I first spotted a Hittite bathtub several years ago! That is, providing that the weather is still good for being outside. The prediction is for 1-3 inches of snow, so if it’s really awful outside, we will probably just spend the day reading and napping and watching the cold weather go by! How ambitious does that sound? Oh well! More later!

xxx

We had dinner on the 12^th floor in the hotel’s restaurant-with-a-view. The menu was a bit limited, we thought, but the food was excellent! We started by sharing a mezze platter – all sorts of good things that we like, but before we had done justice to the platter, our main courses arrived – pasta for both – tortellini with basil cream sauce for me, and penne arribiata for Robert.