We are on our way!

Hello!

Not my idea of breakfast...

My favorite traveling companion!

Up this morning after an excellent night’s sleep, but we both realized that we still have a ways to go to recover from jet lag.  Fortunately, for me at least, I am sleeping well – just not enough of it yet!  If we hadn’t been picking up the car this morning, I think I could have gone on sleeping for a few more hours.  Oh well!  Up at 7 and showered (fabulous shower, even though I’m really a bathtub kind of girl…) and down to breakfast at 8 am. 

Our entry hall with TV and bathroom

Bedroom with lots of windows!

Bedroom looking at desk area

Bed, obviously -- lots of pillows!

One of our marble bathrooms!

Unfortunately, the Hampton Inn’s breakfast was in no way up to our “usual” Turkey breakfast!  Lots of cheese and olives and mystery meat, but not much else in the way of hot food or choices, and no honey comb at all!  So, we made due, and then got our coats on for the walk across the street to find the rental car.

The building pointed out to us was actually only about a five-minute walk from the hotel, which was good, even though crossing the road in two locations was pretty tricky, as we were dealing with traffic circles and not lights and crossings.  Even better was the fact that there was someone in the lobby who was nice enough to show us up to the third floor, and then right to the right office.  Not sure in what state we found things – I mean, two very nice and very modern buildings right next to each other, but for the most part, fairly deserted and still under construction.  We found ourselves in an apartment kitchen – minus the fridge and microwave, but it was set up as an office.  Did the paperwork fairly quickly, and were taken down to the car.  Well … not only did it have a caved in trunk, when we opened the doors, it was absolutely FILTHY inside!  Empty water bottles and food containers, and dirt and gravel all over everything!  So, back upstairs to say: Sorry, not good enough, and a second try.  We now have a white (seems like every rental car in Turkey and Greece is white…very boring!) 4-door Peugeot with great luggage space; drives and shifts beautifully.  This vehicle was at least presentable, so off we went, back to the hotel.  Our luggage had all been packed, so we basically pulled up in front, checked out of the hotel, and we were on our way to Eskisehir. 

We had been through Eskisehir once before, to see their archeological museum, which is excellent, but have never stayed here.  Our usual place was in Kutahya, about half an hour away.  However, in the belief that change and new things are good, we booked in to the Divan Express hotel. 

The drive here was about four hours, and we used a mixture of both toll and non-toll highways.  We are fairly high up on the plateau now, as there is evidence of snow on the ground; mainly, I think, what has been piled up so far, because the temperature was in the low 40’s.  Very gray and cloudy for the most part, but sometimes the sun would break out and we could see some stunning scenery along the way.  We stopped for sandwiches and coke about 1:30 pm as I was getting a bit tired from driving; Robert slept most of the way here!  Arrived at the Divan Express about 2:30 pm.

We were able to park right in front of the hotel, and a very nice young man helped us in with our luggage.  Very attractive lobby area; hotel looks very nice.  (Researching hotels is one of my very favorite pastimes – sometimes you can hit a home run, and occasionally you hit a foul ball … which would this be?)

No idea what this is!

Fish market

Cakes!!

Just beautiful!

Really a lovely store!

Well, when we opened the door of room 311, it was actually a Grand Slam home run!  They upgraded us from a deluxe room to a suite – and as you can see by the photos, we have a huge great curving wall of windows – and two, not one, full marble bathrooms!  Whoopee!  (Still no tub, but I’m just going to have to get used to it.)  The amazing thing, though, is that we are paying something on the order of $75 US per night!!

We got everything inside, and settled in for a bit.  Robert got the computer set up and I decided to sort out the laundry.  (Yes, folks, there will be laundry done on this trip…)  We are here for two nights, so I will send laundry out tomorrow; it’s supposed to be back tomorrow night!!  Not really cheap, but not paralyzingly expensive either.  That will enable us to get through Ankara and Hattusha and to Kayseri before we need it done again.  So …

We both decided that it was about time for naps, and are now just up from about an hour and a half rest.  We’ve got Eurosport on one of our two big-screen TV’s (seriously, this place is huge and nice and warm!) and I’m agitating for a trip to the grocery store across the street.  It’s not that we need anything, but I always enjoy walking around foreign grocery stores!  Then, dinner at the hotel here tonight I think.

Tomorrow, I have not one but two plans, depending on the weather.  Plan one involves the museum in the morning, and then a drive out into the country and back through Kutahya.  Plan two involves touring Eskisehir’s old quarter and market areas and the museum, just not driving out into the country.  I’d rather do plan 1, but if the weather is cold/rainy/snowy, we might have to turn to Plan 2.  We’re flexible!

So, to close now and head across the street to the grocery store!  More later!

m

xxx

Hello!  We’re back!  What a fabulous grocery store – and we think it also leads into some sort of shopping mall.  It was such fun, looking around.  I got some wonderful, colorful bandaids, Kleenex and skin cream (it’s dry here!) as well as an ice scraper … the latter, just in case … hopefully!  At any rate, we had a good look around – up and down most of the aisles.  They did have truly industrial strength sizes of capers, Nutella and strawberry jam!  Truly, we like capers but wouldn’t go through that many in a year or two!  Now the Nutella is definitely another story …

Me and a wine glass!  Surprise!

Bread and olive tapenade

Lovely folks at the front desk, and great lighting!

Finished up at the store, and headed back across the street to our hotel and dinner.  We started with olive bread with olive oil (for dipping) and an olive tapenade; it was wonderful!  Then, for dinner, R ordered their spicy lentil soup followed by lamb skewers (without the skewers), served with onions and sumac.  I ordered the tomato with basil oil soup, followed by their rocket salad (arugula) with tomato and slices of parmesan.  Excellent!  For dessert, I ordered their profiterole with vanilla ice cream in chocolate sauce.  LOTS of dark chocolate sauce; not too much ice cream.  This was all washed down with three glasses of wonderful Turkish red wine and a large bottle of sparkling water … all to the tune of something like $42 US.  Incredible!  Come to Turkey for the food and hotels!!

So, back upstairs to our wonderful suite, and will post and get to bed.  NO alarm setting tomorrow morning and we’ll see how we do! 

Lots and lots of love!

m

xxx

Footnote from Robert: All of the references (the time zone setting on the computer, etc.) say that the time in Turkey is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) + 2 hours, but when we flew from London to Istanbul, we had to shift our clocks by 3 hours and I could not understand the discrepancy. 

R's spicy lentil soup

My tomato & basil oil soup

R's lamp skewer without skewer

My rocket salad with tomato and parmesan

Profiterole with sliver of ice cream and LOTS of chocolate!

Here is the story: In 2016, Turkey, like the rest of Europe, went on to daylight time, which meant Turkey time was GMT + 3 hours.  In September, however, when the rest of Europe went back to standard time, Turkey did not.  Hence, Turkey time stays at GMT + 3 hours all year.  Now I understand!  No wonder the little devices are confused!