What a stunningly beautiful day – and we haven’t even had dinner!

Hello!

We actually had a fairly quiet and peaceful night in Alanya, albeit cold, and seriously, it is such a beautiful city.  We’ve never been here before, somehow going inland and up toward Konya to look at Catal Hoyuk and then coming down into Mersin; skipped an entire section of the coast! 

Mega hotel along the coast!

Side Theatre

Glad we’ve remedied that, for sure! 

Up around 7 and neither of us opted for showers, even though there is a lovely, futuristic shower in the bathroom.  Down for breakfast about 8 am and once again, especially when we’re the only guests, there is WAY too much food!  We both had a cheese and spinach pastry that was delicious, and followed it up with cheeses and bread and fruit. 

Side Theatre

More theatre, looking at the stage

Main road through town!

The fresh orange juice was very refreshing! And no, thank you, no omelets or fresh yoghurt either! (We’re absolutely NO fun at all!)  Once again, they helped us getting the luggage to the car, and insisted we take a bag full of small fresh bananas that grow in their garden.  R says they are delicious! 

Apparently R had been worrying all night about me getting the car through the very narrow streets of the castle and gates and down to the flat, but it was no problem at all!  Not a great deal of traffic about 8:30-ish on a Friday morning.  However, one of the things that we did notice is that starting about four or five miles down the coast (going east) are the huge mega-resorts that we noticed last at Side.  If you want an interesting experience, follow the link:  https://www.utopiaworld.com.tr/en  and you will see some of what we’re talking about!  Utopia World!  Unfortunately, it seems that a great deal of the beautiful Mediterranean coastline is being covered up with these monstrosities.  Whole airplanes full of Brits and Russians and Scandawegians come and stay for weeks at a time and apparently, never leave the resort!  (Unless they are looking for a tattoo or piercing, of course.)  

Central agoura in town

Temple

Main street

So, with that said, we headed out of Alanya toward today’s goal of Antalya, with a stop at Side along the way.  (Side, by the way, pronounced See-day.)

We did remember Side from our last visit here.  It was an ancient port city, known for long beaches and Greco-Roman ruins. In the center are the remains of a 2nd-century theater, which seated up to 15,000. The white marble columns of the Hellenistic Temple of Apollo stand near the harbor and are quite beautiful.  There are basically ruins in the form of walls, arches, streets and mosaics sprinkled throughout the entire present city, with finds housed at the Side Museum, a restored Roman bath complex.  From what we could see, there are some areas still cordoned off that are under excavation, and seriously, the site is really large but the present day just continues all around it!  Rather fun! 

Nymphaeum

Love the columns!

We parked the car where we had parked the last time, and had a really good walk around.  We were actually even happy to note that there were other visitors (mainly German, we think) as well, although we did have the theatre to ourselves.

We stopped at the outskirts of town for sandwiches for lunch, and were – wait for it – even able to eat them OUTSIDE sitting at a table in the sunshine without our jackets on!!!!  Can you believe it?  Not sure I can! 

From there, it was about an hour more to Antalya.  The interesting thing about Antalya is Kaleiçi, which is the old town part of the city.  It is quite literally walled off from the rest of the city, with an occasional entrance or gate in the wall.  Last time we were here, we had a terrible time finding our hotel, because we didn’t know we had to enter through the ONE traffic gate into the area and go from there.  This time, we were able to find the White Garden Hotel all by ourselves, although once there, I was happy to hand over the car keys to one of the staff members.  (Seeing as how there was one car behind me, and one car in front of me heading toward me, and I was in the middle, unable to go either direction!)  Checked in, and were taken out the courtyard and around the corner to a separate building! 

White Garden apartment living room/kitchen

Bedroom

We have a lovely one bedroom apartment with kitchen and living room, and it is really lovely!  It also has not one but TWO heaters, that are working away now, and making it oh, so very comfortable in here!  (So there will not be complaining about the cold tonight, for which I am thankful and I’m sure you are too!) 

Tram and carriages

Whisk Brooms?

Chalcolithic pots

Robert set up the computer, and I started getting things arranged.  Even though it was past 2 pm we decided that we would revisit the Antalya Museum, and headed out. 

Street near our hotel; broken minaret in the background

Ruins of ancient building

In front of Hadrian's Gate!

We wandered over through Hadrian’s Gate (erected to celebrate his visit here many years ago!) and out into the modern part of the city.  Definitely modern, as there was a Burger King, McDonald’s and the ubiquitous Starbucks!  Found without any problems, the kiosk selling tram tickets, and got a pass for the two of us for two trips each, to the museum (which is at the end of the tram line) and back.  Then located the tram stop, and sat down to wait.  Quite interesting, watching all the people walking by; horses with carriages, motorcycles, bicycles, etc.  Tram eventually came (although there was some hold up with getting some of the horses and carriages out of the way!) and we boarded up and headed out!  The tram follows the top of the coast line, and soon we were at the last stop – the Museum!

Well!  To be honest, this museum is superb, and for some reason, neither of us remembers it from before!  Robert thinks that things have been rearranged or reorganized; I just think we must have been under museum overload at the time.  At any rate, the museum has a truly incredibly massive collection of wonderful sculpture from Perge and Letoon (mostly from Perge).  That and their sarcophagi collection are truly amazing.  It was interesting, though, reading some of the information provided in English.  Everyone from the Getty to a museum in Germany has returned parts and pieces of things that had been illegally smuggled out of Turkey from illegal excavations.  How, I ask you, does one smuggle a HUGE piece of rock out of a country?  Seems impossible to me, but then that’s probably because I don’t have the right criminal mind-set. 

Baby bottles!

Bull carving

Emperor Hadrian (my favorite!)

Oh well!  The museum was really terrific, and we enjoyed a very leisurely stroll.  We have decided, though, that we don’t need to return to Perge (we were there a couple of years ago) because most any and everything that was carved is now in the Antalya Museum.

Took the tram back to the old town, and were actually able to find our way back to the White Garden!  Yeah!  Problem is that when we leave the room, the key is attached to all the electricity in the apartment – which means that the heaters go off!  So, it was quite cool when we came back to figure out where we were going for dinner.  However, as R points out, it does come out quickly, so things, I am sure, will be nice and warm. 

Hadrian's favorite, Antinous

Stunning frieze from Perge

Sarcophagi

Lots and lots and lots of sarcophagi!

Paragliding, right outside the museum!  What fun!

Back to the flat, and I started blogging.  R looked up Tripadvisor, and found that the number one place for dinner would be Vanilla, an “international” restaurant – English chef husband and  his Turkish wife.  Not too far from the flat, so we thought we would take a look at the menu.  Found Vanilla, and the menu was very impressive.   As it was early, (we had no reservation) we asked if they could take us, and no problem!  We got a lovely table for two.  Lovely restaurant – simple furnishings, but comfortable and warm, with good music playing in the background at just the right volume.  We weren’t being blasted out! 

They started by bringing us a small cup of soup with bread as our amuse bouche.  Excellent!  For starters, we decided we would split the spicy prawns and the spring rolls.  Well … fabulous!  The only bad thing was that the shrimp came with all their parts – heads and all … but Robert, being the great guy that he is, took the heads off for me!  Just amazing – great batter, and nicely spiced – a bit messy, but I could certainly do that again!  The spring rolls were good, with a nice and spicy slaw, but not up to the shrimp, which were great!  For mains, R had their fish of the day – which turns out to be a cousin of sea bass, but served without head and tail this time, which was nice.  I got their roasted chicken on an eggplant puree; fabulous! 

Fountain down the center of street

Me at Vanilla

Amuse-bouche

Spicy Shrimp

Egg rolls and spicy slaw

My chicken on eggplant puree

R's Fish and veggies

R's poached pear

My chocolate semi-freddo!

Good night, All!

The vegetables – squares of potato, perfectly cooked carrots and a few other odds and ends were amazing!  We had a bottle of Turkish red wine, which was excellent, and desserts were great.   R had the poached pear in red wine and I had the chocolate semi-freddo (half frozen).  Wow!  Had such a nice time that we’ve reserved again for tomorrow night!  Can’t wait to see what we choose then!

Now back in the flat, and both heaters are going, and I’m about to get ready for bed!  Tomorrow we are going to do a guide-book guided walk, as well as look out Antalya’s “real” bazaar area…can’t wait!  So,  that’s it for now, from our nice and warm apartment!

Lots of love,

m

xxx