Tag Archives: site

A Turkey Tale 2

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As documented in last Sunday’s post, we were having a quick, slightly off-season break in sunny Turkey, based in the pleasant coastal town of Cesme in a lack-lustre, budget hotel.

I’d had a week in Turkey a few years before and had taken a mini excursion to Ephesus and Pamukkale, an experience I was happy to repeat and knew Husband would like. The trip would be by coach, with a tour guide. It would also mean a stopover in a hotel, providing us [hopefully] with a break from Donna Summer’s ‘Hot Stuff’, our Cesme hotel pool man’s obsession.

There are various ways to visit archaelogical sites. You can do your own thing, either with or without a guide book, but you will miss out on a wealth of historical background. You can take up an offer of one of those audio-guides that hangs around your neck, although more often than not the narration will be out of sync with the points of interest [this often happens on open-top bus tours] or the sound will give up half way round. Then there are tour guides, who may be earnest, well-meaning and deathly dull or knowledgable and entertaining. On this occasion we got lucky and our guide, Uys was charming and urbane, maximising our experience of exploring beautiful Ephesus by feeding us interesting stories and giving us plenty of time to wander by ourselves, too.

It is an extensive site, notable for the remains of its iconic library and a stunning paved road, lined with roadside columns and statues and all well worth a visit.

Though I harboured no expectations of the hotel we were to overnight in it was a vastly different experience to our Cesme place, a vision in marble with a grand entrance lobby and rooms spread throughout the grounds. There was also a buffet style dinner which was more than adequate. We were able to relax and chat with Uys, our tour guide, who seemed more than happy to socialise.

The second day of our trip consisted of a visit to Pammukale, a stunning natural formation of calcium pools that cascade down a mountainside. I’d visited before, when none of it was fenced off and visitors could wander down and in and out of the warm, cloudy water in the saucer-shaped pools as they pleased. By the time I went with Husband the powers that be had grown wise and cordoned off the majority of it, leaving just one or two areas for a paddle or a bathe. Before I’d ever visited Turkey I’d never heard of Pammukale and I’ve subsequently wondered why it isn’t much better-known, as it is a natrual wonder of the world!

Above Pammukale lie the ruins of Hierapolis and a hotel where we lunched after swimming in the warm, sulphorous waters of its pool, among columns and relics long fallen. To swim in such a place leaves a lasting memory. We journeyed back to Cesme and I was struck by the vast amount of ancient history, aged architectural remains strewn around in the open, uncatalogued and unremarked.

The Only Brits in the Kommune

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Behind Husband, as he waited for a barman to appear and furnish him with a beer, a giant of a German loomed. This was on North Germany’s coast-a strange but likeable portion of seaside, stripy, canopied, wicker seats for couples dotting the grassy foreshore and a jolly collection of recycled, metal containers standing in as ice cream booths and beach bars. The portly German sported a bristling moustache and wore a checked shirt stretched around his girth, baggy shorts, bulbous, reddened calves and feet splayed in plastic flip flops. He clapped an arm around Husband’s shoulders, leaning over him as if to swallow him up.

‘VOT’, he bellowed, ‘Are you doing HERE?’

It was a good question. We were, as we have been for the last few weeks, the ‘only Brits in the village’. We were in transit to Denmark at the time, wanting only a night’s stopover before the crossing. Having travelled for miles in the quiet countryside it was a shock to find the sites full to bursting with holidaying Germans, their receptions closed by six pm. We’d been lucky to get a place.

As we’ve continued north through Denmark and into Norway we’ve been almost the only British visitors, except for once or twice spotting British plates amongst the traffic and once meeting a British couple on a desolate piece of waste-ground by a lake, [posing as a site] in an anonymous Swedish town as we travelled south again.

At the top of Geirangar Fjord, as we prepared to descend via the series of hairpin bends that is the road down, a miniature cruise ship, plastic-white against the green water dominates the view. That is where the British tourists are-enjoying Norway ‘best seen from the water’ as Brother [the cruise addict] informs me by email.

In Scandinavia, road tourists are dominated by Scandinavians themselves, followed by a heavy German presence, a fair number of Dutch [as usual], some Swiss, a few Polish and Czechs, the occasional Finn. We’ve seen a Russian, a couple of Austrians and French, one or two Lithuanians. But only one other British couple to speak to, briefly as we perused a piece of wasteland masquerading as a town site. We moved on to lovelier surroundings [not because of the British couple!].

As something of a novelty, many are keen to chat to us, perhaps to demonstrate their [undeniable] prowess in English or they are eager to tell us where they’ve been in the UK. A Danish couple stop in their attempt to attach an awning to their new, dinky, teardrop caravan to eulogise on its attributes and to share their touring adventures. A German couple tell us of their visits to England-Cornwall, Bath, Salisbury, Wales-everyone has been very helpful to them. I am startled by this revelatory snippet-the same as an American told me en route from Harwich to the Netherlands. Kind and helpful? We Brits? We of the stiff-upper-lips and standoffishness? Who would have thought it?