Two weeks in Turkey!

Sharman and I spent two weeks in Turkey late June/early July: Three days in Istanbul seeing the impressive big sites, three days in Trabzon at a conference, hosted very kindly by the family of my doc student Aysenur, then another week touring sites in a rental car.

 

Here we are overlooking Trabzon. And here is a nearby monastery, which we visited along with Aysenur's father and brother.

More pics to follow.

Driving in Turkey was a blast! I hesitated after seeing people's raised eyebrows, and the drivers in the narrow Istanbul streets. But everyone was very aware on the roads, with tractors and overloaded hay tracks driving alongside new vehicles going 120 km/hr. Sharman and Garmin were great navigators, and we only rarely got lost!

Money was another adventure - our debit and credit cards seemed to work about half the time, which was enough to get us home safely, but only barely!

The Turkish people were amazing - good solid hard-working people with good family values. It took me 12 days before I found one I didn't like (a restauranteur being mean to his waitress!). We miss you Turkey; hope to get back to visit sometime!