Once when I was visiting a small village in a remote area of Iran I remember watching a young girl, maybe she was 12 or 13, sitting on a dirt floor in a small room, nearly in the dark because there was no electricity. She was painstakingly weaving on a loom, one thread at a time, carefully tying a knot and then trimming it to the correct length.

Ephesus, the Ancient City in Anatolia. Sorry, more ruins, but really, this one is amazing. Aside from its physical presence, its history is fascinating.

Arriving at the deserted parking area of the ancient city of Aezani we were first greeted by the local tourist dog. We bargained for permission to park for the night with a bowl of bread and milk and he immediately claimed us as his territory, sleeping outside The Turtle V the whole night and barking when any other dog approached.

The smell of fresh bread beckoned us into the bakery and close-by we discovered how the popular sesame bread rings called Simit sold throughout Turkey are prepared. The busy bakers invited us in and happily posed for photos. In the end, we were presented with a tasty Simit just pulled out of the oven.

Meerschaum, (German for foam of the sea), is a soft white clay mineral also known as sepiolite. Pure white Turkish meerschaum has been prized for centuries. The first recorded use for making pipes was around 1723. Our trail led us to the town of Eskişehir and then to the countryside where our search for meerschaum ended at a hole in the ground about 20 feet deep.

We are market junkies, and we’ve wandered through some of the best, but there is only one Grand Bazaar. Call it a “shopping mall” if you want to homogenize it, but Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar is much more. It started as a small market in 1455, and grew into an important trading center on the Silk Road, expanding into what must be considered a city within a city.

After a quick Shish Kebab on the street and a glass of fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice, we headed over to the astounding and fascinating Topkapı Palace and museum, home of the Ottoman Sultans for nearly 400 years.

Some of the most amazing examples of engineering and architecture in the world are places of worship. We had seen a few of the most impressive in Europe. Standing in a class by themselves are the imposing mosques of Istanbul, and we just happened to be camped beneath the most famous one, The Blue Mosque, (called Sultanahmet Camii in Turkish).

Problems!! Perhaps not critical or life threatening, but the convenience of having hot water without having to start the engine was addictive. When our 14-year-old Espar D5 Hydronic fluid heater, which could also preheat the engine on cold mornings and serve as a backup heater for the camper, started to have trouble firing up back in Greece, we were concerned.

With our truck safely parked on the edge of the Bosporus, we were a short walk from Sultanahmet Park and two of the most impressive mosques in the city, but our first stop was the famous Pudding Shop, a small café and restaurant that has hosted travelers for decades. Even Bill Clinton had stopped by in […]