Happy Thanksgiving! If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of the world. If you have money in the bank, your wallet, and some spare change you are among the top 8% of the words’s wealthy. […]
We had been looking forward to Georgian wines since we had our last sip of Italian Nero d’Avila. To our disappointment, most of the stores in Georgia stocked plenty of beer, vodka and juices, but rarely wines. Much of the table wine we found in the country was either homemade or produced by wineries and sold in 5-liter plastic containers. It was invariably on the sweet side. This was not Napa Valley, where there is a winery every couple of miles advertising their wine-tasting rooms, tours and picknick facilities.
It was a crisp morning in Cappadocia. Like melting butter, the warm sun was just oozing across the bizarre landscape. People of Göreme discovered that soft rock could be carved into houses. How imaginative! We explored the area on foot and in a hot air balloon.
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 […]
Leaving the illusion of “safe” EU countries, we headed toward the border of Turkey with some trepidation. Crossing into a new country is always a little exciting, but Turkey is on a different level. A new language that was not part of Monika’s repertoire; A new religion; The first Muslim country we had visited in many years; New foods; Great memories of my last two adventures in Turkey. We filled up our fuel tanks and Jerry cans in Greece with the anticipation of $8.00 a gallon diesel.
