6^th May

Goodbye to Turkey and hello to Greece...

Our time in Kusadasi is a wonderful farewell to Turkey encompassing most of what I love about this friendly openhearted country.

We stop at the car hire in Selcuk and the driver there takes us on to Kusadasi – it's not far, but such a blessing not to have to drive through the busy part of Kusadasi to our hotel right on the port. Aaahh back to our old friends at Mr Happy’s Limon Hotel – it's like a home away from home. We have our old room over the port, but with a lovely new bathroom (very plush) and are soon enjoying cold drinks on the wonderful rooftop being fussed over by dear Omar.

We spend the afternoon wandering the old quarter after a very filling authentic lunch in a back street ($7.50 each!). I love the banter and the smiling warm people. Even Mitch is slowly more comfortable with the general good-natured hustle on the streets.

Back to the rooftop for sunset drinks (and what a sunset over the little island castle!) but the restaurant is not happening yet (too early in the season) so Omar orders in for us – not pizza but pide – pretty close to it… with good red wine it’s great!

7^th May

Up early for the famous Limon Hotel breakfast and then off to the ferry (Hassan has already bought our tickets) and it’s good-bye to dear dear Turkey… we’ll be back!

Smooth trip to Samos, pick up the car and off to Pythagorion and the Tarsanas Hotel, not plush but all we need and right on the water, AND with one of the best restaurants on the island right below – Lefteris, the chef makes his own bread and does magic things with everything he touches. We ate there last time and swore to come back.

Three days in Samos go buy quickly and enjoyably. Driving around the island in the spring is fantastic; it’s so green and lush with wildflowers everywhere, some colourful and some so fragrant it’s overwhelming. The street right outside our hotel is lined with trees with small white flowers reminiscent of mock orange.

We drive up into the hills to eat country food in a tiny square shaded by a spreading mulberry tree and drive to the far other side to feast on fresh seafood by the water in a tiny fishing village. The mulberry trees deserve a comment – in many of the squares they prune them heavily and shape them to provide a beautiful canopy as the lush growth returns in the spring – full shade in the heat of summer and then the leaves fall and in winter the sun shines through. In some places they wire the branches to shape them but this place had filled bottles with sand and tied them to the outstretched branches to weigh them down (just have to watch your head). I think we’ll try something with the mulberry tree in Red Hill – it makes the fruit easier to pick too.

I hear they serve sea urchin in Samos and have always wanted to try it since Anthony Bourdain raved about it on one of his travel/cooking shows. I try to find some unsuccessfully until I mention it to George our (sometimes too) talkative host. He makes what may or may not have been a huge effort and comes up with some for our last night. Served with lemon and olive oil, they are delicious!! That night the restaurant also offers live Greek music so we have a huge meal and a jolly time – a fitting end to our time here. Fortunately it finishes early enough for us old folks to get some sleep for the 08.30 ferry to Ikaria.

11^th May

The day of departure is windy and chilly and the ferry is a catamaran – oh dear… I get so sick and even Mitch is very ‘quiet’. It’s not a pretty sight when I arrive and throw up all over the port but a friendly tourist who has gone through it herself saves me with iced water and eventually I’m together enough to hit the road in our little hire car. Unfortunately the road twists and turns as we climb to the top of the island and down the other side… aaarrrggghhh I am so glad we are flying out from this island – couldn’t face that ferry again for a while.

Ikaria is a completely different experience from Samos and Turkey – it’s wild and uninhabited for the most part. The villages we pass through are often just a church and 4-6 houses and in the middle of the day there are few people around (we’ve heard many of them only rise at 4.00pm and then stay up till the wee hours). We’re heading for the ‘biggest’ tourist area of Armenistis but stop on the way at the lovely little port of Evdilos. I would have happily stayed a night here but the boys prefer to go on to the final place and settle in.

There we find Armenistis Studios right on the rocks over crashing seas with a beach on either side – lovely sandy stretches, but the sea is quite rough and the wind is strong and I don’t feel even slightly tempted. The studio is good though (and only E25) and Mitch takes the apartment upstairs too. We have huge balconies right over the sea – not unlike the Moffat Beach balcony if truth be told, but lower and closer to the water. We cook at home the first night - a simple pasta but with local olives, lots of garlic and herbs picked in the ruins of Teos in Turkey (oregano) and by the side of the road here (fresh fennel) – with Samos wine it’s as good as any restaurant (or so the boys say…)

12^th May

We wind our way up steep roads to a tiny monastery where it is said a young girl who had escaped from Ottoman pirates found refuge in a cave under a huge rock. Very dramatic and quite beautiful and the views from the road up are stunning. We eat over Nas Beach and climb down to the old hippy haunt with its 5^th century BC temple of Artemis and Tom goes skinny dipping in the cool green lagoon.

13th May 

Next day it's off to a local winery (Afianes) up another long and winding
(and pretty rough, but very scenic) road and we meet up with all the
folk from our hotel (all six of us).

Our host and owner of the winery, Nikos, is a delight, full of
fascinating tales of how wine was made thousands of years ago here on
Ikaria in amphorae buried in the ground. He makes about 1000 bottles
a year with this ancient method himself, but the bulk of his prize
winning wine is made in more traditional stainless steel vats. We see
the whole process, from stomping the grapes in what looks like a
stone hot tub, to bottling, and we taste a few varieties - it's all very
jolly but we Aussies are a bit fussy about our wines and these are a
bit thin for us - we don't buy....

We cook at home again, chicken casserole with lots of locally picked
herbs and garlic. It's absolutely delicious and we both admit to
having more comfortable tummies when we cook at home. Not sure why,
perhaps it's eating a little less, or not so much bread or maybe it's
that we eat things fresh instead of some that have been around for a
while? Who knows? Anyway we enjoy the whole trip of shopping and
preparation so we'll continue to alternate restaurant food and our
own.

14th May

Next
morning we have our first real swim of the trip and it's gorgeous. We
spend a happy couple of hours down on the long stretch of white sand
next to our studio with a tiny blue and white chapel (probably St
Nikolaus since it's at a port) on the point at the end. The water is
pretty freezing but I tell myself it's like an ice pack for the sore
joints... 

After a quick lunch of toast, vegemite and avocado (no not available here, we brought it from home), we load up and head out to the special event of our visit, the Panagyri at Agios Isidoros. This is a special feast day of Saint Isidoros and there are said to be about 100 of the every year – lots of saints and lots of churches The devout go to mass in the morning and then do special prayers for the dead, the rest of us come for the party – and such a party it is! This one is held at a church far away down a bad dirt road, but still hundreds and hundreds of people come (and when we are leaving at about 6.00pm there are more arriving). Enormous trays are filled with food and wine, braised goat, salad, tzatziki and herbed fetta and plastic bottles of local village wine (we love it!), followed by such desserts!!!! The Greeks really do desserts well! Too well!

Then the music and dancing starts – when people have drunk enough to let go of their inhibitions and need to work off some of the eating – another couple of glasses of wine and I'd have joined in myself, had there been room. The tiny square in front of the even tinier church is soon completely filled with happy people winding joining armas and dancing in a huge spiral... such fun!

A restful evening at home in Armenistis to prepare for the tortuous road back across the island.

15th May 

Last day in Ikaria ( tomorrow we fly to Athens and the next day on to
Karpathos). We spend the morning driving across the island through
some stunning scenery on some truly awful roads, getting a wee bit
lost but eventually reaching the main town Agios Kyrikos. The
mountains are amazing, rugged and inhospitable and yet there are
signs of a farming and grazing everywhere, even on the harshest
slopes.

Agios Kyrikos is an odd town, pretty scruffy with lots of closed up houses
and derelict cars... We suspect families have packed up and gone to
America leaving whatever they owned behind. We find rooms over the
square at Isabella's Rooms which, at E25 for a single and E30 for a
small double (with a teeny bathroom) is pricey without breakfast, but
there is little choice and the hot spring town of Therma nearby is
very empty and definitely looks like it has seen better days. 

Still the room is fine, the bed good and we can wait for a shower until
Athens tomorrow. It's good to sit over the square and watch the
village life go by. In the evening Tom and I eat leftovers on our
balcony and the town is jumping. Families throng, men sit and drink,
children run around with footballs (dangerous missiles in this
enclosed place), whizz around on bikes or queue to buy ice creams,
girls walk around arm in arm, phones to their ears, teenagers sneak
off, goodness knows where. Must be a soccer game on - everyone is in
town and there is much cheering from the cafes with big screens. Then
after the biggest roar, we decide it is over and the town erupts in
fireworks and huge explosions - I guess their team won... Fortunately
by 9.15 it seems to be all over and the square gradually quietens
down to a dull roar. It's not an island with lots to do, the footy
match is probably the excitement for the week/month... 

Ikaria has been an interesting adventure, definitely much less touristy than
anywhere we have been before but also for me not quite as attractive.
They say it's a place you love or hate but I am certainly not at
either of these extremes but I don't mind a few tourists and the
conveniences and enjoyments they bring. 

The little Ikarian villages we heard so much about do not seem as
charming as those on other islands (like Lesvos and Crete or even
Chios and Samos – not to mention Naxos). And I am not the kind of
traveller who wants to be right out of the way, alone on a deserted
beach, or tucked away in a village...

The land itself is amazing however, such contrasts, green lush valleys
with spreading chestnut trees, herbs growing from every stony wall,
huge gorges with even the occasional waterfall, stoney mountainsides
where huge boulders pile up on each other like children's blocks. 

I'm glad we came but it's unlikely we will be rushing to return... 

Back to Greece again... this time arriving through Turkey.

2nd May 2015

Whoo hoo business class at last! After a quite pleasant if unexciting trip (economy) Brisbane to Istanbul with a four hour stop in Singapore we look like having five hours wait in Istanbul domestic airport but are lucky enough to make it in time for the earlier flight and, although we are waitlisted and behind other people, we get on! Except that I have to go business class on my own... a bit of a pity to have business class on a flight that is less than one hour but I guess anything is better than nothing. I did enjoy the service and the lovely little meal. Atlasglobal were kind enough to upgrade me without any extra charge. It’s a good, no frills airline (well in economy anyway) with great prices and free shuttles to many places – as far as Denizli from Izmir. We take their comfy shuttle down to Selcuk.

Singapore Airlines was a wee disappointment after all the praise and expectations. The first leg (Brisbane to Singapore) was lovely, but the long haul from Singapore to Istanbul was an older plane and quite lacklustre service – definitely not their usual standard.

But now we are back in lovely laid back Selcuk and it feels great. Tom is walking around with a silly grin – he loves it here. We settle in to the Urkmez Hotel, friendly and comfy and right in the centre of town looking out over the castle and the ancient aqueducts where the storks nest, meet up with Mitch (with whom we have travelled a little before) and it feels great. Soon we are happily tucking into the liver specialty at our favourite restaurant when a scooter stops right next to us and it is Robert, an Englishman Tom met through Tripadvisor… pretty amazing that he drove through the mall and just knew the three tourists sitting there must be us.

After our delicious meal (followed by the very best local fresh Ayran I have ever tasted) we meet up with Robert at his favourite bar (Smyrna’s – right under our hotel) for drinks and a good chat. He is quite the local expert and so kind giving his time to a group of pretty well unknown tourists.

3rd May 2015
Next morning (after nearly 10 hours of deep sleep) we meet on the rooftop for the fabulous Urkmez breakfast – definitely above and beyond… it’s lucky we are not staying too long, I’d have to start working out. Then it’s off to the beautifully restored site of St John’s Basilica, reputedly where he wrote his bible and where he was buried, where we love the ambience and the roses and other beautiful scents. It’s great being here in the spring!! And the castle is now open to the public so trudge on up and enjoy a bit of an explore (although just a wee bit frustrated by how much we are not allowed to walk on, especially the steep stairs up to the ramparts).

Then we do a quick once through the newly renovated museum – yes it deserves more, it is really quite an astounding museum and beautifully laid out - but we’ve all been there before and more delights await elsewhere.

Across the road we meet up with friend Robert again, this time with an old friend who is a professor in Istanbul – and terribly terribly knowledgeable. It’s great to hear all about the progress on sites in the area – and about their take on current Turkish politics – but soon Robert whisks us away to a little known, very exciting site called Magnesia. There are a few bits and pieces of old buildings as we enter but the big attraction is the stadium. We wander in from the bottom, and then stand in awe when it appears. It is absolutely huge! It is only recently being excavated and restored and it is believed it held up to 45,000 people. It was covered by the hillside in an ancient earthquake and even now tends to silt up again in the heavy winter rains. With Robert as our guide we scramble over the partly exposed stadium, being shown inscriptions which tell us where the guilds sat together, carvings showing the different sports engaged in here and the prizes given out so long ago. It’s so good to have such a guide… it brings it all alive.

Next morning, after a chaotic start with ATMs and the car hire people, we are eventually on the road again… off north in our little Fiat Alba towards the very Turkish coastal village of Sigacik (pronounced see-hah-chik as we eventually discover) with a stop at Claros site along the way. Claros was the site of an important temple of Apollo where there was a very respected oracle. Everyone asked her advice about all manner of things, even the barbarians were able to use her (I assume for a good price). Most of the site is submerged at this time of the year and it’s lovely to see the temple outlines under the green water.

4th May

Sigacik turns out to be delightful once we find our way past the rather brash new town and find the little old town behind crumbling walls - white washed (recently renovated) little houses, narrow cobbled streets and a very authentic square under spreading trees. We settle in to the Teos Pansiyon on the waterfront with a view of the fishing boats and the little harbour fort – life’s good!

5th May 

We don’t expect a great deal of the ancient site of Teos next morning – people had said there was little there but it was a nice wander in the fields anyway… well there must have been a lot of work done recently, because it’s great. We visit the acropolis, a great amphitheatre, the bouliterion (like a smaller theatre where the citizens would meet to discuss and vote) and the immense temple of Dionysus – all very impressive amidst fields of wild flowers and almost deserted. The land is so rich the clover is about 2 feet high and we share the fields with fat goats and countless bees. We wander for hours and finally go on to the little nearby beach for a good seafood lunch. A highly recommended outing at the moment and it will only get better as more and more work is done.

Back to Selcuk and on to Kusadasi tomorrow – Sigacik and Teos have been a lovely excursion!