Travelling in Turkey

Well it is Sunday morning and we are in a sleepy fishing village called Amastra on the Black Sea. We watched the small fishing boats go out with their nets for red mullet. Tiny fish we would call sprats. Coast guard boats come into a navel military base by our hotel. Breakfast consisted of white cheese, tomatoes, boiled eggs, cucumber, cake and beautiful bread. I thought we would have apple tea at meal times but they give you earl grey unless you specially ask for it. Believe you me it is yummy. All tea is served in small handless glass cups on a saucer with a couple of sugar lumps. Sometimes it is yellow and other times its red depending on the apples it's from. Apparently it is made from a powder so I'll have to go looking.

In Amastra once again the evidence of a Roman fortress was apparent. We spent time wandering the markets. Women were selling homemade walnut, strawberry and loqurt jams. Lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, onions and grape leaves by the bag full. Another interesting thing was bags of pink roses for people to make rose jam. We bought some strawberries held in small baskets. As we didn't want more than a handfull the lady weighed them and put them in a plastic bag and charged us 2lL. We washed them with our drinking water and ate them. They were a bit tasteless.

Our next stop was Safronbolu where we found an ancient cave home that had been used by the Ottamans. It was hidden up in the hills and quite a climb up a flight of stairs. The township is famous for its old style Ottaman housing which looked like mud poked into a wooden frame and covered with mud. Most houses are 3 stories high so the animals are kept in the bottom.

From here we travelled 6 hours and approx 600km to Urgup. Almost all of this time we passed fields of wheat. It looked like a patchwork quilt of small fields all at different stages of growth. There were no fences, no animals and very few houses apart from the cities we travelled through. Traffic was good, roads were mostly 2 or 4 lane highways. Travel speeds were fast. Our driver likes to travel very fast but so do all the other people. There are very few old cars just a tractor or two going the wrong way up the street. We by-pass Ankara.