Cathleen & Colleen in Turkey  

Turkey exceeded our expectations and dazzled us with its natural wonders, friendly people, awesome archaeology sites and 5 star meals.    

We're ardent Grecophiles and very much aware that large swaths of Turkey, particularly the west coast, was Greek territory for years and years.  The Greeks still call Istanbul Constantinople which was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the center of the Greek Orthodox Church.  So there was just a bit of skeptism that this country could win our hearts.  But it did in so many departments and often in surprising ways.  

Turkey is a Muslim country with the haunting sound (to Western ears) of the muezzin call to prayer reverberating five times a day in your aural space.  Yet, unlike other Islamic countries, only once did we witness someone praying in public. In western Turkey we rarely saw women fully covered, although the headscarf was ubiquitous.  The protective "evil eye" was everywhere, including on crass commercial items like the magnets in the above banner photo. 

Although the trip ended two days early on a catastrophic note with Colleen's accident, otherwise our Tour de Turkey was a smashing success.   

All photos by Colleen 

We encourage you to click open each page's photo gallery -- the pictures are so much livelier in a larger size and many are captioned.   

    Destinations Itinerary, 2011

        October 15    Istanbul
        
        October 16    Istanbul
        
        October 17    Istanbul
        
        October 18    Capadoccia
        
        October 18    Capadoccia
        
        October 19    Capadoccia
        
        October 20    Capadoccia
        
        October 21    Selcuk - Ephesus
        
        October 22    Kapikiri 
        
        October 23    Bodrum
        
        October 24    Bodrum
        
        October 25    Pamukkale
        
        October 26    Pamukkale 
        
        October 27    Afrodisias - Aydin
         
        October 28    sudden return to Athens