Istanbul

View from our Hotel Empress Zoe rooftop, note the loudspeakers on the minarrett(?), let's say you cannot miss the call to prayer

The Blue Mosque, the only one with 6 minurets (?), one upmanship to be better than the  Hyaf(?) Sofia across the way

Inside the Blue Mosque
One must be covered, male & female but sans shoes

Some of the detail in the mosaic tile work

The Grand Bazzar, where you can get anything you want, just like Alice's Restaurant 

It is so big that it has its own street map with specific districts, gold, leather, rugs and so on

Our Turkish rug purchase, Pave' has stories about this adventure

Where we didn't buy our rug because of the upsale to a Silk and trying to combine two rugs in the overall price, served nice tea though

Blue mosque again

Contemplation in the moment, one of those places you  need to see for yourself

Mosaic in the Hyaf Sofia, church turned mosque turned museum

Inside HS

Empress Zoe mosaic

 
Single piece of stone for this urn

Inside HS

Oour resting spot after a co-ed turkish bath
Ok let em explain this is my birthday and we were supposed to go to a special restaurant, after at least an hour and a half in hot stinking traffic we arrived at this place on the Bosphorus Straights.  Open up the wine menu and the first price I see is, wait now, 1,590 Euro and the prices get even better after that.  this is after we got moved due to ridiculous  cigar smokers right next to us.  needless to say we were unimpressed because we have better views back home in the Granville Island area and elsewhere. this is across the street from our hotel and my third Raki, Turkish ouzo or something.  I paid for it the next morning.  PS I like my B'day at home better.
Some Turkish coffee interspersed with the Raki

Inside HS

Inside HS

Inside Blue Mosque

Our street, is  a very fine street especially when Turkey scored on the Germans first, won the battle but lost the war

OH yes a very interesting dinner this was, note the food warmer in the middle of the plate

need a table no problem just put it out in traffic, you can't see it but the bush moves.  I don't think the Valkiree(?) was impressed.  she did have nice legs though

Anyone for a puffy papadam

 

Nessebar, that is OLD Nessebar, on the Black sea

Our hotel hallway, power saving devices that had the lights come on as you approached but turned off as you passed certain points

the museum and look you could actually touch the items if you felt like it 

Wasn't supposed to take these photos but I could not resist.  

One of the 25 ruins that were around Nessebar

The entrance to old Nessebar, it is actually a windmill

Another sunset from the restaurant we were at this evening.

Our meal of the night.  Lots of fried things very hot and inexpensive for the value.

Ruins at night, after a talent show that we just stumbled upon while waking home 

The view from our favourite peebly beach, beer and a snack for 2, maybe 10 Livre, Bulgarian cash (~$2)

The view from our room and guess what another ruin

An old anchor

this kid was singing Tom Jones "I'm a sex bomb" in Bulgarian and did he have the moves

Another evening out by the Black Sea

Sit and Blog or is that Blob in Tuscany

The other day we set out for small town about an hour away from where we are staying in Certlado. We were off to see the barrel rolling competition (read massive wine filled cask), at least the prelims, which we read about in a magazine on Tuscan festivals. That was in Greve-in -Chianti, the book not the the barrels, in a wine tasting cellar. Get yourself a 10, 15, 20, 25€ card and go at it. Only a few whites but about 7 red stations with about 20 bottles per station and one for Grappa. Sample to your hearts' content or until your card runs dry. We got a 10€ card and were refunded 1.20€, getting old, can't handle it or something. Each glass was from 0.60 to 7.00 € depending on the quality of the wine, I stayed around the 0.80 to 1.40 € due to my well trained palate.

Anyways, back to the barrel rolling, wrong town, wrong date. We were at the Watermelon festival instead. What To Do??? What Else but buy WINE, meat, cheese, olives, bread, fruit and have a picnic. As we headed back to our parked chariot we noted a sign, Tombe Eutruscan. What can this be we say in a questioning manner. Let's find out! releasing the horses or maybe it was a burro, up we climbed after a sharp (not slight) right out of the parking lot. We succumbed to a stop at the gates to the Tombe and the fence surrounding it. Look inside one entrance (there are 4) and what do we see? Dark and more dark and the feel of cobwebs which are more at my height than Pavé's. Enough of that, let's eat.

Perched at almost the summit of the Tombe we plunked ourselves down on the deadly dry grass and began our picnic. Once we settled in, the view was astonishing, We overlooked the town (watermelons and all) and the different valleys & hills surrounding the town. It was partially cloudy so the temperature, when we had sun blockage, was only in the mid 30's C (felt a bit chilly actually after the 40+ previously). The view was constantly changing and the shade was non-existent but the vista rolled from the subtle golden reds of the soil & wheat floating in the breeze to the brilliant & vibrant greens of the grapevines and trees. There is really no way to describe or capture the hues or subtleties of nature here. Not even our photos do it justice.

Looking down on the town we note not a creature is stirring, not even a mouse. The main drag is a ghost town, not even Englishmen or mad dogs are out. That's because it is 14:00 hr and everything is shut from 13:00 to 16:00 hr with maybe a few oddballs of shops that stay open later because someone is still inside or open early for the fun of it.

Well out of paper, must stop now, need Wine or is that doughnuts?

NEWSFLASH !!!!!!!

We may be able to post some photos as we are in the Biblioteca and there is a DVD & CD reader. Will be trying this later on

AJ

Elastic Time

It's true - time bends, stretches, elongates, shortens and then snaps back - depending it seems on where you are, what you are doing and of course who you are doing it with. Since the last post we've been caught in all of times twists and turns.
For three and a half months now we've been messing with the time/space continuum thingee. It feels like both a lifetime and a nanosecond have passed. We are saturated with sights, sounds, smells, textures, tastes and experiences and we're still thirsty for more.
Our time in Greece with our dear Danish friends reinforced for us the fun of being with friends in foreign places. We loved our time in that sunny, hot, blue-skied place. We determined to slow down the pace to a human scale. We started our days with a late Greek breakfast of spoon-stands-up-in-it yougurt with honey, fresh bread and the ubiquitous Nescafe coffee powder with hot milk.
We filled our Grecian days with beaching (not bitching) big lunches, and late, late dinners and fun drives to ancient sites in our little Fiat Panda. Long after the sun had set we took the little ferry across to Poros. We slowly the climbed the steep streets which still radiated with heat to Elsa's place tucked away in a back road. We dined on her specialties like "Grandma's Pot" - tender chunks of lamb in rich gravy topped with cheese. The surprise was the "chunks of potato" described in the menu turned out to be french fries. We pushed them aside and dug in. As delicious as the food was it was the wine that kept bringing us back. Made by Elsa it was definitley meant for the food. We liked it so much we asked if we culd buy a litre to take home in our plastic water bottle. Her reply, " Only a litre, that only go around table once!" So we bought 5 litres for 7 euros. Deeply chilled, delicious.
Seventeen days in Greece all passing in the wink of an eye. When it was time to go we all stood on the ferry slip with barely controlled tears - another trick of time had made our experiences fly by. We all wanted to grab those moments and hang on but that was it. Time to move on.

The only thing that made leaving less sad was the fact that we were soon to meet up with family again this time in Cavtat, Croatia near our father's birth place of Dubrovnik. In a great stone house on the main street we all joined together - brother, sister in law, nephew, another sister, another brother in law, AJ and I. Can you say FUN! We cooked for each other, drank more delicious wine that we thought was possible, watched as the local festival took place below our balcony and of course visited Dubrovnik. A twenty minute ferry ride away. For some of us it was a revisiting from many years ago. We were worried that things would disappoint - they didn't. As crazy as busy as it was with tourists (it's a very popular cruise ship stop) it still maintains it beauty and charm. It is "the jewel of the Adriatic." The water is still that unreal blue, the wall still stands and the lovely red tiled roofs still glow. Of course it has undergone massive restoration after the 1991 war which did extensive damage the many buildings and parts of the wall. We mentioned the crowds of tourists to our last remaining cousin in Dubrovnik and she said, "We don't complain - we need them, the money allows us to fix our town." Sadly, no amount of money will mend the pain and suffering of the people who, if my cousin is any measure, are deeply scarred from the experience.
After our time in Cavtat some family left for Italy and the remaining travelers moved on to the island of Vis (pronounced Wees) the western most island in the Croatian archipeligo. A supposedly unfound treasure. Well we found it and so had hundreds of others. We had expected to finally find a place without too many tourists but we despair that there are any places like that left. I think what the guide books meant when they said unfound was really undeveloped. While there were lots of tourists there weren't a lot of services. At first we were a bit disappointed but then we realized how lucky we were after we visited the very chi chi island of Hvar (pronounced Whar) - all fancy resorts and 100 euro massages on the beach. That is a highly developed island and really we think maybe we are more Vis than Hvar people.
We were all sad to leave lovely Croatia behind but the fact that once again the trusty travelers would meet again in Pescina, Italy made the leaving bearable.
We have been in Pescina for ten days that once again have sped by filled with food, fun, wine with side trips to Rome and Pesscarolia. So much has happened, so much has been done that it doesn't seem possible that it has only been ten days. We feel so blessed to have had a true Italian experience thanks to our trusty Italian guide, interpreter, and general all around great guy/brother in law Luigi. So much has happened in fact that it will require another post another time. Unlike the fabulous food, and awesome wine which is plentiful and inexpensive Internet access in Pescina is not. This post comes to you from a nearby town of Avezzano. We leave in two days for the Tuscany region of San Giamagno where we are staying a a little villa which will be our base for trips to Venice, Florence and little towns nearby. We hear internet is more readily available there and will post more often if possible.
We are soooo sorry that we can't post our pictures from our times in Greece, Croatia and Italy. Sadly our nifty new computer broke down and can't be fixed here in Europe so no photo transfer is available. Don't worry - we1ll bore you with them when we get home.
So, speaking of time that is it for now. Caio for now.