I would love to say that, as a half decent humanities major, I spent some of my profligate youth reading the Iliad and the Odyssey, but the farthest I got was borrowing one (can’t remember which) from the library, then procrastinate reading it, then forget to take it back on time, then pay a modest…
Category: Turkey
The Land of Pigeons and Wild Boars: The Hapless Guide to Kușadası
The first rule of Kușadası is that no one talks about the ineptitude of Google maps when it comes to Kușadası. For if they did, no one would ever go there. Jokes put aside, if your accommodation is in the old town, loosely referred to as Kaleiçi, basically the area surrounding the bazaar and the…
The Nicest Apocalypse Ever- A Visit to Șirince
In case, like most of humanity these days, you live with a constant fear of impending doom anyway, you might have already forgotten about that time the apocalypse was certain as predicted by the ancient Mayans. Opposed to now, when it’s predicted by climate scientists, but that’s a topic for another article altogether. So back…
Rocks, Saints, Rivers- A Visit to Ephesus
Present day Ephesus lies stranded inland, about 5 kilometres away from the coast. As with many ancient sites, one could hardly notice its presence if it wasn’t for the road signs. The closest settlement is Selçuk, a sleepy provincial town on the road from Izmir to the seaside resort of Kușadası. Most visitors also come…
Fifty Shades of Blue: Alaçatı and Cunda Island
For the final stretch of our trip we decided to hop south of Izmir, an adventure which also included one intense hour in the centre of Izmir itself, naturally stuck in traffic, through which we learned that keeping your eyes peeled for the highway is an absolute must if you want to avoid the hot…
Along the Turkish Aegean at the Mercy of Whimsical Gods
As touched upon in the installment dedicated to Ayvalık, Turkey’s Northern Aegean coast has been the scene of a flurry of major historic activity, which in turn led to some exciting ruins awaiting visitation in every second village- if you have a partner in crime, that is, but as (un)luck would have it the blog’s industrious…
The Stillness of Quinces- A Visit to Ayvalık
There is a special kind of stillness that you can only ever experience around the Mediterranean, the stillness of summer days around midday, when the light is white and shimmering and thick with heat, and although you know there is movement around, a slight breeze, a cat furtively sliding by on silky paws, someone carefully…
The Importance of Being Somewhere Else-A Preamble to the Turkish Travel Diary
Travelling southwards on Turkey’s Aegean coast I remembered two articles I’ve recently read, both concerned with topics related to how we travel these days. The first one was an analysis of how our travel pictures, especially of the ’insta-variety’, all look the same- right now I can’t find the particular article for the life of…
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
It has come to my attention that for some obscure reasons I totally failed at posting an account of our small tour of Cappadocia three years ago. Okay, I am being polite to myself here, the reasons aren’t all that obscure, I was just being lazy, which is something I really excel at. Nevertheless, in…
Tutti Liberi Subito- Best of Travel 2015
Too much cheap bullshit has been blown into the bloodstream of the Internet about how you should be a traveler, and not a tourist, so much so that the original statement has lost much of its meaning. What does being a traveler imply, after all, besides some Instagram shots of the second most interesting thing…
Pocket Diary Budapest 