6. Merhaba!

We have finally (well, it has really only been 5 days of travelling) arrived in Turkey. And of course as Turkey is not part of the EU, we needed to buy an extra insurance for the car: after the 250/160 they tried to make us pay for crossing Serbia we pay the 50 euros for Turkey with a smile!

About two hours away from Istanbul we stop at a campground. We want to do laundry, check the car and most important, we want to put our heads down at the same spot for a couple of days. On the campground we meet Arndt and Claudia, a German couple that is travelling around in their van. We spend a couple of days with them driving through Turkey. And it is really cruising as their van ‘Megatron’ has a maximum speed of 75 km an hour. No problem for us, The Cruiser can cruise as well.

In the Blue Mosque

In the Church of Wisdom, gorgeous (I'm referring to the building not to us. Well, maybe also a little to us LOL!)

On our way south we drive via the Gallipoli peninsula, a place of pilgrimage for Australians and New Zealanders and full of cemeteries. This little passage was the place where the ruling over the whole Black Sea was fought over during WWI. A true fiasco that ended up with thousands of men killed. And it might not be everybody´s cup of tea but I just love cemeteries! There are about 31 war cemeteries here, with a total of 22.000 graves. 9.000 men were identified and buried in individual graves, 13.000 rest in unidentified ones. The remains of another 14.000 men were never found. They are commemorated individually by name on several memorials.

Popular with the stray dogs of the peninsula

Our next stop is the city of Troy, or better, the couple of stones left of that legendary city. Trust us, the ruins are really not worth visiting. We spend our last evening together with Arndt and Claudia who head towards Greece afterwards.

Megatron and The Cruiser on the ferry

Camping at the beach

Kosta and I drive further along the coast. Pamukkale is our destination. We want to visit the ruins of Hierapolis and the gleaming white ledges, better known as the travertines with several natural pools. This place must have been a treat to the eye years ago. Unfortunately nowadays there are only a few pools left. Luckily some not so natural were made so we tourist can still enjoy a bit of cooling during the boiling hot day. We might have forgotten our bathing suits, so Kosta and I just plunge in our Grizzly Bear underwear.

And then it is time to spend a couple of days at the beach doing absolutely nothing else than relaxing. So we head out to a small backpackers retreat called Olympus… just like the rest of Turkey! Ramadan is finished and that is enough reason to give 72 million people a national holiday. It seems like half of those people are here in Olympus and the surrounding beaches! Good thing we don’t have to look for a hostel or campground as we can just put our heads down somewhere in the forest nearby.

Chimaera, a cluster of flames that blaze from crevices on mount Olympus. Natural? It might have been once, but we are not convinced…