Our Favorite Istanbul Activity

Bosphorus is the strait in Istanbul that divides Asia from Europe. A ferry ride along the Bosphorus is an unforgettable experience. It is touristic and so local.

Old wooden houses, mansions and palaces and the two bridges that connect to continents. Charming seaside districts, once fisherman's villages and remarkable pieces of Ottoman architecture all spread along. The current ferry schedule is here. There also some other companies running, starting mostly from Eminönü. 

Patara Caretta Caretta

Patara awaits to be strolled, on the Lycian part of Turkey, rests a beach of 18 kilometers where Caretta Carettas ("loggerhead" turtles) lay their eggs.

Every year, in spring, thousands of female Caretta Carettas arrive at this "delivery beach" to secure their genes beneath the sand. About two months later, hatchings leave their incubation spot under the sand. They dig out their ways to the surface, preferably at night, when darkness keeps them safe from predators, and crawl towards the horizon, using the guidance of the moonlight and starlight reflected by the water to reach the waves.

Their genders are determined by the temperature. Eggs kept at a constant incubating temperature of 32°C become females; at 28°C they become males!

The Caretta Carettas have been on this planet assumbly for over 100 million years! Young Homo Sapiens versus old Caretta Caretta. The oldest finding from the ancient city of Patara (until 2015) is a figurine from 3000 BC. Homo Sapiens record their own history for some thousands of years, while Caretta Carettas lay eggs for millions of years; they are indeed historical.

Homo Sapiens take showers or go swimming if possible; male Caretta Carettas never get out of the water and females do only to lay eggs.

Patara had once used to be home to Homo Sapiens; Caretta Carettas never stopped using its beach to breed and to kick-off their world tour there.

Caretta Carettas don't have democracy and a parliament; some Homo Sapiens say they want democracy and parliaments (among billions of other good things).

Homo Sapiens kill millions of their own kind and heavily contribute in the extinction of any other species from flies to elephants; Caretta Carettas are among them and don't fight back. They look neither for democracy nor parliaments. They simply keep surviving all cruelty by the Homo Sapiens.

Caretta Carettas eat whenever they are hungry; they don't order in, take away or cook.

Caretta Carettas are extincting; Homo Sapiens are overpopulating.

You can be one of the many volunteers at Patara and witness the female Caretta Carettas laying their eggs in the spring... This is a tremendous survival story and it's repeating its miracle every year on a beach just a few steps away from the oldest parliament building in the world.

Assos Behramkale Turkey

Could the traveler have come to Assos during the excavations of the American expedition, he would have heard, afar off, the chorus of the workmen, as they sang together, sailor fashion, while rolling aside the shaft of some column; he would have been guided to the site of the ancient temple or theatre by the creaking of the dusty barrow wheels, and by the blows of the heavy hammer breaking some stone too large to be lifted entire. Now the silence of that hillside will be broken only by the roll of the waves upon the beach beneath the cliff, and by the tinkling bells of the goats, as they twist their necks to browse upon the tough shoots of the oak bushes which have again overgrown the ruins of the Greek Bath, the Agora, and the Street of Tombs.

wrote Joseph Thacher Clarke on the Report on Investigations in Assos 1882-1883 

30th of August, Victory Day in Turkey, 2014

August the 30^th, is the Victory Day in Turkey. Today is the 92^nd anniversary  of the victory over the occupying forces of Greece in Anatolia.
The ‘Great Offensive’ reached its primary goal in the battle of Dumlupinar, 4 days after the initial counter attack and the Greek army in Anatolia was defused on 30^th of August 1922. Only after this achievement, the remaining Turkish cities and towns invaded by the ‘Allies” of the WW1 were saved one by one. The 30^th of August marks a huge step of the Turkish national independence forces decisive victory and is officially celebrated annually since 1935.

A small hotel in Assos has Big Guests!!!