On the road again.  This time I will be visiting Turkey, Northern Germany and The Netherlands.  TomO was traveling with me and we joined up with Carl when we reached Berlin, after 2 weeks in Istanbul and the Turkey countryside

The flight legs and layovers were very long:  SFO - Newark, NJ, Amsterdam, Istanbul.  In a way this worked to our advantage because we got to walk around and were distracted.  Since we had 13 in Amsterdam, we left some bags in a locker and jumped on the train for the short ride to Central Station.  From here we could walk and walk and walk.   

From a map I could see the street where friends Patrick and Christian have an art gallery and we headed on in that direction.  When we found the street, we also found many stalls and shops selling tulip and other bulbs.  I couldn't believe the size of the Amaryllis bulbs.  I didn't really understand why, but these bulbs were not meant to be taken to the US (not inspected).  Those export bulbs were still in the ground in the fields? ?

We ate breakfast at a little English place ... eggs and toast and coffee.  That fired us up for more walking.  We saw a canal cruise and we did that for an hour.  The sun was shining and it was warm and comfortable and I slept a bit.  Relaxing way to spend time in Amsterdam.

The KLM flight to Istanbul was full but Tom and I sat in exit rows and had lots of leg room.  We arrived at our hotel at 2:30AM and it didn't take long to get to sleep ... we didn't even hear the 5AM call to prayer (from the mosque right across the street!

Wednesday April 25, 2007 - Istanbul

We woke up refreshed and ready to start the day.  Breakfast in the hotel is on the 5th or 6th floor (I think floor 0 is the ground floor).  We have a beautiful view of the blue mosque which is a block or 2 away.  Olives, tomatoes, toast, cheese, coffee, tea, are served.   

After breakfast we started walking.  We are in the area called the Sultanahmet and a lot of tourists and tourist sites are here. I stopped by an ATM for some Kursos (Turkish Liras).  They have revalued the old Turkish lira (removed 3 decimal places) and now $1 buys about 1.32 YTL (the currency designation).  We walked on towards to the Grand Bazaar and just missed it as we meandered downhill towards the waterfront.  We did find a bazaar, but it turned out to be the "spice bazaar".  I bought some "Turkish Delight" ... something like Applets and Cottlets from Harry and David's.  

On Thursday, a guide took us on a tour of some of the main attractions ... close to our hotel.  We saw the Hippodrome (with the obelisks), the Blue Mosque, a carpet museum and the Grand Bazaar.  Before we were finished, we were treated to a carpet showroom where TomO found a beautiful specimen.

I misstated the revaluation of the Turkish currency.  1 new Turkish Lira is equal to 1,000,000 old Turkish liras.

Our breakfasts are served in a top floor cafe at our hotel.  At night, people meet there for drinks and to watch the sun go down.  It is also a "Water Pipe Cafe".  You will see the water pipe flavors offered on menus all around town.  A "hookah" is used ... a bottle filled with cold water to which a leather hose is attached.  On top is a little ceramic holder where dried fruit is placed and then hot charcoal.  You hear a gurgling sound as the vapors are drawn through the water.  Mr. Oktay is the expert at our hotel and he tells us how healthy this is.  "It's good for your lungs".  It's unclear to us whether there is tobacco in it.

Yesterday we took a cruise up the Bosporus to the Black Sea (almost).  The boat turned around a couple miles short of the Black Sea because the water was rough.  We returned to Istanbul for lunch then toured the opulent Dolmabahce Palace ... the last home of the Turkish Sultans.  It was largely designed by Italian architects and accessorized with huge glass chandeliers (one was 4.5 tons).

Yesterday we drove from Istanbul to Ankara.  With one minor exception (let's just say we crossed the Golden Horn 2 mores times than necessary), we found the freeway out of town and were on our way.  The car rental people sold us a transit card to use on the toll bridges and toll roads which made paying tolls so easy.

The day before we'd seen Suleiman' mosque and tomb as well as touring the district called Taxim.  It was built in 1550-1557 and designed by Mirmar Sinan, who is also buried there.   

Taxim is a more modern area of Istanbul and on Sunday it was very crowded.  There was a political demonstration of which we saw parts.  We had met up with Americans Marc and Redge and had spent the day with them.  We ate lunch in Taxim and Redge ordered a water pipe ... apple flavor.  I'm not sure if there is tobacco in it, but I think there is.  On top of the hookah is a ceramic pot that contains concentrated fruit and covered by a aluminum foil "lid".  On top of this lid is place about 4 chunks of glowing charcoal.  When you suck on the leather hose, you heat the fruit and the vapors bubble through the cold water before it hits your lungs.  TomO tried it and didn't care for it.

We saw patriotic demonstrators go by as we ate lunch.  There are elections coming up.  This middle class group is against the Islamic political movement and current government.

When we went pick up our parked rental car, it had just been hoisted up onto the bed of a truck.  The car rental people had either put it in a no-parking zone or had not paid for parking.  Luckily they were with us and were able to get the car returned to the ground and to us.  It is a Renault Clio.

Wednesday - Thursday, May 2-3, 2007 - Ürgüp

I'll take as much time talking about Ankara as we spent there.  We arrived on Monday afternoon.  Upon leaving the ring-road, we drove and drove towards city center ... 10 or so miles.  It didn't take long to find the Raddison and we checked in.  The next morning we started out to walk to the Anatolian Museum but ran out of steam and decided to check out and start our drive to Cappadocia.

TomO had read about hotels that have incorporated caves as the rooms and we booked on from Ankara called Esbelli Evi.  It lived up to the glowing recommendations in the tour book.  Our room is a combination of stone walls and building blocks.  The bathroom is modern, we have air conditioning (not used) and is nicely furnished.  AND there is an Internet cable for the laptop!!!

The town of Ürgüp is small.  The tourists were just starting to arrive for the season.  We ate a late lunch/early dinner downtown at a modest cafe.  It was set up cafeteria style (which is common) where you can point to the dishes you wish.   

We asked the hotel owner about getting a guide to ride with us around the auspicious spots but he said that wasn't necessary.  He marked a map which we followed to see a day's worth:

Wednesday/Thursday, May 2-3, 2007  

We splurged on Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon ride (also spelled Kapadokya).  My descriptions of the excursion can not do it justice.  What I will remember is how close to the ground we were as we swooped up and down and along the different valleys.  We were in one of the three balloons and we kept together most of the way.  We floated over one balloon at one point and our balloon "kissed" one of the other balloons (they touched).  Often we were lower than features on the terrain.  We soared at tree top level in places and we could pick small branches off of them.

We came near our hotel to land.  Our balloon's basket set down exactly on the trailer that carries it.  There were 14 in our balloon not counting Lars, our pilot.  He's from Sweden and he and his wife Kylie have been doing this in Turkey for 22 years.  The 3 basket loads of flyers met at this point and we were treated to glasses of cherry juice mixed with champagne.  Since we were to close to our hotel, we just walked back home.

Here are pictures from our balloon ride:

Saturday - May 5, 2007  - Kas (pronounced "Kosh"), Turkey

After several costal recommendations we settled on Kas and booked the Hotel Hadrian for 2 nights.  It turned out to be quite a luxurious oasis in which we relaxed.  It was a long drive but we're finding out that the roads are quite decent here.  Many are 4-lane and we made it in time to lie by the pool before dinner was served.  Breakfast and dinner were included and we booked lunch there too for very few Euros (the currency that things are quoted in at the hotel).  It is common here to use Turkish Liras, Euros and/or dollars.  If you are good with math, you can use the one which would cost an American the least!

Turkish breakfast are very tasty and healthy (in our experience).  We typically have:

The dinners at the Hotel Hadrian were served buffet style with a printed menu.  Many salad and starch choices and 1 meat choice.  Very good for vegetarians.

The Turkish toilets have a similarity to the toilet seats we saw in Japan (squirting water).  A little spigot is built into the back of the rim of the porcelain bowl.  There is a valve on the wall which shoots water (cold!).  Maybe this is my low cost alternative to the "bidet" toilet seat that I want!

Our hotel is on the Peninsula of Kas ... a 7 km drive to the "downtown".  We drove to the center, parked and walked around.  We found some interesting tourist shops and ended up buying some jewelry.  One shop had lapis lazuli from Afghanistan was I thought was beautiful.  TomO got them to make a 2 strand bracelet from the large stones in a necklace.

Tuesday- May 8, 2007  - Selcuk, Turkey

We are now in Biga, Turkey, having driven 6 hours from Selcuk where we had stayed 2 nights.  The scenery was pleasant all along the way.  Many stretches of the highway were along the Mediterranean, up and down hills, beside farm lands, orchards (olives), etc.

I think that every day we've been driving, we see horses drawing farm wagons, doing farm work.  Today a big black dog was riding and sometimes the farmers wife is accompanying the farmer.  It takes you back 100 years or so.

Our pension in Selcuk was directly across from the ruins of St. John the Baptist Church.  Mina and Ozzy were the hosts of this 5 room B&B.  We sat in a tree shaded courtyard for breakfast.  As a treat, a candied walnut was served.  Not like the ones we are used to.  This was an immature whole walnut in husk, soaked, sweetened and preserved in honey ... a speciality of the village Mina had been visiting.

About the first thing I did when we arrived was to hunt up an Internet cafe (about 2 blocks away).  When I got back to the room, I discovered that there was a free wi-fi available from our room!  I never expected Internet connectivity to be so easy here in Turkey.

In the morning, we drove a short 3 km to Ephesus.  We got a free ride to the uphill starting point (free = visit to carpet factory).  It was a warm, sunny day and we went through the ruins pretty quickly.  It seemed like the library was more "filled out" compared to my visit here 11 years ago.  After trotting downhill, dodging hordes of other tourists, we got in the car and drove 10 more miles to Kusadasi, the port where cruise ships dock.   

We spent most of our time in Kusadasi, reliving the 2004 trip.  We first found "our" carpet shop (Cigdem) and were nearly talked into buying another rug.  The store is run by 2 brothers and they even brought in the uncle to turn the screws.  Frankie, the cruise director from Princess, had recommended this shop originally.

We found the restaurant where we'd eaten lunch in 2004 but could not locate the shops where we'd bought designer label clothing.  TomO decided to get a haircut and in about 30 minutes the haircut ended with an alcohol flame on a cotton ball to singe off stray hairs.

Tuesday- May 10, 2007  - Berlin, Germany

Our last night in Istanbul was interrupted by a rude wake up call at midnight for the drive to Sabiha Airport (Asia side) for our 2.5 hour German Wings flight to Shönefeld Airport in Berlin.  A taxi took us to the our hotel (on or near "Museum Island" and the tall TV tower.

Carl arrived from Paris the day before and was staying with his friend Jürgen about 2 blocks from our hotel.  He came over in the morning and we started our tour of Berlin.  We walked down Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate.  A new USA embassy is under construction there on land that we think was part of the "no man zone" when the wall was up.   

This describes some of the walking and sightseeing that we did over the next two days:

We stood in line to get into the Reichstag.  The weather was cloudy but calm but as we stood there, a fierce wind came up followed by a downpour.  We all ran with the screaming school girls toward the building and cover.  We stood in the rain but realized we'd gained quite a bit in the line and were in the 2nd group admitted.   

We rode an elevator to the spectacular dome (IMHO) which was designed by Sir Norman Foster (who also designed the glass enclosure for the British Museum).  A pair of spiraling ramps takes you up to the top and back down.  As you walk, you have 360 degree views of the center of Berlin.  The central vertical axis is composed of hundreds of mirrors that reflect light down through a skylight to the floor of the parliament below.  

We walked to the Pergamon Museum, not that far away.  This was my third visit and it is still a wonderful museum.  We flash our Fromm student body cards and entered at reduced prices.  Audio guides and headsets were included.   We saw the beautiful glazed tile walls of the Babylon gate.  Deep blues and yellows.  At an outdoor flea market, TomO and Carl bought posters of the Belgian character, Tin Tin

We've had good food here ... seafood, Russian dinner, French food.  It is asparagus season and last night we had special dishes ... soup with asparagus and salmon or large white asparagus spears with parslied potatoes!!  One days was bratwurst on a roll from a cart (I had freedom fries).

Last night we saw "Daddy Cool".  This is a musical exactly like Mama Mia ... that is, it is a story built around all of the music sung by a wildly popular 1970's group called "Boney M".  It was performed in a huge tent that held a thousand or so people.  The lyrics and dialog were all in English and this production had come from London.  Very entertaining.  At one point the clouds opened up and the sound of rain hinting the tent almost drowned out the music!

 Thursday- May 17, 2007 - Hamburg, Germany

We picked up our rental car in Berlin near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church then we drove back to Jürgen's (where Carl had been staying) to say "Auf weidersehen".  Then we drove on to our hotel to pack up and hit the road.  Around the area when the road spit (Hamburg/Rostock) we say a lot of power generating windmills.

The car is a sporty Nissan Primera which has a GPS that helped up get to our hotel and find the autobahn to Hamburg.  We drove through rain which was heavy at times for about 4 hours to reach Hamburg.  By this time the weather was clearing.

After checking in the Hotel City House, we set out on a long walk that took us through a smart shopping street (including Cartier, Gucci, Tiffany, etc.) ending up at the beautiful city hall.  Because the ground is not that firm, city hall was built on 4,000 oak piles.  It boasts 647 rooms which is 6 more than Buckingham Palace.

We continued on to the harbor waterfront area where we saw cruise ships, museum ships and harbor tour boats.  A theater with The Lion King was in the distance (the only theater in the world accessible only by a boat!)  Our last stop was the nightlife street, Reeferbahn Strasse.

The next day we walked back to the harbor and booked a tour boat.  This was an interesting view of the harbor area as well as canals and locks which chriss-cross the city.  Near the city hall, we saw a bevy of swans.  We walked back to the Reeferbahn and found a Turkish restaurant where we had falafel sandwiches.  It was raining very hard, so we didn't spend a lot of time.  We took the S-Bahn train back to the Central Railroad Station which is not far from our hotel.  We used the umbrellas a lot that day.

In the evening we found an Italian - Portuguese restaurant.  I had gnocchi potato noodles.  They look like while quail eggs.  They were stuffed with cheese and spinach.  I've never had them stuffed before!  Carl had Risotto and TomO had a salmon lasagna.  Yum, yum.

That night we saw a show called a night club revue show.  It was about 1/2 singing and 1/2 talking in German.  All I think I understood was jokes about the Bavarians.  The advertizement says:  Das sind weltberhmte Melodien.  Das sind zauberhafte Knaben und echte Kerle, wenn es prickelt und wie Champagner auf der Zunge perlt.  Das is Travestie und Komodie, Erotik und Persiflage.  Das is ganz einfach - Entertainment.

Auf wiedersehen ... Tom Daniels

Friday - May 18, 2007 - Solingen/Köln, Germany

The trip is winding down and I've gotten a little behind.  I catch you up with what we've done in the Köln area.

On Friday we left Hamburg and drove to Solingen which is not too far from Düsseldorf and Köln. Good family friends live there.  We stayed at Andreas Essig's flat in Solingen, a city that is famous for making knives and other cutlery (like Henkels).  Andreas was an exchange student in the late 1980 and lived with my brother and attended my old high school in Molalla.  Andreas' work is a little distance away and he stays away many nights.  He works for ISS, a large multinational corporation that provides facilities management and maintenance to large companies.

Here is Andreas in his kitchen   

That night we drove to the city of Köln where we picked up Andreas' girl friend Maria.  We spent hours walking around the Köln Cathedral, the concert hall area, the Rhine Riverfront, the old town and the night club area.  We stopped for coffee at an outdoor cafe and ate supper at a "Wine Week" street fair.  At one booth I saw dill pickles and open face sandwiches made with blue cheese.  Carl saw liverwurst and Andreas pointed out blood sausage, so that's what we choose for supper.  There were no tables, so we found a flat surface on top of a refuse can. 

Friday - May 19, 2007 - Pracht, Germany

On Saturday we drove to the village of Pracht.  This is a tidy rural farm country about 100 km from Solingen, in a south and east direction.  Andreas' parents Renate and Willi live there on a farm in a handsome farm home.  They have space for pastures, a pond or two, farm buildings, etc.  There is a horse, ducks, goose, cats and sheep.   

Renate had prepared a large lunch and we weren't there very long before it was served.  I especially like the meatless patties and the potato baked dish and seasonal vegetables of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots.  After stuffing ourselves, we were served ice cream.  

Before the second and third desserts were served, we drove to a nearby wooden tower that is used for communications.  We climbed the many flights of stairs to the top to scan the countryside.  It was kind of hazy, so visibility was a little limited.  

Renate raises ducks.  There were quite a number of duckling running around and it was fun to watch them.  There is a male goose who thinks he's the father and watches over them.  Hopefully he will keep the foxes and hawks away.  At night the ducks and goose go into the sheds and the doors are closed until the morning.

That night we were served a barbecue thanks to Willi.  Vegetables and sausages were put on skewers then over the coals.  Very delicious.

Sunday - May 20, 2007 - Maastricht, Netherlands

Today we drove to Heerlen and spent the day with a man named Rene who lives there.  This area of Holland is very close to the Belgian and German borders.

Rene lives close to the railway station and we took the 20 minute train ride to Maastricht which is the olderst city in Holland.  We walked around the old town, crossed the foot bridges over the Maas River and drank beer at a pub.

Münster, Germany - Monday- May 21, 2007 - 14

Carl wrote the following about our day in this charming German town.

My father's family came to America in the 19th century from Germany (Lower Saxony, I understand).  After a number of phone calls and missed connections, it was finally arranged that I would meet my second-cousin-once-removed, Jürgen Meyer.  I had spent a couple of days with Jürgen's father and uncle a couple of years ago, but they have both passed on and I was happy to find another generation of German family.

Jürgen drove 3.5 hours from Peine, near Hannover to Solingen where we were staying near Köln.  He had kindly prepared an elaborate family tree and brought family pictures.  One photo was of his Great-Great-Garndmother Louisa the earliest relative that linked us by blood.  Also a colorful book of Coppenbrgge the home of the Spiegelberg family before their immigration to America.  A crumbling Spiegelberg castle attests to this.

In two cars we made our way to Münster where we were tourists for the day where we saw and did the following things: 

After a full day, Jürgen returned to Peine to his wife Barbara, who is not yet retired and had to teach that day.  And vows were made to see each other again in California or even Coppenbrgge.

TomD teased Jürgen saying the poor American relative had come to Germany to borrow some money from his rich European cousin!

Tuesday - May 22, 2007 - Düsseldorf, Germany

This was our last day in Germany.   Again Andreas took a day off in order to be able to guide us around.  The day was warm and sunny and we parked in a location near all of the sites.

Before we got very far away, we stopped into a T-Mobile phone shop and TomO and Carl bought mobile phones (SIM phones) which were on sale.  They can be used all over Europe, Africa and many other parts of the world.  (They later found out there was a "SIM LOCK" in place that forced one to use German cards and credits.  This lock was removed later on in Holland.)

Next we found some whimsical statues and we took turns taking our pictures with them.

Then we saw a man removing scratches (from vandals) in a huge window of a department store.

Andreas took us trough a market hall where there were many stalls selling vegetables, plants, cheeses, flowers, etc.  Here a picture of white asparagus which is in season here and on many menus.

We went to a fancy shopping center where we found a favorite sushi place of Andreas'. We went through a line at a counter pointing to different types of sushi, seaweed salad, miso soup, etc.  It was very good.  After eating we sat at programmed numbers into the cell phones.

In another downtown department store we looked at the cup-at-a-time coffee makers.  Krups makes one (Nespresso).  There was another style that takes a larger cartridge but makes tea, hot milk/coffee drinks, chocolate, etc.  There is a newer line that is a lot cheaper than then one's I'd seen before.  On these, the water dispensing is manually controlled.  George Clooney is in the ads for this type of coffee maker.

  Andreas took us up in the tall TV tower.  The elevator was very fast.  When we got to the top, he had me close my eyes and led me to the windows which lean out over the 500 feet drop to the ground, and lie on the glass!  Then I opened my eyes!  What a scary sight!

After the tower we walked around the 3 buildings that Frank Gehry built in the late 1990s.  One is red, one is white and the middle one is aluminum ... to reflect the 2 others.  By now it was raining and we tried to keep dry as we admired the architecture.

The next to last stop was supper at a famous curry wurst place that Willi had recommended.  When you ordered a sausage, it was prepared with a piece of gold leaf on it and fries.  Supposed to be good for the heart!

Wednesday - May 23, 2007 - Amsterdam, The Netherlands

A highlight of this stay was visits to friends Patrick and Christian who have a glass are gallery on the Singel Canal.  Click on www.braggiotti.com to see their web site and some of the artists they represent.  On that Friday, we attended an "opening" for featured artist Effie Halkidis.  During dinner we sat with their neighbor Gisèle (van Waterschoot van der Gracht) D'Ailly.  She is 94 and going strong.  She had interesting stories to tell of growing up in America and returning to Europe when she was 16.

On our first full day, we toured the Rijksmuseum.  The building is undergoing a major renovation so we only saw about 1/3 of the gallery space.  After that we toured the Van Gogh Museum, which was close by.

The weather was very warm ... almost hot and we wore shorts.   One day we took the train to The Hague.  And on to nearby Delft.  I climbed the old tower there where I got panoramic views.

Carl left on Saturday and TomO and I left on Sunday.  The hotel booked a taxi for us.  The flight back (Continental) was uneventful but lllloooooonnnnnggggg.  In San Francisco, I took BART and a taxi to get home.  In downtown Oakland, the trains were stopped because of a minor earthquake.