Last Day in Turkey

Well, yesterday was our last free day in Turkey before the long haul home. We decided to head to a beautiful little town just beyond Cesme called Alacati. 

We had planned to start out early, but (shockingly) left around 10:00 am, taking a cab for a short ride to Alacati's market, which we'd heard about. There was quite a lot going on!

Fabrics, clothes, toys, trinkets and jewelry were all in abundance. The produce looked fantastic as well, with fresh peaches, apricots, figs, spices, nuts, and so many more things. 

After several hours spent wandering the market, we explored the village, stopping in to visit all sorts of shops along the way. 

Eventually, we even stopped for lunch (expensive, but delicious):

Alacati was definitely a touristy town - but we didn't seem to encounter many native English speaking travellers here (or any kind of English speakers for that matter) Most of the tourists actually seemed to be Turkish..!  As usual however, all of the people were incredibly friendly, and where we needed to get ideas across, it was easy enough to do so. 

The day was hot (a theme of the trip), and we ended up getting back to the hotel around 6pm. A quick turnover for dinner at the hotel's outdoor restaurant, where we had a great meal of Turkish food while watching the sun set:

 

Following dinner, we had a drink on the hotel patio, before heading to bed for the night. 

This morning was an early one, as we had to be up for a 7:00 am pickup to take us to the airport. This truly will be a travel day - a connection in Istanbul and then Newark before reaching Edmonton. We should get in around 11 pm local time tonight, which by my count is about 25 hours travel time (this does not come close to the 40 hour travel record currently held by the trip back from Africa). 

Actually as I finish this, we are still in the air on our way to Newark, so I will post as soon as Internet is available (correction: free Internet). 

It was sad to have the trip come to a close, but we're both excited to get back home to enjoy visiting with family and friends, folk fest, and everything else that Edmonton offers in the summertime. 

That's it for this blog - thanks everyone for tuning in. It was fun to document the trip, and to share as well. 

See you all soon,

Paul and Aoife.