Following our short visit to Patara, the birthplace of the man we know as Santa Claus, we couldn’t resist stopping in Myra to see the church where he spent much of his life and where he died. According to one source, the earliest substantiated records of Myra was in 168 B.C.
We still had not dipped our toes in the inviting water of the Mediterranean. As we headed down the coast, any number of tempting peninsulas invited us to explore the unknown, though with our time schedule hanging over us, we headed straight for the town of Kaş. A short five-minute walk into town brought us to the little yachty harbor where we were immediately hailed over by the gregarious Ismail Inan, owner of Smiley’s, a cute little café restaurant overlooking the marina. After a complementary cup of Turkish coffee and a glass of wine and some nibbles, we knew we had found the place we had been looking for.
Leaving Ephesus, we headed south along the coast of the Mediterranean. We didn’t really want to rush but we could start to feel the pressure of our march route. We had to meet our guide, mandatory for crossing China, on August 28, and now here it was already the middle of May. We had a short four months to cross the next six countries. We could easily spend a year or more just seeing other parts of Turkey, but it was time to get to the water.
Even before recorded history, humans have been creating plates, pots, vases and other things from some kind of clay and decorating them for no functional reason other than their beauty. From the Danish Masters who painted the Royal Floral Danica set of dishes (hundreds of them) commissioned by Catherine the Great of Russia to the famous Delft tiles from the Netherlands, the Azulejo tiles from Portugal, the Moorish tiles from Spain to the Iznik tiles we discovered in mosques in Turkey, the art of painting burnt clay left hardly a culture or country untouched. Monika is particularly entranced by this form of art because her mother, Agnes Mühlebach-Flory, was a master porcelain painter in her own rights.
Once when I was visiting a small village in a remote area of Iran I remember watching a young girl, maybe she was 12 or 13, sitting on a dirt floor in a small room, nearly in the dark because there was no electricity. She was painstakingly weaving on a loom, one thread at a time, carefully tying a knot and then trimming it to the correct length.
Ephesus, the Ancient City in Anatolia. Sorry, more ruins, but really, this one is amazing. Aside from its physical presence, its history is fascinating.
Arriving at the deserted parking area of the ancient city of Aezani we were first greeted by the local tourist dog. We bargained for permission to park for the night with a bowl of bread and milk and he immediately claimed us as his territory, sleeping outside The Turtle V the whole night and barking when any other dog approached.
Certainly one of our secrets over the years has been that during the months that we are off the road and The Turtle trucks are parked outside, they are always protected by Custom Covercraft Covers. As much as we love our vehicles and as much as they cost nowadays, and considering how much of them are made of plastic and rubber, it just makes sense to protect them. Covercraft Custom covers come in a variety of styles and materials. Our favorite has been Evolution, designed to stop just about anything that might fall from the sky.
The smell of fresh bread beckoned us into the bakery and close-by we discovered how the popular sesame bread rings called Simit sold throughout Turkey are prepared. The busy bakers invited us in and happily posed for photos. In the end, we were presented with a tasty Simit just pulled out of the oven.
Meerschaum, (German for foam of the sea), is a soft white clay mineral also known as sepiolite. Pure white Turkish meerschaum has been prized for centuries. The first recorded use for making pipes was around 1723. Our trail led us to the town of Eskişehir and then to the countryside where our search for meerschaum ended at a hole in the ground about 20 feet deep.
