Türkiye Trip Summary 2023

We had a great week in Türkiye and Kuşadasi was the perfect home base for adventures.

We started right off with an airport adventure.  We flew to from Vienna to Istanbul, went through immigration, and caught our connecting flight to Kuşadasi.  

We were the last two passengers waiting for our bags but they didn't show up.  Someone from the airport had to take us from the domestic arrivals to the international arrivals terminal where our bags were waiting because they hadn't gone through customs in Istanbul.  At least we had our bags.

Throughout the week we took a number of day trips.  Our first was to Şirince which is known as Türkiye's Tuscany.

On we visited the House of the Virgin Mary and toured Ephesus.  My first visit to one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Another day, we went with Mesut to Izmir for the day.  

On the way back we stopped by a traditional carpet factory.  Unfortunately, none of them were magic flying carpets.

Our trip to Pamukkale was fantastic.  

Especially the paragliding.  

I'm still not comfortable at all with heights but this was absolutely brilliant.  I'm so ready to do it again.

One of the best things about visiting Türkiye is the food.  

Lots of meat, plus Turkish Delight, baklava, and copious amounts of tea and Turkish coffee.

While in Türkiye, I wanted to visit a hamam for a Turkish bath but we never managed to fit it into our schedule.  However, we did find time for a traditional shave and wax.

There was a lot to see and do in Kuşadasi.  Thanks to Atlas Obscura we found a few off the beaten path sights nearby such the train museum, Cave of the Seven Sleepers and the Cave of Zeus.

I can see coming back here again for another visit.  Highly recommended.

Bilbao Trip Summary

After very little travel due to Covid-19 it felt so good to get on an Iberia flight to Spain.  One of the things that British Airways / Oneworld did during Covid was to extend frequent flyer status levels while people couldn't travel so thanks this this I still have my silver medallion status.

For Kája and I, this was our first trip together.  Who knew if we would travel together well or not?  Kája is used to Ryanair, so it was a nice surprise for him when we arrived at the airport and got to move to the front of the queue and he had his first airport lounge experience.  

Bilbao was great!  Neither of us had been there before and visiting the Basque Country has been on my list of places to see for years.

On Thursday we did a free walking tour of historic Bilbao.  Our guide, Marina, was excellent.  

We enjoyed walking around and checking out the local sights.  It was especially nice enjoying the 30℃ (86℉) weather which was way warmer than in Brno.  

On Friday, we went to see the Vizcaya Bridge and did some walking around in Getxo and Portugalete.

On Saturday was our half-day tour which included stops at San Juan de Gaztelugatxe, Bermeo, and Guernica.

You can't visit the Basque Country and not enjoy pintxos, which is the Basque version of Spanish tapas.  Both are small snacks but pintxos are usually served on top of bread with a toothpick holding things together.

On Saturday afternoon we came across Basque folk dancing in the centre.

I'm not sure what I did that there's no sound but you get the idea.

Later we took an hour-long boat cruise along the Nervion River which gave us another view of the city.

Halloween seems to be catching on more and more across Europe.  

I think only in Spain will you see kids go trick-or-treating in pubs.

Of course, Saturday night wasn't just for kids.  

There were plenty of adults out as well.

We had a great time in Bilbao.  We definitely want to return to the Basque Country and next time we'll check out San Sebastián.

Knocking Out The List

Another great week in Friedrichshagen.  I knew that it was going to be a busy week and I was right.  First of all, there's always a list of things to do and no matter how full the list is to start with, additional things always some to get added.  

A few things were added to the side and even to the back of the list. In the end I think there were some 20 things that we checked off.  Not too shabby.

On Friday night we went out for sushi.  Tünde still uses the training chopsticks that I got her during my first trip to Singapore.  

On Saturday, we over to Oma and Opa's house for lunch.  Oma cooked up a feast as usual.

I normally try to catch the non-stop train that runs from Hamburg to either Vienna or Budapest which means that when I hop on the train in Berlin, it's a direct trip all the way to Brno.  Right now though, there's only one such train per day and it leaves just after 6 am.  If I don't catch the direct train then I have to change trains in Prague.  

Well my reward on Sunday morning for being at the Berlin main station before 6 am was to find out that the train had a last minute configuration change which meant that the first class cabin where I had a seat reservation wasn't there.  

So I got to take a business class seat instead.  This was my first time ever riding business business class on a train.  It was nice.  Very private with plenty of space.  I may have to do try this again.

Uzbekistan Trip Summary 2019

Well my Uzbekistan adventure came to a close.  I can't believe that I finally made it there.  It's the item that's been on my bucket list the longest but after 32 years I did it.   

I also had my first Aeroflot flight and made it to Moscow.  Only as far as my "capsule" hotel in transit hall at Sheremetyevo Airport.

I started off in Tashkent.  It reminded me of other former Soviet cities with the way things were laid out.  There was plenty to see but it didn't have the rich history of the other cities I visited.  

I'm glad that I took the half-day trip out to the mountains and Lake Charvak.

One thing worth checking out is the Tashkent metro.  Many of the stations are simply stunning.

One of my friends knows a guy who works at one of the embassies in Tashkent, who he put me in touch with.  On my last night in Tashkent he invited me over to have some wine and to meet his boyfriend.  It was a lovely evening.  I would post a photo and use names but I can't because being gay is illegal and can be punished by a three to five year prison sentence.  It was still one of the highlights of my trip.

I then caught the train to Samarkand.  My Russian failed me a bit here because instead of getting on the high-speed train I ended up on the normal Uzbek railway.  Overall not bad and I got some extra time to relax with my book.

Samarkand was small but so much to see.  In one day I walked 20 km (12,5 mile) walk where I visited mosques, museums, a souq, an ancient observatory, a necropolis, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cemeteries, and the tomb of St. Daniel.

This photo of Registan is for sure going up on Facebook.

For anyone going to Uzbekistan I can't stress this enough.  Bring either U.S. Dollars or Euros with you to exchange.  Very few places take cards so you need to have cash on you.  Most of the ATMs across the country don't work with foreign cards.  Some machines only work with Visa while some only work with MasterCard.  And it was very common for ATMs simply to be out of cash.  

Use the ATM at the airport when you land and take out more money than you normally would.  When I first landed I only took out 1,5 million Uzbek Som (€145 or $159).  I should have taken out enough money for the entire trip because trying to get more cash later was a bit of an adventure.

After a couple of days in Samarkand it was another train ride to Bukhara.  There is so much history to explore in Bukhara.  You can't turn a corner without coming across an ancient mosque, madrasa, mausoleum.

Things only get more beautiful at night when the lights come on.

After a week my Russian was pretty functional again.  An Uzbek woman said that I spoke pretty decent Russian for a Czech.  Not sure how I felt about this because the joke goes that when a drunk Czech speaks Russian what you end up with is Slovak.

The food was really good and cheap.  Lots of shashlik which are basically shish kebab.  The Plov (national rice pilaf dish) was excellent.

Dinner one night in Bukhara was black tea, break, meat soup and meat dumplings for 36.000 Som (€3,47 or $3.82).

If I had a few more days in Uzbekistan then I would have made it up ti Khiva.  Since I didn't make it this time I guess a return visit is in order.  Hopefully it won't take 32 years to make it back again.

From Tashkent I had my first flight with S7 (Siberian Airlines) which is part of Oneworld Alliance.  Unfortunately there was some mechanical problems with the connecting flight in Moscow so I was delayed a couple of hours getting back to Vienna on Sunday night.  

Overall a great trip!  Now the only Central Asian countries still to visit are Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.  Hmmm....maybe in 2020.