Turkey has not only a beautiful coastline, but is also home to inland water life.  North of Antalya is the Anatolian Lake District, consisting of three main lakes; Lake Burdur, Lake Egirdir and Lake Beysehir.  There are also many other smaller lakes throughout this district.  The main town in the area is Isparta, famous for its rose oil, however it is Egirdir that is the most interesting and astonishingly beautiful.

Egirdir is a town situated on the southern tip of Lake Egirdir, overlooking Mount Davraz.  Lake Egirdir is the fourth largest lake in Turkey, with an area of 482km².  Egirdir was previously known as Egridir, unfortunately this means ‘it’s crooked’, so to remove the negative connotations, the name was changed to Egirdir, meaning ‘she is spinning’.  Opposite the town centre are two small islands, connected to each other and the mainland by a cause way.  They are known as Canada and Yesilada and are good places to base yourself to view the natural and historic sites of Egirdir. 

HISTORY
Egirdir was originally founded by the Hittites and was a regular stop on the King’s Way, between Ephesus and Babylon.  It was this position on the trade route, that made the city flourish.  In 1200 BC Egirdir was taken by the Phrygians, then the Lydians, before being captured by the Perisans and conquered by Alexander the Great.  In Byzantine times the town was known as Akrotiri, meaning ‘Steep Mountain’.  The Ottomans finally took control in the 14th century, but the population of the island of Yesilada remained mainly Greek, until the population Exchange in 1923. http://www.tours4turkey.com/Destinations/Egirdir/

Ataturk standing outside the mosque/bazaar where you can buy rose soap, oil, and rose sented worry beads, yarn, clothing, fishing gear and guns and ammunition. Interestingly the building had originally been built in 1237 as a Seljuk (the original Turks) warehouse but was turned into a mosque in 1308. The building that now houses the bazaar was originally a caravanserai built by Seljuk Sultan Alaeddin Keykubat in 1218 but was converted into a medrese in 1285. Caravanserai were housing built during the 12^th century for caravans moving goods along the Silk Road. They were usually spaced about a “day’s travel apart” about 15 to 30 km apart to provide food and shelter. They were built by the Sultan paid for by the taxes collected on the goods carried by the caravans. A medrese (madrasah) is a social center/school associates with a mosque. Ataturk separated religion from government and wanted to decrease the impact of religion on the lives of modern Turks. (I think that’s a fair and bland way to put that and I know too little to say more.)

http://peacepension.com/Main.html has some more photos and some interesting information about the mosque and madras.

The mosque entrance lists the construction date 1237.

The inside was simple but lovely in its own way.

Just near the bazaar and mosque is a water faucet with a mug tied to it so passersby can have a drink.

All over Turkey there are signs for water fountains and you see people filling jugs. We’re not used to drinking water from hotel taps never mind some faucet out in the countryside. I finally did drink from a town water fountain in Guneykent. Our friend Emre drank some and didn’t exactly dare me to drink it. I had already had some of the rose water we were given at the village farm. So why not Guneykent fountain water? I drank it and I’m fine. We used tap water on our tip to make our morning coffee in our little electric travel kettle. The last country where we used tap water was Singapore, but everywhere else it was bottled water even if we were going to boil it. We filter the water on the boat that we drink or make our own water from sea water.

Egirdir Castle built by King Croesus in the 5^th century BC but was added on to by later conquerors. It was located on the mainland side of the causeway. He is the Croesus of “rich as Croesus” fame being king of the Lydian Kingdom when gold coins were first minted there.

“Some may find it interesting; Herodotus tells us that Croesus was so rich that he had every guest take as much gold as he could carry, upon leaving. One fellow asked Croesus if he could take his gold at a later date, to which Croesus assented. The man return a few weeks later with a coat that was covered with pockets inside and out. Not only this, but his body and the hair on his head was greased. He went into the treasury of Croesus where he disrobed and rolled in gold dust so that he was gilded from head to toe He filled all the pockets of his coat with coins and nuggets. He even filled his mouth with coins. His load was so cumbersom that he could barely move. Croesus thought this site hilarious. Though a tad poorer after this episode, Croesus was still a very rich King. To which, I think this story illustrates.” http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/15/messages/193.html

We motorbiked up the mountain behind Egirdir to see the ruins and stopped part way to look back at Egirdir. Our pension is at the tip of the tip! I think the big structure is the hospital.

Mountains overlooking Egirdir

“Sivri Dagi (Sharp Mountain) 1749 meters dominates views southwest of Egirdir. High up on its steep slopes the tiny village of Akpinar clings with a winning combo of apple orchards and photogenic lake views. To get there head 3km south of Egirdir on the lakeshore road…..where a road winds 4 km up the mountain to the village. …The village has a ramshackle collection of mismatched chairs and tables masquerading as a teahouse. Expect zingy homemade ayran (yogurt drink) and freshly made gozleme (thin savory crepes cooked with cheese, spinach or potato.) The terrific views of Egirdir reinforce how downright fragile the slim causeway to Yesilada looks from this high. “Lonely Planet The Lale Pension website calls the mountain Needle Mountain. I am confused how Mt Sivri and Mt Davras relate to each other. It didn’t matter to me while we were there; we just liked being on the bike and being in the midst of it.

We had the cheese gozleme. (Randal had an ayran in Antalya thinking it wouldn’t really be a yogurt drink but was so thirsty he drank it anyway.)

The views were spectacular and the village picturesque with apple orchards side by side with satellite dishes.

Can’t get there from here.

Not sure these roads were intended for motorbikes, but we managed to get this far only to be stopped by a sign from the Turkish military forbidding us to go any further. The road from Egirdir up the mountain to the village had been paved, and though steep was no real challenge. This dirt/rock strewn road had been a tough ride and it was frustrating to be stopped when we could see the Kapikaya ruins in the distance. There were sheep and cows grazing but event they hadn’t wandered into the military areas. I kept my eye out for sheep dogs but they only barked from a distance. We really hadn’t planned to stop in Egirdir so hadn’t read up on anything about the ruins. Apparently we may have taken a wrong route and there was another that would have gotten us to the ruins. Next time!

We ate lunch on the mountain in the small “teahouse” ordering drinks and a Turkish pancake. (Breakfast had been huge so we only needed one between us.) The owner seemed involved in other things, chatting with several men, so when nothing seemed to be happening, we had reminded him that we’d ordered coke, tea and a cheese pancake. (Randal’s coke had made it out of the cooler but not to the table and everyone else but me seemed to be getting served tea.) It was cold up in the teahouse and I wished for a sweater but hadn’t bothered to bring one from Marmaris because everyone had told us we’d be really hot away from the coast. After we’d finished our food I walked over to the WC while Randal tried to pay our bill but was ignored so just came out to the bike. I went back inside and said “hesap lutfen” and we got our bill. We walked back out to the bike and the owner came out and when he saw our bike became a much friendlier person. He asked about us and we told him about our boat and travels and that we were retired. His English was limited but good enough for our conversation. It is amazing how the men in the countryside responded to the bike.

We rode down the mountain turning north to bike the lakeshore road north along the west side of the lake.

Lots of farmland.

We biked a while stopping in tiny Barla for gasoline and something to drink then biking up into the hillside town. We saw only a few people out and about but they would always smile and wave back when I waved hello. You can tell they’re curious about us and I wish we could speak Turkish, but we can’t and most people speak little English so we just smiled and waved and went our way. The new part of Barla was concrete apartment buildings but the older part of Barla was very picturesque.

Stone buildings, new and old overlooked farms.

Orange tiled roofs were here and there.

And always stone walls.

Cheers to a beautiful day! I’m trying my first “raki” which is called “lion’s milk” by Turks because when you add water to the raki the clear liquid turns white. It is very strong straight so water is added and then ice if needed (always in that order) and it is served with a second glass of water. It is made from grapes but flavored with aniseed. With food it’s great. On an empty stomach it’s too much for me even with an entire bucket of ice added.

We ate across the street from our pension by the lake’s edge and watched the sun go down. It was a perfect day, but the following day was even better.

Marmaris to Egirdir, Isparta and Guneykent

We left Marmaris early July 4^th intending to spend the night in Isparta. Our route took us quickly into the countryside and up into the mountains.

We actually missed the turn-off to Burdur because it was just a dirt entrance you can see on the right side of the highway before the tunnel. We’ve actually been north to Denizli Pamukkale and Izmir so knew that was the wrong way. We quickly saw what had happened and got back on the road in the right direction. We were heading north east towards Isparta but Burdur was on the way and we actually thought of stopping there at about 3 pm rather than continue on.

Big cows!

Beside many petrol stations there are quite good restaurants. We ate soup, some type of sausage, rice, salad, bread, tea, beer and water. The bill was 17 TL about $11 and it was good and filling and held us until our late dinner in Egirdir. Half the time the bread and the salad are just free. We had just pointed to what we wanted and I know the Turkish words for soup and tomatoes and bread.

You see plants and flowers in absolutely every home and most businesses. A sheep pen was between the restaurant and the building with the WC. I practically tripped over a huge sheepdog chained to the pen but he ignored me. After the “bad dogs” in Kalkan and the warning in the Lonely Planet I am a bit leery of big Turkish dogs though only three of the hundreds we’ve seen have been bad. I did see some chase cars early in the morning outside our hotel in Seydisehir but they were gone when we got on our bike.

We passed Lake Burdur marveling that its shores seemed undeveloped and unspoiled.

We biked past lots of countryside that looked like this.

    We arrived in Isparta at the worst of times; about 4:45 pm during the rushing around part of the day when the streets were crowded and traffic heavy in the center city. With a population of 180,000 it’s not a tiny place. And it seemed as if the one way streets were all running the opposite way we needed them to be running. While planning our trip, my internet searches hadn’t turned up any obvious hotel or pension choices and Lonely Planet listed no sleeping options on the Isparta page. The few hotels we peaked at didn’t appeal to us. (We have since learned there were good choices, but we just didn’t know where to look.) Lonely Planet did offer choices for Egirdir which wasn’t so far away so off we went. We arrived after 7 pm tired and hungry so didn’t take the time to unearth Lonely Planet, but just took the first reasonable hotel we found and it was totally acceptable with wifi, hot water, ac, and breakfast with a beautiful view.

   After dumping off our gear we went out for dinner and forgot our rule of splitting a meal because you get so much food. You order, say, eggplant kabobs and grilled chicken and you get salad and bread and meze and before you know it there’s a ton of food on the table that you can’t possible eat. Four people would have had plenty!

You are invited into restaurants like long lost friend so how can you refuse? We sat just about behind the tree at the far restaurant. I ordered eggplant kabobs a salad and bread and Randal ordered a grilled chicken something. Way too much food!

You can see an empty salad plate in the middle and some red pepper relish/salsa and a basket of bread out of site. The bread in front of me came with my eggplant to keep it hot!

Under the bread the actual kabob dish was covered with plastic to keep in the heat.

Grilled eggplant and grilled spicy lamb kabobs and grilled tomato. I ate about half and that was more than I should have but I hated to make them think I didn’t like it. I now know the Turkish word for FULL. DOLU.

Rooftop dining over Lake Egirdir at the Apostel Hotel.

We moved from our mainland Apostel Otel to Ali’s Pension on Yesilda at the end of the causeway connecting the small island to the mainland.

We got up early the morning after our arrival and walked the 1.5 km to Yesilda finding Ali’s Pension and asking for a room. Luckily for us they were having a slow week between two fully booked weeks.

The causeway towards Yesilda.

Looking back along the causeway to Mt Davraz.

Our room was the top floor; the windows on the left. We could sit out on the balcony and look out on the lake. Ali’s has a great website with lots of information about Egirdir. It answered our question about the large wood “falling down” houses we saw on Yesilda and around town.

GREEK HOMES

“Yesilada has very strong Greek origins and ancestry. In years long past it boasted a very large Greek community .During the war, in 1922, the men returned to Greece and until 1924 only women remained on the island. However, the women also returned to Greece at the conclusion of the war. Many of the homes they built, recognizable as the old large brown wooden buildings, can still be found scattered throughout the middle of the island. Quite surprisingly, although they look to be crumbling to the ground, some are still occupied today.” Ali’s Pension website

Ali’s patio where we were served breakfast.

Ali’s famous “cigara borek” are the deep friend dough filled with cheese.

“Yesilada’s best breakfasts regularly break the mould of the same old bread, cheese and cucumber combo, and we challenge you to find fresher and tastier cigara borek (deep fried savoury pastries) anywhere in Turkey.” Lonely Planet

http://www.alispension.com/ The website of our pension in Egirdir. It tells a great deal about the history, geography, and culture of the area.

Next email will be photos of Egirdir and our ride up Mt. Davraz

We arrived back on DoraMac on the 13th and after a rest and a visit to the Thursday Market to restock the frig, I am now trying to catch up writing about our adventure.  This email is a sneak preview with a few photos from each stop.  We had a great time!

Ru

Fifteen Hundred Kilometers ( 900 miles) Motorbike Ride through Turkey: Marmaris to Egirdir to Beysehir to Konya to Seydisehir to Kemer to Kas and back to Marmaris: July 4 to July 13, 2011.

Those were our night stops. We also visited Isparta and Guneykent, and made stops in Antalya, Demre, and Xanthos.

We had a super great trip through Turkey’s beautiful “Lake District.” I never would have imagined myself preferring the mountains to the sea, but I just love the stark, rugged mountains of Turkey. And the lakes were quite beautiful too, but it was the mountains that I will miss the most now that we’re back on DoraMac. We had left Marmaris with a plan, but again it was “serendipity” and the “kindness of strangers” that made our trip so memorable. In this email I’m going to send a few photos from each stop and then I’ll write more each individually. I took a zillion photos (but not enough) and want to share them all, but of course, can’t.

We left Marmaris early July 4^th heading for Isparta known for its carpets and its rose oil and rose water industry. We actually continued on to Lake Egirdir (pronounced Aer (roll the r) dir) and stayed 3 nights!

Climbing the mountain overlooking Egirdir town and biking around town along the coast road.

Thanks to “serendipity” and lots of really warm, friendly, helpful people we visited the rose fields of Guneykent, a village farm where rose water and oil is distilled, (we were given a large bottle of rose water as a gift) and were treated to tea, cookies and a lovely lunch. I’m saving that whole story for later.

Stop two was Beysehir, and the mountain journey to get there was a story in itself.

Mountains in the distance, 10,000 ft tall still had snow.

We’d been warned that “away from the coast” would be hot! But you can see Randal in his jacket and we needed wool blankets at night to keep warm! The weather was just about perfect; only about a half hour of rain late one afternoon that we could wait out. We had to putt putt over tall mountains and ride over dirt roads under construction. We had to make way for cows and goats and chickens! It was great!

In Beysehir they have a beautiful old mosque with wood pillars and we walked to the older part of town to see it.

Beysehir has a very beautiful mosque and I’m being helped to dress properly to enter.

Next stop Konya for carpets, the poet Rumi (Mevlana) and the Whirling Dervishes.

From Beysehir we biked to Konya, with a city population of over 1,000,000, one of the largest cities in Turkey. So even though Randal had studied a Google Earth view and a Lonely Planet map it was nice to have a “biker buddy” lead us to our hotel! We’d asked him for directions at a stop light but Ibrahim decided it would be better if he just showed us the way. Then he and Randal talked “bikes.” We made lots of new friends with the motorbike, kind of the way bicycle people gravitate to each other. Cars enclose and separate people; motorbikes and bicycles make contact easier and curiosity about tourists traveling by motorbike attracts people.

Ibrahim and Randal comparing bikes.

The amazing Whirling Dervishes!

I became fascinated with the dervishes in India so wanted to visit Konya where their order began. It was an amazing performance to watch. We also visited the tomb of Melvana, St. Paul’s Church and the Ataturk Museum which was annoyingly closed for renovation. I’ll try to explain about them in my Konya email.

From Konya we went to Seydisehir to visit the nearby Tinaztepe Cave and to break up the longish ride to the coast to Antalya. We never did make it to the caves and actually spent most of our time in Seydisehir sleeping. We really were tired and though the people of the town are very welcoming and curious about visitors, there isn’t so much to see, especially on Sunday when most shops are closed. One man invited us to his home for tea! At that point we were supposedly on our way to the caves so declined and we also didn’t want to impose. Too be honest, at that point we were too tired to try to interact with no common language since I know about 20 words in Turkish and Randal about 2 and most folks in town spoke only Turkish. But everyone, everywhere was glad to meet Americans.

From our hotel room window you could watch the nesting storks on the mosque and the buildings around town. I was fascinated. Wish we’d had binoculars.

This photo could have been anywhere. Dad had gone back into the store for something and the younger boy had dropped the piece of chocolate off the top of his ice cream cone. He was picking it up off the sidewalk and older brother was telling him not to, that they weren’t supposed to eat anything that had fallen to the ground. I’ve eaten those chocolate topped cones so knew how disappointed the small boy was to have dropped his. I wanted to yell “5 second rule” but figured I’d better stay out of it. If dad had not been there, I would have bought the boy a new cone. In my head I can hear the older boy speaking, telling his brother to leave the chocolate on the ground, but they must have been speaking Turkish so experience must have been translating the words in my head.

Seydisehir to Kemer

We left about 7 am to make our long ride to Antalya on the Mediterranean Coast. We nearly froze on our way over the mountains that morning. I could at least hide behind Randal, but his legs in shorts were freezing and our jackets barely kept our top halves warm. At the bottom of the mountain we couldn’t get our jackets off fast enough it was so hot along the coast. What a difference; and not a pleasant one either. The road to Antalya had lots of traffic and the closer we got the more it looked like 419 in Roanoke around Christmas time. There was a construction detour with no directional signs and we hadn’t expected the confusion and fast multi-lane traffic so missed our turn to the older part of town. We stopped for lunch and decided it was easier to go on to Kemer, a small marina town, than to go back into Antalya with all of the crowds and heat. Kemer was our least favorite stop. It seemed a more crowded, more touristy, snobby, smaller version of Marmaris. Our small pension had no wifi (breakfast either) so we spent most of our time at a nearby restaurant having cold drinks and then dinner. The owner, chef and waiter were all very nice and in another setting, like Egirdir, we would have really enjoyed their restaurant.

Kemer to Kas

On the way to Kas we stopped in Demre to see the Myra Ruins and the statue of St. Nicholas who died in the town of Demre. The ruins were impressive but crowded without the space and beauty of Patara. One could by lots of Father Christmas kitsch in town, but we didn’t. The good thing about motorbike travel is that you have no room to accumulate “stuff” though that actually is the bad thing too. Stuff can be fun.

Myra necropolis

www.stnicholas.ru

Another new bike friend, Omer Geres who is planning a ride to Syria with some friends.

He gave us a suggestion of a pension in Kas but it turned out that one room was too big and one too small but we found our pension next door so it was a help. Both are actually listed in our Lonely Planet Guide.

Ani Pension in Kas…wifi, ac, hot water…everything we needed for cheap.

We left Kas about 7 am and arrived back at the boat mid-afternoon. A long ride. We did stop in Xanthos to see some ruins since they were just about on our way.

Once the capital of Lycia.

According to Lonely Planet most of what is seen today is a recreation; the original was carted off to the British Museum in 1842. There was more to see up the road but we didn’t take the time since we just wanted to be home.

And then we were back in Marmaris and back on Doramac. Our friends Bud and Nita from Passage had kept an eye on her while we were gone, rearranging lines that had chaffed a bit too much. Always good to have friends. Good to get away. It’s good to be back “Home” but I wish we could take Doramac into the mountains!

Alis Pension on Lake Egirdir

http://www.alispension.com/index.html

Hi All,

  We left Marmaris Monday July 4th and we’re having the time of our lives.  Maybe that’s a slight exaggeration, but maybe not.  In just 3 days we have loads of stories to tell and hundreds of photos.  and we’ve just begun this trip.  We planned to travel inland to Isparta, Konya, Anatalya, and along the coast back to Marmaris.  We didn’t plan to come here to Egirdir but are so glad that we did.  Turkey’s lake district is beautiful with blue blue lakes surrounded by stark mountains.

Isparta is known for its rose cultivation and the production of rose water and rose oil.  We are here after the main production season that ended in June but thought we might see something of it.  By incredible luck we met wonderful people and the result was we were sent from Isparta to Guneykent where the mayor rolled out the red carpet for us with a tour of the fields, a visit to a village rose still where the water and oil are made and then lunch back in Guneykent.  Words can’t describe what warmth and hospitality we were shown.  I will write up the story for our blog when we are back on the boat with photos of all of the people who made our day in Isparta and then Guneykent so special.  In the meantime, look at the websites.  Google should translate the pages for you.  Thank you Bulent Akbas in Isparta and Mayor Fahretdin Gozgun, Emre Yaunkaya (hope that is spelled right) and Ahmed and the village family in Guneykent.  We want to share you with all of our friends and hope some may be lucky enough to meet you one day. 

http://www.guneykent.bel.tr/baskaninmesaji/index.php      Click on Resimler  for photos of the town and rose industry.  If for some reason this doesn’t work search guneykent and gul  and this link should be a choice.  Gul means rose.

 

A garbage and bus strike had ended that morning.

More black and white stone pathways.

Funny name for a laundromat.

Randal and friend outside a souvenir shop selling ancient Greek and medieval collectibles. (Replicas of course.)

Doorways of Rhodes

A sign points the way to the port area…guess they’d been asked so often they painted the sign.

Plateia Ippokratous

The medieval fountain in the central square near the Marine Gate was a great family photo opportunity or a place for an intimate discussion with a friend.

Street of the Knights

“Founded in the 11^th century by merchants from Amalfi, the Order of Hospitallers of the Knights of St. John guarded the Holy Sepulcher and tended Christian pilgrims in Jerusalem. They became a military order after the First Crusade (1096-9) but had to take refuge in Cyprus when Jerusalem fell in 1291. They bought Rhodes from the Genoese pirate Admiral Vignoli in 1306, and eventually conquered the Rhodians in 1309. A Grand Master was elected for life to govern the Order, which was divided into seven Tongues, or nationalities, France, Italy, England, Germany, Provence, Spain and Auvergne. Each Tongue protected an area of city wall known as Curtain.” DK Witness Travel The Greek Islands

Temple of Aphrodite dates from the 3^rd century B.C.

Each civilization built on top of the ones before it so many of the ruins we saw were below the current street level.

We walked along the modern waterfront.

All hands were on deck to keep this yacht from banging into the yachts on either side as it backed into a berth at the city marina. Every boat has several fenders on each side to prevent damage from the other boats. This is Med mooring and allows for more boats at each marina but zero privacy!

Cruise ships and ferry boats have a separate terminal.

Further along the waterfront from the ferry terminal a new private marina is being built. Hopefully it will be completed in a year or so when we might want to bring Doramac to Rhodes.

Our return trip to Marmaris was delayed for an hour because someone from the Marmaris ferry crew forgot to get the correct papers from the Greek Port Authority clearing the ferry to leave.

So ends our visit to Rhodes. There’s so much more to see and do than we did. But it wasn’t the right time for us. We visited Istanbul early in the spring before the heat and the crowds and that’s the way we want to see most places now…in the off seasons. That said, Monday we’re taking off inland for Isparta and Konya because now is when we have the time. And there’s been no rain for days and days which is perfect for motorbiking. We’ll hopefully go to a carpet auction in Isparta and visit the center for whirling dervishes in Konya. It might take a week or two, depending. Konya, the furthest, is about 600 kilometers from Marmaris. We rode 280 kilometers the day we went to Kas/Kalkan and that took us about 6 hours. It’s definitely a lot of miles to sit. But I think it will be great! We’ll definitely keep a look out for dogs and I’m taking a spray bottle of bleach or something to spray if they do chase. Bad Dogs! We’ll take our small computer and hope for hotels with wifi. And since I’ll take a zillion photos I can get them off my camera onto the computer. On our trip I’ll keep my eye out for a “second half of the season” charm for the Red Sox…they need something!

Hi All,

   We biked off for lunch in Turunc, a town about an hour from the marina.  We’d biked through on other trips and stopped once for gas since it’s the only station between Marmaris and Bozburun.  We decided to make the trip today, but won’t need to go back.  Looking down from the mountain just outside the town is a spectacular view.  Looking up at the mountains is quite lovely too.  But it’s really mostly a tourist spot with lots of hotels and restaurants lining the beach.  And lunch at our Marmaris chicken wrap place Aciktim is better! 

   This past Wednesday we went to Greece.  Here’s the story.

Rhodes June 29, 2011

Wednesday we went on a visa run. Our 90 day Turkish visa will expire mid-July but we won’t be setting sail for Cyprus until August. Since we are planning a motorbike trip the first weeks in July that might overlap our deadline, we needed to renew before we took off. So we did what most folks do; we took the ferry from Marmaris to Rhodes, Greece. That involved checking out of Turkey, checking into Greece, checking out of Greece and checking into Turkey purchasing a new 90 day visa in the process. We were able to do that because Turkey isn’t an EU country. We are only allowed 90 days total within a 180 day period in EU countries. That will be a problem if we take the boat through the western Med at some point, and though the boat can stay longer, we have to leave…not something we would do. But that’s a worry for some other time. We chose to stay just for the day because I’m not ready to “do Greece” yet. There’s still so much to see in Turkey I just don’t want to think about learning about Greece. And it’s tourist season too, so too crowded to bother with things. We’ll see and learn about Greece some other time. This was just a go, hang out, eat lunch and come back with the new stamp sort of trip.

The ferry left Marmaris at 9 AM. We were to be at the port by 8 AM to for checkout procedures. To make sure we got there on time I’d set the alarm for 5:30 to make sure we’d have enough time to futz around, do email and get ready. We hopped on the motorbike about 7:30 am and got to the port about 10 minutes later. The man at the entry gate answered our questions before we’d even asked them so that was simple and there was no problem leaving the bike for the day. We couldn’t take it with us because that would have involved too much money and paperwork, so it stayed behind.

This red 1958 Chevy was continuing its life as a taxi and lots of folks posed and took photos outside the Marmaris port building as we waited to go through the departure procedures.

The ferry ride reminded me of our trips from China to Hong Kong on visa runs, but there was no horribly violent Jackie Chan film. (The same first 50 minutes of the film was shown each time we took the ferry so we never saw the end!) There were no films at all so I just snoozed for the hour it took to cross the 22 miles from Marmaris to Rhodes. The ferry was quite full: lots of Brits on holiday.

We walked off the ferry and through immigration to get ourselves stamped into Greece.

Walking from the ferry terminal to Old Town

Our first stop was at one of the “not working” ATM machines. We needed to get some Euros since they don’t take dollars or Turkish Lira in Greece. They will take Euros in Turkey so if we had any left that would be no problem unlike our Maldives money that no country will touch with a ten foot pole!

I had read about the synagogue on Rhodes being the oldest in Greece, so we did make a plan to see that. It actually was quite near the gate closest to the port where we disembarked.

“East from Hippocrates Square, the Bourg embraces Ovriaki. This was the Jewish Quarter (“La Juderia”) from the 1^st century AD until German occupation in 1944, when the Jewish population was transported to Auschwitz. East along Aristotelous is Plateia Evraion Mart’yron (Square of the Jewish Martyrs), named in memory of all those people who perished in the concentration camps.” DK Eyewitness Travel The Greek Islands

The oldest synagogue of Greece is located in Rhodes

http://www.jewishrhodes.org/html/

“The rich history of the Jewish People on the island of Rhodes Greece starts many centuries ago. Known as the Rhodesli today, that is the Jewish of Rhodes, some live in Juderia Quarter, next to the pier of the cruise ships in the Old Town of Rhodes, and others live abroad. The history of the Jews of Rhodes, which is presented in the Jewish Museum of Rhodes, is marked by the Holocaust of the Second World War.

The Jewish Community obtained a great power especially during the Ottoman Empire, as that time all Jewish communities were considered self-governing bodies. Their private and communal life was organized according to their laws and traditions and all these centuries of their presence in Rhodes they played an important role in the spiritual and economic development of the island. In fact, in 1927, a Rabbinical College was established that worked till 1937.

However, the anti-Jewish laws posed in 1938 by the Italians, who were that time ruling the Dodecanese islands, forced 2,000 out of the 4,000 Jews of Rhodes to immigrate. In 1944, all Jewish men, women and children of Rhodes were concentrated and they were transferred to the concentration camp of Auschwitz. Out of the 1,673 Jews of Rhodes that were transferred to Auschwitz, only 150 survived the end of the war.

Today, the Jewish Community of Rhodes is small but they want to preserve and remember their history. With the initiative of Mr. Aron Hasson, a Rhodesli living in Los Angeles, USA, and with the help of all the Jews living on the island, the Jewish Museum of Rhodes was established in 1997 and it is housed in the Kahal Shalom Synagogue.

"I saw there was a need for the visitors to Rhodes to understand that there was a Jewish community devastated by the Holocaust", told us Mr. Hasson, explaining his idea to create this museum. "It is located in the 6 rooms adjoining the Kehila Shalom synagogue. The 6 rooms of the museum were built by the Crusaders. The Kehila Shalom, also known as the Kahal Shalom, is the oldest Jewish synagogue in Greece, established in the 1500’s. Our exhibits are valuable. We have two Jewish burial stones from 1593 and 1655. We also have a 15th century old Torah on display and a few costumes worn by Rhodesli Jews dating from the 19th century. Most of the exhibits were collected by me from Rhodesli Diaspora families (families from around the world). They consist of artifacts and photographs".

Today only 25 people form the Jewish Community of Rhodes.

The Jewish Museum of Rhodes is open daily from April to October, 10.00 am to 03.00 pm, Saturdays closed. It is located in Drossatou street, Old Town of Rhodes.“ http://www.greeka.com/dodecanese/rhodes/news/interviews/778.htm

Aron Hasson is an attorney in LA. His four grandparents were born in Rhodes but emigrated to the US between 1912 and 1920.

Kahal Shalom Synagogue

Black and white stone walks can be seen throughout Old Town Rhodes.

A couple from Israel has brought their grandsons to visit.

I spoke with them later. He told me that the man welcoming all of the tourists is a Holocaust survivor as he’d noticed numbers tattooed on the man’s arm. He then said, “That’s life.” His wife responded immediately saying, “That’s not life!” They got into one of those tragic/comic dialogues that only Jews can have with lots of opinions and no end.

At the entrance is a plaque listing the last names of the families who died in the Holocaust

The man in the white yarmulke is the guide and the man in the black yarmulke is the Israeli grandfather.

There wasn’t a “tour”, and I didn’t have enough knowledge to ask questions, so I just walked around and took photos.

A Turkish hero who did his best to save as many of the Rhodes Jews as he could.

15^th Century Torah

The museum.

We had no Euros so I left a $10 US and hope the money changer can help or another American tourist.

We left the synagogue and walked further into Old Town looking for some lunch walking past Martyrs Square.

Martyrs Square

Happier scenes….chatting parrots.

A young girl playing in the bronze dolphin fountain.

Street scenes….

Then came lunch! Souvlaki!!!