Mark Smalley

Antalya, Sun 2 Oct

Our Martinair 747 flight went as planned, leaving at 0430 and arriving just before 0900. Long wait for luggage, at hotel at 1100, room 526. Showering weather today, so no swimming pool or beach. About 25c. Good excuse to get a couple of hours of sleep in.
Weather clears up mid aftenoon and we take a walk and get some shopping. Prices seem to have gone up by a third since our previous visit in 2003. That's a third in lira, not sure how the exchange rate has changed but a euro will get you 1.6 ytl now. We have 110 million old lira, which is 110 new lira (ytl).
For our evening meal we visit one of our favourite and less touristy haunts, where we are touchingly welcomed back by two kisses on the cheek. For me, not Marijke. And we get a free desert thrown in as well. Good food with plenty of fresh salad side dishes for 15.50 lira. Manage to exchange just a couple of Turkish words, having forgotten most of our limited vocabulary, which has never extended to complete sentences anyway, just words that fit the gaps hands and feet can't reach.
Back at the hotel a couple of cans of beer await us: an Efes and an unusually named Albatros.

posted by Mark Smalley @ 8:12 PM