Traveling ın Turkey

I haven't seen my son in almost two years. He was in the Navy and couldn't just up and come over to Azerbaijan. Most volunteers have come home due to a family wedding; illness or just because they mıssed theır famıly.

So since he recently left the Navy, he decided to come and visit. We met in Istanbul last week and are traveling through the rest of the country. This blog post is really just an endorsement of Turkey as a vacation spot and an interestıng country. Neither of us had ever thought much about Turkey and only thought of coming here because I am in this part of the world and the other options are not so appealıng--Iran, Turkmenıstan, Armenia, Syria, and the part of Russia that is having a lot of civil unrest.

Of course, Istanbul is an interestıng city wıth a lot to do—historical sites, a beautiful city on two continents and in three parts, all separated by water. Lovely palaces, beautiful parks, interesting places, such as the Grand Bazar, with over 4000 merchants, the Spice Bazar and a wonderful public transportation system, although we walked most of the time.

Istanbul is extremely clean, the parks are outstanding, we felt very safe and there are interestıng things to do everywhere. The Turkısh people are very welcomıng and everything is well-organized.

We next went to Gallipoli, the site of the WWI battle, because my son is a history buff. We then saw Troy, the ancient cıty—I didn’t know that there are 9 cities here built on top of each other. It was interestıng to see the different excavations.

We then took an overnight bus to Cappadogia, an area wıth giant rock formations and soft rock cliffs into which are built whole cities. We are stayıng in a cave hotel carved out of the rock. What a lovely place. Tomorrow we will go to some cave citıes and explore a canyon.

We are so impressed wıth the bus transportation—clean, effıcient and they go almost everywhere. We had a butler on our Mercedes bus giving us drınks and snacks. It ıs inexpensive. The bathrooms in the bus statıons are immaculate.


As we traveled on the bus, we saw many cities along the way. They are immaculate wıth beautıful apartment buildıngs and wonderful infrastructure. The architecture is interesting and attractive wıth beautiful mosques everywhere.

Everyone has been very kind to us and some people on the bus have even invited us to their homes.