May 19, 2024
Today we met Dan and Banu late morning, and walked around their neighborhood to a bakery, a fruit/veggie shop, a meat and cheese shop, another bakery, and then a dairy shop - then we headed to their spacious rooftop apartment and they prepped it all up for another many plated feast. Then we hung out with them, along with Banu's mother, for the rest of the afternoon. It was a good break from go-go-go touring.
Today we met Dan and Banu late morning, and walked around their neighborhood to a bakery, a fruit/veggie shop, a meat and cheese shop, another bakery, and then a dairy shop - then we headed to their spacious rooftop apartment and they prepped it all up for another many plated feast. Then we hung out with them, along with Banu's mother, for the rest of the afternoon. It was a good break from go-go-go touring.
Later in the evening, while Tim worked on the blog, Gerri headed to the neighborhood hang out area to check the vibe, and grab a small fish sandwich to get her through the night.
She found a lot of interested soccer fans watching their team play on the telly - actually it was one Istanbul team versus another. The "home team" lost unfortunately.
May 20, 2024
Today we crossed the bay a second time, but just with Dan (Banu is back to work) and without the car. He has a Turkish language class M-F each week. While he took his lessons, we checked out the old neighborhoods of the area across the bay.
We try out the elevator to avoid the steps to the higher up hood.
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The view from just outside the elevator at the top...
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Our view for breakfast...
Continuing our walk about...
These are the steps (they go on for about forever beyond this lower part) the elevator avoids. There's supposed to be a peace-themed graphic here, but now it's been replaced with a children's health charity montage.
Izmir Clock Tower - a major landmark, and symbol of the city, completed in 1901.
The market came into existence with the filling between 1650–1670 A.D. of the shallowest parts of the inner bay. The process of gaining ground from the bay was further pursued in 1744 with the construction of Kızlarağası Han, an impressive caravanserai (and surviving to the present) that emerged as the nucleus of the market.
One or more of these bowls would have come back across the pond with us, if we didn't have to carry it for 4 1/2 months in a backpack.
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We escape with no purchases - so many gold rings, carpets, refrigerator magnets, and bongo drums to choose from.
This is one extensive market district - there's twisting streets everywhere with shop after shop.
There's bolts of cloth, and bunches of dried lavender for about 30 cents each.
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There's supposed to be 10 Jewish synagogues in the district - we found 4 of them - all locked up.
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We catch up with Dan who takes us to his favorite dessert shop - a Turkish take on custard pie - he specifically asks for the pie tin to eat from and get the burnt extras.
On the way back we notice the MSC Divinia is in town - this was our first MSC ship, out of Port Canaveral that time, about 5-6 years ago.
We return to the ferry port on "our" side of the bay...
Some art installations in our neighborhood...
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We end our Izmir visit with a bayside little picnic dinner at sunset on the bay - thanks to Banu and Dan for a great time!
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