I touched down at Marco Polo airport in Venice after another 7 hours on the plane. Thank goodness I don’t have to catch another plane for two weeks!!
Lesson 1: there are two steps to public transport here – buy a ticket then you need to validate it! The girl at the bus stop was vehemently telling me something i didn’t understand, then repeated “stamp! stamp!” Apparently that;s what the unlabelled yellow box at the bus stop is for.
Venice – day 2
Filed under italy
Transit – Dubai
I just landed in Dubai. I’d forgotten just how warm and sticky it is here! We landed at 5am and it was already 36C and outside it’s like breathing soup. Inside the new Terminal 3 building is beautifully cool, and scarily huge. We had to go through security, then down escalators, then up three times the height of those escalators, right next to the first ones down! Not good for my fear of heights! 😉
Filed under italy
Gluten Free Travel
Since I’ve been gluten-free for over 10 years now, I’m getting pretty good at managing food overseas. A lot of the time I go without (at least there’s always chocolate!!) and I make sure I have muesli bars etc just in case.
Filed under italy
Istanbul again
The otobus from Izmir ended up taking a car ferry part of the way up to Istanbul, so even though we didn’t get a ferry ride all the way, we did get a boat ride!
Filed under turkey
Izmir
Izmir is quite interesting. It’s very cool that it’s a port on the Aegean, and there’s definite Greek influences! But we went to the bazaar today and got hassled a lot – still not quite as bad as Egypt, but worse than the Istanbul Bazaar!
Filed under turkey
Selcuk day 2 – Ephesus
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Kusadasi – Selcuk
We’re now in Selcuk, near the ruins of Ephesus which we’re going to visit tomorrow.
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Pammukale
On our way to Pammukale we stopped off at a carpet factory/tourist shop to see how carpets are made. We saw the silk being spun from silkworm cocoons (interesting but kind of gross when the silkworms are boiled to kill them…), carpets being hand knotted, and saw some of the amazing textiles from the area. There were some gorgeous carpets, but I managed to not “accidentally” buy anything. A few of the girls were very tempted!
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Goreme Day 2
Today we started with a relaxing massage in the hotel’s onsite hammam. This one was a bit different – no pillowcase of suds this time, but lots of scrub-a-dub and bowls of water being thrown around. Nice.
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Two Weeks Away 
