Summer '99 Trip - Mediterranean - July to August 1999

This second part of the trip covers the countries of Israel, Greece and Turkey during our Summer of '99 trip.  The first part of the trip can be found in the Africa blog and the last part of this trip can be found in the Switzerland/France blog.

Israel
Shawna flew into Tel Aviv by herself from Egypt, arriving late at night.  She was shocked to find that my camera did in fact show up at the airport; however, I found out the next day that it was broken and so the airline told me to bring it to a camera shop to get it fixed.  The guy at the camera shop immediately knew what to do to fix it -- apparently this is a common occurrence!  Shawna met up with Danelle, Tracy and Dave the following day at the Seaside Hostel (clean, cheap rooms) where we stayed for 3 nights.  Tel Aviv is a beautiful, bustling city but does not have a lot of tourist attractions.  We visited the Jewish Diaspora Museum, walked around Jaffa and the promenade and relaxed on the beach.

The four of us travelled via bus to Jerusalem where we stayed for 4 nights at the Hotel Noga, owned by a cute old man who used to be a tennis coach.  Keith met us on the last day.  While we were there, we celebrated Danelle's birthday (which is on July 4th) at the Strudel Wine and Internet Bar where there were several Americans celebrating Independence Day.

Dome of the Rock

Jerusalem is an amazing city -- full of rich, cultural attractions and beautiful as well!  We toured all of the main sites and did a lot of walking in the process.  Our first stop was the Holocaust Museum which is a well organized and documented museum - the memorials throughout definitely convey the gravity of what had occurred.  We visited the Citadel which is an impressive fort in the heart of the city with an interesting museum.  We walked along the ramparts from which there are great views of the city.  We also walked around the American Quarter where we saw the St. James Cathedral and the Jewish Quarter where we saw the Four Sephardic Synagogues.

Dave, Keith, Tracy, Danelle
The Citadel

On Mt. Olives, we visited the Church of Ascension, the Church of Pater Noster (where the Lords prayer is written in over 60 languages on tile), the Church of Mary Magdalene (with beautiful gold onion shaped domes), and the Church of All Nations (where Jesus spent his last night before Judas turned him in).  We walked along the Via Dolorosa through the 14 stations of the cross, the most impressive of which were the last 4 stations in the Church of Holy Sepulchre.  It was in this church where Jesus was crucified and buried -- it is a rather dark church but beautifully decorated.  We also saw David's Tomb on Mt. Zion and the Coenaculum which is where the Last Supper was held.

On the last day, which is when Keith joined us, we walked the ramparts of the Citadel so that he could see the views of the city.  We then went to the Wailing Wall where the women are separated from the men and to the Dome of the Rock which is an impressive mosque that is beautifully decorated with stained glass windows -- it is here that Abraham was going to sacrifice his son.  As you can imagine, attire was strict at these attractions so we had to wear long sleeves and long skirts/pants.

Wailing Wall

Keith Floating in
the Dead Sea

The five of us took a bus to Ein Gedi at the northern end of the Dead Sea where we stayed one night at the Beit Sarah Hostel (one of the best deals on the trip).  We hiked in the Ein Gedi Reserve to the Shulamit Falls and the Hidden Falls -- it was quite hot so it was refreshing to wade in the pools.  We also floated in the Dead Sea -- while it was interesting to be this buoyant, the salt certainly burned your skin and the floating dead bugs did not make us want to stay too long.  On the following day we hiked up the Masada (built by the Jews to protect themselves from the Romans) while Tracy, Dave and Danelle took the cable car (which in the heat of July was not a bad choice).   After touring around the top, we said our goodbyes to Tracy and Dave who were leaving to go to Turkey.

We took a bus with Danelle to Tiberias, which is a cute town on the Sea of Galilee, where we stayed one night at the Maman Hostel and one night at Adina's Guesthouse.  We had a horrible night's sleep at the Maman Hostel (hot and noisy with 6 other teens in our room) which is what prompted us to find another place.  We rented bikes and rode around Galilee visiting sites along the way, including the Church of the Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes and the Church of the Mount of Beatitudes.  From here, we took a day trip to Safed which has a cute artist quarter where we walked around and bought candles that we had shipped back to the States.

The three of us then took a bus to Akko which is a small port town on the Mediterranean and stayed at Pual's Hostel for one night.  The owner swore that the room (which had no A/C) would get cool at night; however, it got so hot that we all ended up reading outside for most of the evening!  We ventured through the old city, walking through the Khan-a-Shawarda (where the horses and carriages were housed) and the subterranean Crusader City.  There was not much to see in this town (we saw all of the sights in about two hours) and since our room was a steam bath, we opted to plop ourselves down at an Italian restaurant and drank beer for the rest of the afternoon.  Along our way back to Tel Aviv, we stopped in Caesarea, a stone city along the Mediterranean, and quickly toured the theater, hippodrome, church and market area.  We spent one more day and night in Tel Aviv, mostly doing laundry and email before we headed out for Greece.

Greece
This part of the trip was way less cultural and had way more relaxation and partying.  Danelle, Keith and Shawna flew into Athens on El Al Airlines.  The check-in procedures were not as onerous as the one that Shawna had experienced flying to Israel; however, we did go through a round of questioning separately and then the security guards compared notes to make sure we were telling the truth.  We met up with Mark and his friend Tina in the Platka, a cute cobble stoned district of Athens, for lunch and then we toured the Acropolis.  The five of us then headed to the ferry, the Agapito Express, to Santorini which is about a 10-hour boat ride.   We left around 10pm and arrived at 8am.  With a few beers in us, we attempted to sleep on the boat but it was challenging doing so sitting upright, with lights on and with people talking around us.  Two girls sitting in front of us who apparently were offended by the smell of my feet (I had been wearing the same Tevas the entire trip and even I was offended by the smell) sprayed my feet with perfume.  It was hilarious!

Acropolis

We arrived in Santorini, a true paradise of the Greek isles, and stayed at the Hotel Matina in the town of Kasari for 4 nights.  The hotel was a couple of steps up from our previous accommodations -- it had a slamming swimming pool.  Fran met us there on the second day -- as soon as she arrived, she asked Keith if he had lost his wallet (which in fact he had - we noticed it missing when we were at Mt Sinai).  She had seen a sign in an internet cafe in Israel indicating that someone had found his wallet but by the time she went to their hotel, the people had already left -- small world!  We took the opportunity to relax by the pool most of the days there as we were quite tired from all of the sight seeing the previous several weeks.   One day, we rented a couple of Jeeps and toured the island, stopping by the Red Sand Beach, Fira (the capital of the island) and Oia which is a cute town on the northern part of the island.  We spent most of our time in Oia, walking around the shops and staying to watch the stunning sunset while dinning at Castro Restaurant.

Shawna, Danelle, Mark, Fran, Keith, Tina

From Santorini, we took the ferry to Paros which took about 4 hours and stayed at Marsina for two nights.  We spent the afternoon walking around the town which was cute but no where nearly as nice as Santorini.  We also took a day trip to Antiparos where we visited a cave and relaxed on the beach.

From Paros, we took the ferry to Mykonos (a cuter island than Paros) where we stayed at Despotiko for one night and Hotel Yiannaki (which is a few km outside of town) for two nights.  We spent our first night there partying, celebrating Mark's birthday.  We started the evening drinking margaritas and sangria at La Mexicana and then moved on to drinking beer at the Down Under Bar and the Scandinavian Bar.  Needless to say, we all got pretty hammered.  Keith and Shawna ended up in a huge argument; however, to this day, neither of us have any clue as to what the argument was about!

Oia

I guess we were feeling guilty that we had not done anything cultural in a while so Keith, Tina and Shawna went on a day trip to Delos, an island with ruins dating back to the 8th century BC which is the supposed site of the birth of Appollo and Artemis.  We spent our last night having a yummy Italian meal and a few drinks at Diva Bar and the Scandinavian Bar; although, this time the night out was much more tame!  We said our goodbyes to the rest of the gang and took the ferry back to Athens for one night before we headed out for Turkey.

Turkey
We arrived in Istanbul where we stayed for 3 nights at the Ambassador Hotel which was certainly the most 'upscale' hotel we stayed in on this trip -- we were able to bargain it from $100/night down to $40/night.  We spent our afternoon wandering around and booked our trip for the rest of the stay in Turkey with Fez Tours, a hop-on hop-off bus that runs a circuitous route through all of the major attractions in the country.  It's a cheap and perfect way to get around (at the time it only cost us $170 for the route which we did in about two weeks).

The city of Istanbul is absolutely beautiful, full of mosques, gardens and cute cobble stoned streets.  What we lacked in culture in Greece, we certainly made up for it here.  We visited the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia (known to be the greatest church in Christianity) and the Suleymaniye Mosque (the largest in Turkey).  We explored the markets of the Grand Bazaar which is where I bought a leather jacket and the Egyptian Market which catered more to the locals.  We also went to the Topkaki Palace where we say antiquities such as Muhammed's cloak, pieces of his beard, Moses' staff and the hand of John the Baptist.  The highlight was the 'turkish bath'.  When you arrive, the men and women are separated and then they wash and scrub you down as if you had been working in a coal mine for the past 5 years.  Laying on a marble slab in a round room (with all the other women around you - no privacy), you get an oil massage following by a rinse and then massage and rinse again.  It was quite interesting but not very relaxing.

Hagia Sophia

We boarded the Fez bus to begin our tour of the rest of the country.  We were definitely the older ones in the bunch - the bus was filled with young college aged backpackers who stayed in the $2/night hostels with no a/c while we opted for the $5 or $10/night hostel with private room and a/c.  We never felt so rich in all of our travels!

Our first stop was the Gallipoli near Channakale (stayed here one night) where we took a 5 hour tour of the battlefields.  It was interesting at first but then got old towards the end -- I think we learned more about this battle (which we had never heard of) than what we know about the Civil War.  We then went on to Pergamum which is a really cool ruin with an aparthenon, an amphitheater and a long alleyway full of arches.  We stayed the night in Kusadasi.

Pamukkale

We visited Pamukkale which has large calcium filled pools all along a hillside.  It was not a picturesque as the postcards lead you to believe but was still interesting to see.  At the top are the ruins of Hieropolis.  Our next stop was the ruins of Aphrodisias which had a really cool theater and soccer stadium that was in good condition and included the remains (only a few pillars) of the temple of Aphrodite.  We then say the ruins of Ephesus which is probably the mother of all ruins -- most of which are in great condition.  The library, theater and bathrooms were most impressive.  They estimated that about 150-200 thousand people lived here which seems like a lot considering the size.

On our way to Koycegiz, we stopped and had a refreshing dip by a waterfall.  In Koycegiz, we took a boat cruise in the lake for the day.  We say the Lycian Tombs carved into the hillside, swam, took a mud bath, went into the hot springs (the smelly kind) and relaxed on Turtle Beach.

On our way to Oludeniz, we stopped at a carpet factory where Keith and I bought a Turkish rug.  After seeing about 50 of them lain before us, we decided to go with one of the first ones we saw.  We definitely need to work on our negotiation skills b/c we didn't get any money off.  We stopped at Sakkligent Gorge which is really cool -- here, we hiked through the gorge, wading through water and scrambling over boulders.

Ephesus

In Oludeniz (which is a beautiful beach town), we took a boat over to Butterfly Valley where the beach is quite beautiful but we only saw about 3 butterflies!  It was here where I got to test my fear of heights by paragliding.  We had to drive up a steep and narrow road to the top of the mountain - the guide said that most people end up paragliding b/c they do not want to drive down that road again!  At the top, they hook you to the equipment and with a guide strapped on behind you, they tell you to run of a cliff and no matter what you do to not stop running.  Needless to say that as I neared the edge, I stopped in my tracks so my guide had to literally pick me up and keep running.  Once in the air (and after I unclenched my fists and opened my eyes), I truly enjoyed it.  We soared over the beach and had beautiful views of the area.

Paragliding

Our next stop was Olympos where we say the Chaemera Flames which was cool but not worth the side trip to this place.  B/c the area is so remote, there were not many sleeping options so we stayed at the Kadir's Treehouse with the rest of the Fez gang -- and yes, it's rooms built into the trees.  It was a noisy, sweaty night!  We then went on to Egirdir where we stayed one night (not much to see/do here) and along the way, we stopped to see the Termessos Ruins which included a hike up to the fire tower which had beautiful views of the valley.

Chaemera Flames

Eclipse

Our final stop in Turkey was Cappadocia where we stayed 4 nights -- I highly recommend this place as there is so much to see and do.  We saw the Open Air Museum which has old churches with frescoes carved into the rock.  We took a bus to Turhad (a town about 4.5 hours away) to see the total eclipse!  We had met a Belgium guy a few days earlier who had told us about this -- he was leading a group from Belgium to see it and he apparently had seen many others in other countries.  So, there we were, among the tourists and local people (it was funny to see the local women in their full dresses and scarves with 3D glasses on), in a village that we never heard of, experiencing this rather cool event.  During the eclipse, the sky went dark for about 2 minutes (you could even see some of the planets) and then slowly got light again.  While it was out of our way, it was certainly worth the trip to see this.

Cappadocia

We spent one day touring the Ilhara Valley and the underground city (which has eight floors of rooms and passageways).  The highlight of the trip was a hot air ballon ride over the area which was truly amazing.  We flew through the fairy chimneys, staying relatively close to the ground so that you could see everything up close.

Hot Air Balloon Over Cappadocia

We spent our last night in Ankara before we had to fly out to Switzerland.

Continue on to our Switzerland/France blog for more information about this trip.

For more photos of this leg of the trip: