Day Three : On the Way Back Home

We leave the house near 12.30 pm. That's the only picture of Bodrum I got since we did not go in the city. By the way Bodrum, anciently known as Halicarnassus was the site of one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Halicarnassus was where the Mausoleum of Maussolos stood.
On the photo you can see Bodrum's Castle, built in 1404 by the Knights of Rhodes, the legend says that they used the rocks of the remains of the mausoleum to build the castle. The castle grounds also includes a Museum of Underwater Archeology.




On the road again. This is a strange place, in the middle of nowhere you can see hundreds of electric poles, standing there.






Back to the Statue of Atatürk on the road between Izmir and Manisa.












In Manisa we saw this pedestrian bridge that looks like the Golden Gate.









A decorated truck with the drawings of the fairy chimneys of Cappadoccia. You can also read 'Ne Bakiyon Tanimadinmi?' above the license plate which could be translated as 'Watcha looking at, u didn't recognize me ?'























Back to Akhisar, the city of bicycles.






























































Please take a closer look at the mud guards of this truck.



































This time we stopped at Varan's rest stop resort which is near the Ulusoy one we stopped on the way to Bodrum. This one is much smaller and more calm.

Road Trip Photos

Here are the photos from our road trip to Bodrum. I anti-dated the post so that it could be seen on the day of the trip but e actually arrived at destination at 1 a.m.
We hardly made it to the ferry because of the traffic jam. I had to make a lot of detour in order to reach the pier. I picked up Ekin and my dad on the way and after a certain point I even had to get out of the car and run to get the tickets in time, before they get canceled.

I didn't take much pictures since I was driving wost of the trip and it was dark.

You can see the SultanAhmet Mosque (or Blue Mosque) on the left with its 6 minarets.






This is the express ferry we used to cross the Marmara sea. The cross over took about an hour and a half.













Arrival at Mudanya near Bursa on the south east of the Marmara Sea.







Somewhere on the road.





















Some folkloric band guys getting somewhere not very safely.














We saw a lot of Poppy fields on our way.







We stopped at around 5 pm at this Ulusoy rest resort. Ulusoy is one of the many bus companies running through the country. It is considered one of the best with its concurrent Varan. Some bus company have their own rest area where you can usually find a restaurant, a market etc. But this one is huge. You can find an outlet mall, a Starbucks, a playground, many restaurants, many shops, a Mac Donalds, etc. That's funny to see a Starbucks out of nowhere in the middle of Turkey.














Really out of nowhere, this is what's surrounding this rest stop : nothing.
















Going through Akhisar...







...where it was interesting to see that a lot of people were going around on bicycles.












An hour later we make a quick stop at Manisa.







Some big statue of Ataturk on the side of the road.









It's about 10 pm and as usual on our way to Bodrum we stop at Baba'nin yeri ('At Dad's') to eat delicious çöp sis (chup shish : It's like shish kebab but with very small pieces of meat on small skewers (wood here).







here is a picture I took last year so you can see what it looks like. You can it it with lavash bread, a salad, some grilled onions, green peppers and tomatoes. Not a place for vegetarian people though. Each person has 20 shish.