Le Chat Nerveux et la Tour d'Eiffel

Arguably,  Paris is one of the most romantic cities in the world.  The light, the monumental buildings on practically every corner, and French savoir faire combine like no other place on earth to create an ambience that positively oozes romance.

We look out over the city from the top deck of the Eiffel Tower.  It is a cold evening in late November.  The air has the promise of winter’s chill and clouds swirl around the upper deck obscuring the tower and diffusing the searchlight as it arcs across the city.

Literally a Tower of Babel, we catch phrases from  every language on the planet but the language that predominates is American English.  Unlike most places we go,  Americans are all over Paris.  

Deb and I are entranced by the vistas.  We arrive at the top just as the light of day gives way to the lights of the Parisian evening.  We both notice one couple in particular.  He is a tall, not particularly handsome guy and is as nervous as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  I've never seen anyone so obviously nervous.  She is an attractive brunette who thanks him for coming to the top with her.  I attribute his  queasy look to acrophobia but I am soon proven wrong.  While we watch, the guy grabs the girl’s hand, drops to one knee, and asks her,  “Will you marry me?”   The girl  devolves into hiccups, tears and shrieks of delight as she screams, “Yes, yes, yes!”  “I love you so much!” The guy rises to his feet and practically bending her in half backwards, plants a long kiss on the girl as the crowd bursts into applause.

So I submit, is Paris romantic or what?   They even have a window on the top deck of the tower where you can buy a glass of champagne.  What better way to toast an ascent of the tower than with a glass of champagne?  (Deb and I skipped this as it was 10 euro a glass and we had an ice cold bottle waiting for us at our pied a terre which would be our last stop of the day)

Our pied a terre in Paris

Another reason Paris seems romantic to me is I see more people smiling here.  People just generally seem to be happy here.  What’s not to like?    There is good cheap wine, lots of great cafes to eat and drink in, some of the best bread in the world and a patisserie on every corner.  More great art than just about anywhere…and that is just on the street.  As for the Museums…the Louvre, the Musee d’Orsay, and Musee d’Orangerie, are incomparable.  Add great cathedrals, public buildings,  parks and squares and you have one of the truly great cities of the world.

Fountain at Place des Pyramides

Patisserie window

Pot au feu

Bridge over the Seine

Metro stop

Deb salutes Notre Dame

Notre Dame

Deb holds up a lamp post at the end of the Champs Elysees

We share a romantic moment atop the Eiffel Tower

View from the top of the Eiffel Tower

View from the bottom of the Eiffel Tower

Even the sculptures are happy in Paris

MOMENTS

For many,  travel is about destinations and sights.  For me it is more often about moments; moments that stick with me and form my impressions of the countries we visit.  Below, I have tried to capture some of those moments.  (In re-reading these moments, it would seem I am too preoccupied by beer. :)

Sunset-Amasra, Black Sea

Safranbolu-Amasra
The road winds through the mountains beneath a golden leafed  canopy of  trees.  The sunlight strobes through the tree trunks hypnotizing with the beauty of a mountain fall.  Golden leaves, kicked up by the tires, form small whirlwinds in the wake of our rapid passage.  At a quick stop for a photo, we are serenaded by the mid-day muezzin's call to prayer from a mosque in the village below.  His voice provides a  moment of enchantment as we gaze across the steep sided valley to the golden hued hillside beyond.  We have stopped in a forest of sycamores whose spiky bulbs provide the promise of new trees to come.  The muezzin's call prolongs a moment in our dash through the mountains from Safranbolu to Amasra on the Black Sea.

Selcuk
I step out of the gate of our pansion in the early evening to walk to the corner market for a beer.  The cool night air is alive with the scent of burning rubbish and the smell of roasting meat from the kabab cart on the corner.  Two children walk by laughing that innocent laugh only children possess.  As I near the corner store, I pass a tea shop.  Several men sit on stools on the sidewalk sipping chai.  I nod a greeting at some who catch my eye. Soft greetings of  "Salaam Aleikum" and "Merhaba" follow my passage.  I pop in the store and grab a few bottles of Efes beer.  I retrace my path to the hotel and know I am in Turkey.

Catal Hayuk
I peer into the deep excavation of the mound ruins at Catal Hayuk.  This is a veritable Turkish time machine that carries me back 8000 years.  Catal Hayuk is purported to be the first city in the world.  Little remains but some low mud brick walls that tell the story of a 1400 year occupation in the 8th and 7th centuries BC.  Traces of an agrarian society are scattered about the ruins.  Here a piece of pottery, there a pair of horns from an auroch.  As many as fourteen layers of ruins have been identified in the 150 foot high mound.  From the top I look out across the Anatolian Plateau and imagine the lives of the thousands that lived, loved and died here not knowing they were living in the cradle of civilization.

Konya
I  walk out into the drizzling rain.  After a long day's drive from Olympos, I am tired yet wired from the stress of driving into the night.  I need  a drink to ease my mind and body.  I walk down streets lit with dazzling and flashing LED lights advertising electronic and appliance stores.  The meat smell emanating from kabab stands  makes me salivate but I am on a mission for beer.

Mevlana  (Rumi) Mosque-Konya

Konya is the holiest of holies so liquor stores are rarer than rain in the Sahara yet somehow Konya has the highest rate of alcoholism in Turkey.  I pop into a mini-mart and start to leave when I see no beer.    Somehow, the proprietor catches my eye, looks at me, and knows my mission.  He makes a drinking motion with his hand and queries softly, "Bira"?   Slightly  embarrassed,  I nod.  He smiles and takes me by the hand, gestures and tells me in Turkish to go two blocks and turn left to find the beer store.  Somehow I understand him and with his directions easily find the beer store.  It is now raining harder but I don't care as I wander back to my hotel through the Turkish night.

Istanbul
Galata Tower looms over the neighborhood of Beyoglu.  On one side is the Golden Horn and the other the Bosphorus.  To the west the massive Sulieman Mosque squats on the shore flanked by four minarets.  The western sky is aflame with the sun dropping behind wispy clouds punctuated by darker fluff balls in the foreground.  It is call to prayer time. The caucophony of every muezzin's call in every mosque in the city  reverberates across the water; an accompaniment  to the riotous sunset.

Sulieman Mosque across the Golden Horn at sunset from Galata Tower

The Galata Bridge spans the Golden Horn from the old city to the new.  A sky blue painted span teems with fishermen trying their luck. We see several small fish pulled from the water wriggling on the line for the long pull up  to the bridge.  We sit in a quayside restaurant sipping beer on a cold November day...our last day in Istanbul.

Enjoying a drink on Galata Bridge-Istanbul

HIGH ON CAPPADOCIA

"BEEP, BEEP, BEEP". My dream is shattered by the incessant noise. Momentarily disoriented, I realize that the alarm on my cell phone is going off. I flip open my phone and look at the time…4:20 AM. I groan. It is pitch black and way too early but I toggle the light switch and roust Kate and Deb, "Wakey, wakey! Time to wake up." I am rewarded with dirty looks and groans to equal my own.

Dawn in Cappadocia

Bleary eyed, we stagger around grabbing our clothes and dressing for the Arctic. We step outside into the pre-dawn darkness with our cheeks stinging from the early morning chill. We find the waiting van and climb in. The dancing LED lights on the ceiling are too much like a disco...especially at this hour of the morning. I close my eyes and groan again. After a 30 minute ride we bounce up a rough dirt road to arrive at a freshly plowed field. Car headlights shine on a table set up with tea, coffee, and cookies. In the first light of day I quickly grab a cup of tea and notice silhouettes of other trucks and farm tractors with trailers containing large strangely shaped objects. I wander over to see wicker baskets of Brobdingnagian proportions topped by what looks like the engines from small rockets.

A tinge of pink on the horizon energizes a crew who start unrolling hay bale sized bundles. The giant baskets are tipped on their sides and cabled to the bundles. A five foot diameter fan powered by a gas motor starts blowing air at the bundles that inflate to reveal giant balloons.

The day is brightening with clouds inflamed by the light of the rising sun while the brightly colored balloons dwarf a small crowd standing in awe below the burgeoning mass. A jet of flame roars into the mouth of one balloon and heats the air within, inflating the balloon to its full height. 

Our pilot, Carlos, waves eight passengers over to the basket and instructs them to lay down in the tipped compartments to ballast the balloon against the brisk morning breeze. Shortly the basket and balloon comes to a full upright position and Carlos waves us over to quickly climb in the basket.

Our basket holds twenty people plus pilot in a six compartment grid. Four to a grid, there is standing room only. I am the last one in and just as my feet touch the floor of the basket, the balloon bumps a few times across the field before lifting off. With the gas jets roaring we quickly gain altitude swept along by the wind as the sun pops over the horizon. It is freezing cold but as we rise, the rays of the morning sun soon warm us.

We float above the bizarre landscape of Cappadocia. An ancient plateau, laid down by multiple volcanic eruptions, has eroded over thousands of years to create a phantasmagoria of towers, chimneys, canyons and valleys that are unlike anything else on earth. (Think Bryce Canyon through the eyes of Salvador Dali) This tortured landscape of multicolored sand and rocks seems to come alive in the light of early day.

I can’t seem to wipe a giant grin off my face as our expert pilot drops us into a valley to float below spires towering all around us. Just as I think we will collide with the side of the valley a blast of the jet lifts us above the rim with only inches to spare. My grin grows even wider.

When we pop out of the valley, I can see at least 30 giant multi-colored balloons in the air around us. Ballooning is big business in Cappadocia. Carlos informs us that in the summer season there are over one hundred balloons in the air every day. This is all with good reason as there is no better way to appreciate the dramatic scenery of Cappadocia.

It seems we are only in the air a few minutes when Carlos points out our landing site. (It has been over an hour but you know what they say about how time flies when you are having fun. Seems appropriate in this instance.) The early morning wind has died down and we touch the ground as gently as falling on a down pillow. We crawl out of the basket for the traditional champagne toast to commemorate a successful flight.

Deb gets in touch with her inner wizard

THE TURQUOISE COAST

The southwestern coast of Turkey is one of the great coastlines of the world.  Towering mountains plunge steeply into azure seas below.  We  visited several parts of this coastline but one of the most memorable was a daytrip out along the Datca peninsula. (I think it was so memorable because it was my birthday).  This narrow spit of land juts about 80 miles west into the sea and is generally accepted as the demarcation between the Aegean Sea to the north and the Mediterranean Sea to the south.  (To my eye they are indistinguishable but equally beautiful).

Datca Pennisula
The road winds up, around and over the pine clad mountains.  Views of secluded coves entice but frustrate, as they are only accessible by boat.  Vistas across the water are obscured by a hazy sky humid from intermittent showers.  In a strange twist of geopolitics, islands just off shore belong to Greece.  Rodos is tantalizingly near but out of reach this time of year as most of the boats have stopped running.  We were disappointed because we had thoughts of visiting Rodos which  was the site of one of the seven ancient wonders of the world.  

View of Datca Pennisula

Kalcan
Today I sit writing on the balcony of our pansion looking across the bay of Kalcan.  In high season it is a bustling place but in November it is slowed down and and a great place to relax.  We opt for an off day to bask in the warm fall sun, do some laundry and perhaps take another  swim in the sea.  Yesterday, we visited the famed Blue Lagoon, (it seems every country has one).  The lagoon, only about a mile across, traps part of the Mediterranean with a curving sand spit allowing a narrow inlet from the sea to nourish the lagoon.  Deep azure blue water, sheltered from prevailing winds, reflects the steep mountains above.  Most of the lagoon is locked up by private development so we opt for a swim at the beach on the open sea nearby.  While not really warm, the water is pleasant for a quick swim.  We play in small waves for a few minutes, stagger up the steep pebbled tide line, and trudge across the broad white sandy beach to climb the steep steps to our car.  We quickly dry off and set off for a tour of the coastline to the south.  The road climbs steeply up a sheer cliff.  This is not a drive for the faint hearted.  It is a narrow road with barely room for two cars to pass.  On one side is a vertical cliff; on the other a vertical cliff.  The difference is one side is a thousand foot drop.  White-knuckled, I drive slowly along with my stomach churning.  There is no room for error.  Kate and Deb become very silent;  Kate has her eyes closed and I know Deb is praying to every saint and god she can think of.  The road continues like this for about five miles and then the terrain eases a bit beneath giant house-size boulders on one side and a village clinging to less steep terrain below. 

Kate and I drive the Turquoise Coast  (Deb is on the hood shooting this picture)

The boulder on the left used to be high on the right

More relaxed now, I drive on only to find the end of the road a few miles further on.  Our map was unclear as to whether the line was a road or a path.  Confirming it was indeed a path and low on fuel, reluctantly we turn back.  After retracing our drive we arrive back at the Blue Lagoon.  In the late afternoon sun we race towards Kalcan and find a lovely pansion where I now sit in the morning sun tapping on my keyboard.

Kate leads us in some yoga at Kalcan Beach

Our favorite-Kaputas Beach just south of Kalcan

Wonder how they got the name "Turquoise Coast"?

Lunch spot-unamed beach

Sunset Patara Beach

Olympos

Our last stop on the coast was at Olympos.  It seems the Greeks named everything higher than a few feet "Mt Olympos".  Olympos is another ruin along the coast of Turkey.  One of the accesses is from the beach around a lagoon.  It made for a beautiful morning stroll.  It is also the site of a rare natural phenomenon...the eternal flame.

We slip out of our room at daybreak and  walk along a beach of large pebbles to the lagoon.  A narrow path around the lagoon leads to the entry of the ruins of Olympus.  We find a jungle scene worthy of Indiana Jones as we climb over large tree roots to find the tumbled down ruins of an ancient Greek city.  Soft damp paths through the rain forest reveal the remains half excavated and overgrown with vegetation.  Morning mist punctured by rays of early morning sun lend an eerie air  mystery to this ancient site.  

Lagoon at Olympos

The Chimera

In the late afternoon light of the setting sun, we climb a steep mountain path through a forest of tall spindly trees.  Views across a canyon reveal late fall colors of oranges and rusts.  Tall mountains catch the last rays of the sun as we climb upward on slick marble stones.  After a half mile of hiking we see strange flames flickering in the distance.  We emerge from the forest to view a desolate stone hillside with flames springing out of solid rock.  This is the chimera; a natural self igniting gas seep.  These flames have been burning for 2500 years at the site of an ancient legend;   Mt Chimera.

The Chimera