Beach bums in Cirali

We arrived late last night (almost midnight) in the small village of Cirali. We picked Cirali as we wanted a few days in a beach location that wasn’t a busy commercialized area full of tourists….we wanted small, quiet and along with that we get cheaper prices for the hotels and better value for our money! The owner of the small family run hotel we are staying at here is actually a born and raised Calgarian and moved to Turkey with her husband to open this bed and breakfast. Small world! The service here is amazing and they feed us a 4 course Turkish dinner every night included with our room. They even stayed up and fed us at midnight last night when we arrived! We were starving and so grateful! The food has been really good so far and so much healthier than London. We’re finally getting vegetables back in our diet. Cirali is a close hike to the Olympos ruins and the Chimaera fires as well…that and a fantastic beach gives us a big bang for our buck here!
Today we recovered from London and spent all day at the beach sunning ourselves and reading under blue skies and 36C temperatures!

The beach is a short 10 minute bike ride from our hotel and surrounded by mountains and forest. The beach extends for three kilometres and is one of the few protected beaches where the Caretta or loggerhead sea turtles lay their eggs.  Caretta return to these shores where they are born after they reach maturity to lay their eggs, having travelled thousands of miles to get here. This ritual  has continued for millions of years will continue to take place as long as the area is protected by the WWF for their nesting.  It’s the only reason the whole area hasn’t been taken over by large hotel chains.
The beach itself is great. It’s pebbly, not sandy, and has great scenery. There are restaurants and small guesthouses along the beach and a long as you order some drinks and food you can spend all day on their sun loungers. The ocean is calm and fairly warm too so great for a soak when you overheat.

Tomorrow we are waking early to catch the sunrise over the ocean on the beach and to hike and explore the Olympos ruins.

London: Castles, abbeys and theatre smack downs

Tower of London

Day 2 in London was as busy as day 1! We were sightseeing maniacs. We started the day at the Tower of London. We spent the whole morning there touring the castle.
It was built by William the Conqueror in 1066 and enlarged and modified by successive sovereigns. In 900 years it has been a a royal palace and fortress, prison and place of execution, mint, arsenal, menagerie and jewel house and was built to dominate the entry point via River Thames had the reputation of not having its prisoners leaving alive. There had been only 7 beheadings that took place within the tower walls though, the rest took place opposite at Tower Hill. Three of them were queens of England: Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, wives of Henry VIII, and Lady Jane Grey - condemned on the orders of her cousin Mary. Their bodies are buried under the floors of the on site cathedral. We were told that when they ripped the floor out to repair it years ago they found hundreds of headless bodies down there...the bones were re-buried in a crypt at the back of the church. The towers where they kept the prisoners, sometimes for years, were open to tour and interestingly covered in graffiti/carvings left by those who were imprisoned behind it’s walls and eventually beheaded ...that was probably the coolest part of the tower. Some of it was incredibly intricate and speaks of the hours of time they had to kill up there.

The other rather amusing part of the tour was Henry VIII’s armour….think he was overcompensating for something?

Henry VIII's well endowed armour

 

When we finished with the tower of London we hightailed it for Westminster Abbey…the rain started falling at this point and it was rather miserable out. Westminster Abbey was really spectacular inside, I always thought it was just a regular church inside but the whole place is like a vast indoor cemetery!

The Abbey has been the coronation church since 1066 and is the final resting place of seventeen monarchs.
The abbey is stuffed with tombs, statues and monuments. Many coffins even stand upright due to the lack of space. In total approximately 3300 people are buried in the church and cloisters. Some of the most famous are Charles Darwin, Sir Isaac Newton and David Livingstone.
No pictures were allowed!
We left the Abbey and braved the storm to take a few pictures of Big Ben and the parliament buildings from across the river.
Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster and is generally extended to refer to the clock and the clock Tower as well. The clock tower holds the largest four-faced chiming clock in the world and is the third-tallest free-standing clock tower.

From there we went to Buckingham Palace and then to Trafalgar square where they had a huge outdoor party setting up for the viewing of the opening ceremonies of the Paralympics that night. They installed a huge screen right in the middle of the square and a crowd was already growing.

We even rode a double decker bus to Leicester square to buy our theatre tickets and find some fish and chips.

We went to see Wicked last night at the theatre…it was absolutely amazing. I can’t recommend it enough, it was such a great play. You must all see it if you ever get a chance! We had a bit of a theatre rumble though. Throughout the first act there was this horrible, rude, selfish girl right behind us talking to her boyfriend and singing along with every song through the entire thing…Sarah eventually turned around and asked them to be quiet and this girl just started swearing at us and kept on talking/singing. At intermission it turned into a rather loud yelling match between us and her, quite the show we put on (should have got a standing ovation!)…. We spoke to an usher who promised to remove them from the theatre if they talk during the second act. We didn’t hear a peep from her again so I think they talked to them in the lobby or something. So the second half was much more enjoyable!

As I write this we are on a 4 hour plane ride from London to Antalya, Turkey. We spent a couple hours this morning in the British Museum before catching out train to Gatwick. That is one huge impressive museum. Their Egypt displays were very
cool.
 

Once we land we will take a taxi an hour to the southern coast of turkey to a small town called Cirali. We get to spend the next 3 days basking in the sun with a forecast of 36C and sunny! We can’t wait and really need a rest after all that frantic sightseeing!

And yes…that phone booth smelled like urine.

For a laugh...below is the first phonebooth photo we took and had to discard and re-shoot because I look like a midget and Sarah looks like an amazon!!! Had to post it as it was so funny...

Hahahahahhaaaaaaa!

London baby, yeah!

That's Cedric our travelling gnome companion on my fist...we realized after that it looks like he's giving you the finger! haha

This will be a short one! We've arrived alive but did 10 hours of extreme sight seeing on no sleep and my eyelids are falling as I type this!

We had a good flight here...thankfully the middle of the 3 seats was empty so we could stretch out a bit. We spent the afternoon in St. Pauls Cathedral. I've taken photos from the outside before but never went in and was I ever missing out. It was really beautiful. It was built in 1668 and was the tallest building in London until 1962. We were able to climb the 560 steps to the top of the dome for outstanding views of London. There's a plexi-glass window from the top of the dome that looks down 365 feet to the nave below...very trippy! Half the way up to the top there is a circular gallery that you can walk around and it has incredible acoustics...if you whisper on one side of the room a person can hear you clearly all the way on the other side.

We went to Abbey Road afterwards to take a copy of the famous Beatles album cover...us and a million other people..... making it impossible, especially with busy traffic. We might try again earlier in the day tomorrow.

My parents, coincindentally, happen to be travelling in Europe too and they joined us at St.Pauls and for dinner later on.

Mom and Dad

 

Then we finished our night at the theatre! We saw Mamma Mia and it was fabulous.

Well, off to bed to rest up for the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey tomorrow.

View of St. Paul's from across the Millennium bridge.

Piccadilly Circus after the theater.

 



One more night shift!

I'm working my last night shift right now and in 11 hours I'll be starting my vacation! Hopefully it won't be too crazy but on a Saturday night you can't be too optimistic.

Either way my bags are packed, hotels and flights are booked and in two days me and my friend Sarah will be off to London to start our adventure! I checked the forecast and it promised me hot and sunny skies! Yeah!

Over the next 6 weeks we'll be traveling to London, Turkey, Jordan, Israel and finally Athens! I'll be posting updates and pictures regularly so pop in often and follow along with us!