Live from Silver Cloud 1432 - Istanbul to Piraeus

[jpalbny]

Hanging in the Athens airport this afternoon... Had to leave early from our hotel because there was a political demonstration scheduled for 11:00 AM. We had planned to take the Metro from Syntagma Square direct to the airport and arrive 2h before our flight, but the demonstration resulted in the Police closing the Syntagma Metro station. So we got out "while the getting was good" and before too many roads were closed.

 

We ended up getting to the airport at 11:30 for our 3:10 flight. Check in gates weren't open until 11:45 or so, but we were first in line, so by noon we were enjoying some snacks and good company in the lounge while awaiting boarding - two of our cruise companions are here as well.

 

For now, I will pick up the story with our time in Cappadocia:

 

Sunday 10/19 - Cappadocia:

 

Our flight to Cappadocia (Kayseri) was quick but there was some impressive turbulence halfway through. Inflight meal was tasty – salmon tartare, hummus, and tabbouleh. Interestingly, no wine! Wondered if that was because it was a short flight, or because it was a Sunday morning. Otherwise, business class on Turkish Airlines was very nice.

 

Arrival at Kayseri was strange. They directed all of us in though the International arrivals side, and our bags were not on the carousel. When we asked (along with a few others) about our bags, the worker had us follow him to the domestic arrivals side, and the bags were there! We found our rental car and were off.

 

After a few detours for closed streets we arrived in Üçhisar, and after winding through a few narrow streets, found our hotel, Argos in Cappadocia. We had booked a cave suite, and it is beautiful!

 

Here is the bedroom portion of the suite:

 

 

The living area, and fireplace:

 

 

The hotel grounds were gorgeously manicured; this outdoor courtyard was just outside our door:

 

 

We liked the hotel, which was beautifully incorporated into the village. Instead of a large hotel building it was a series of smaller individual buildings, and it looked like it was a part of the village. Here's a public street running through the hotel grounds:

 

 

We made dinner reservations and headed out to climb Üçhisar castle - it was carved out of a fairy chimney, and is the highest point in town. It's visible from everywhere:

 

[jpalbny]

So, we had headed out to climb Üçhisar castle – a volcanic formation in the center of town. There are all sorts of niches and tunnels carved out of the center of the formation, and some of the climb takes place inside.

 

 

Some of the climbing is on the outside, though. It was windy and the sun was setting so we enjoyed the views - which were expansive.

 

 

The sun and clouds made for some dramatic lighting!

 

 

Chris playing King of the Mountain, and me finding a nice spot to hang out for the night...

 

 

Back to the hotel for some warmth, and a tour of the buildings and the wine cellar!

[jpalbny]

So, our hotel tour of the buildings and the wine cellar: we visited an old (restored) caravansary:

 

 

And took in the views of Pigeon Valley:

 

 

This place is beautiful, and the buildings, grounds, and landscaping seem so natural here:

 

 

And of course, the wine cave! Many small interconnected rooms with lots of storage capacity!

 

 

Then dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was fairly empty which was a shame because the food is great. Nice appetizers – quail in phyllo and duck confit wrapped in greens:

 

 

Mains were veal ribs with bean stew and beef filet over mushroom stuffed cabbage; dessert was turkish coffee flavored chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream, and panna cotta with pomegranate molasses and figs. A bottle of red 2010 Kalecik Karasi (From Argos' vineyards) went well with everything.

 

Off to bed; we have a balloon ride tomorrow AM with a 5:20 pickup!

[jpalbny]

Monday 10/20:

 

Slept fitfully as we were more rested, so it was much harder to get to sleep “early” on this second night. We were ready for our balloon ride, and our pickup was right on time. We got to the headquarters and they had a breakfast buffet waiting for us. We had a little food and waited... But conditions were not good for balloon launching, so eventually we were brought back to the hotel at 7:30 – oh well, we can try to get another reservation for tomorrow but not sure that will happen on such short notice.

 

After a second breakfast at the hotel (complete with a menemen; a Turkish omelet with peppers and tomatoes) we were out on the road by 9 – earlier than we expected. First stop was the Goreme open air musuem – it was open air all right, and chilly in the shade! Chris brought her gloves which was a good idea; mine were back at the hotel...

 

 

Fantastic rock formations glowing in the early morning sun...

 

 

The amount of work that the inhabitants did here, carving out dwellings and all sorts of other buildings into the rock, is amazing! This is the outside of the "Dark Church" with some traces of painting visible. You can't take pictures inside most of the buildings here, unfortunately. You'll have to trust us that it is spectacular...

 

 

We saw this type of structure in several places along the way, and finally figured out that it's a dining table! Clever. You sit along the outside edge, put your feet in the hollowed out section, and eat from the center platform.

 

 

From here we headed towards Zelve, and had a stop at Paşabaği along the way. Great fairy chimneys, against a beautiful blue sky. What strange looking formations!

 

 

Nice day today; hopefully the sun will eventually make it warmer than yesterday.

[jpalbny]

10/20, Cappadocia - continued:

 

Zelve was pretty neat; lots of walking and plenty of time to see everything in an hour. Innumerable cave dwellings and larger spaces (churches, wineries, bakeries, even a mosque) carved into the rocks - how much work did this take? And the valley is gorgeous as well!

 

 

 

From there, on to Kaymakli underground city – what a maze of underground chambers, passages, and tunnels. Almost impossible to capture the essence of a place like this in pictures...

 

My tour guide urging me along!

 

 

Typical passageway - actually, this one was pretty tall. You had to crouch over to walk in many of them.

 

 

Next up was another underground city, Derinkuyu, which was much more linear without so many side passages. Here I'm trying to close the stone door (not really; I'd be trapped if I succeeded).

 

 

And another version of a dining table:

 

 

We finished both by 2:30 and had time to spare, so we decided to add a bonus trip to Ihlara Valley. It's a bit further than the other sites and we didn't think we'd have time to make it there, but we'll give it a shot!

[Silver Spectre]

Great photo's JP.

[RachelG]

Bringing back great memories. Cappadocia is a wonderful place.

[jpalbny]

10/20 - finishing up a busy day.

 

Ihlara Valley – we found the parking area, where you can climb down 400 steps to the valley floor. Once there, then you can start hiking among the trees next to the river. The valley runs at least 5k in either direction but it was much too late to hike all of it by now. So we figured we'd see a little bit of what there was to see.

 

 

The main attraction here is the large number of tiny churches carved into the cliff rock. Every 400-500 meters on either side of the river, you can branch off the main trail, climb partway up the cliff face, and find another small shrine that's hollowed out of the rock - like this:

 

 

The view in the late afternoon was nice once you climbed up to the churches - these cliffs are impressive!

 

 

Though not well-preserved, some frescoes survive in the small churches. It's amazing to see that kind of work here in the wilderness. A few examples:

 

 

 

The village of Ihlara reminds us of Ronda in Spain – built up on cliffs alongside the river, but when we were there, it was much too backlit by the late afternoon sun to get good pictures. On the way home the setting sun illuminates several snow-covered mountains – what a beautiful landscape this is! This one is Mount Erciyes (Argaeus) - what a majestic peak!

 

 

Dinner at the hotel; tonight we shared grilled vegetables for an appetizer. Chris had sea bass and I had chicken sauteed with olives and cornichons for a main – very interesting combination of flavors. For wine, a 2012 Kocabağ Emir, a white varietal that we hadn't heard of. It was heavyweight but flavorful – and quite tasty.

 

The bad news is no balloon ride tomorrow; some of the others from our group this morning were at dinner at Argos (on our recommendation) and they had managed to get rebooked for tomorrow, but we hadn't... Gives us more time to rest, I guess, and saves us a few bucks too - though we are disappointed in not being able to see the view from the air.

 

Off to bed; it's been a very long day and we've driven, climbed, hiked, and otherwise been going for about 16 hours straight. One more day in Cappadocia before we fly back to Istanbul to board Silver Cloud!

[ging466]

Loved seeing your pics of Cappadocia, JP. It brought back some great memories for me. Such a unique place.

 

Cheers

Jennifer

[jpalbny]

It sure is, Jennifer! It reminds me a lot of the American Southwest, but the amount of human intervention / modification makes it incredibly interesting to explore. The cave dwellings, and the underground cities, are amazing.

 

RachelG and Silver Spectre - thanks!

 

spinnaker2 - it was... and we sure did!

[jpalbny]

Tuesday 10/21: Cappadocia, second day

 

Finally a good night's sleep! Woke up at 8:30 feeling refreshed, and had a leisurely breakfast at the hotel (with a killer view from the window seat) before packing up and checking out. Sad to leave, but we still have a full day here, and we overnight in Kayseri before flying out tomorrow morning.

 

We left our bags in the car for a bit to hike in Pigeon Valley – the view from the edge of the valley is breathtaking in the (not-so) early morning sunshine. Mount Erciyes (Argaeus) is again dominating the view here:

 

 

Once down in the valley floor, the views up were nice as well. This is the hotel grounds from below - their terraced gardens, and most of the buildings, are visible in this shot. Amazing how they blend into the landscape!

 

 

The walk was pleasant enough except for the stray dogs. One followed us for a while and was very sweet.

 

 

But she attracted two others and they started fighting. We decided to get out of that situation before we got caught in the crossfire. That was enough of that...

 

We headed out of town but stopped for wine tasting at Kocabağ for a few minutes. Nice building, and in a gorgeous setting overlooking the valley and again, that mountain!

 

 

And their wines weren't bad either. We bought a bottle of rose to take with us... The Emir on the left was the one we had for dinner last night. The red version of the Kalecik Karasi is the same grape we'd had for dinner the night prior - it's a lighter red reminiscent of Pinot Noir.

 

 

Now, time to leave for the next town over, Ortahisar, where there is another castle to climb!

[Wellseasoned]

Thank you JP and Chris! You have brought back great memories of a SS pre-cruise in Cappadoca back in 2002. But please tell me- do they still have that difference between the arrival and departure areas in the Kayseri airport? In the arrival side the bathroom facilities were really "primitive", and in the departure side "western". Strange question, but seemed very important to many at the time. Just curious.

 

Dieter

[jpalbny]

Thank you JP and Chris! You have brought back great memories of a SS pre-cruise in Cappadoca back in 2002. But please tell me- do they still have that difference between the arrival and departure areas in the Kayseri airport? In the arrival side the bathroom facilities were really "primitive", and in the departure side "western". Strange question, but seemed very important to many at the time. Just curious.

 

Dieter

 

Hm - can't remember the bathrooms in the Kayseri airport specifically. Upon arrival, we were too busy trying to figure out where our luggage was. I didn't see anyone coming out of the bathroom looking too shell-shocked, so they probably weren't that awful!

 

When we left, we got invited to the Turkish Airways lounge, which was remarkably nice for such a small airport.

 

We did find the occasional "Turkish toilet" in our travels, but not as many as we expected. I remember running into them more frequently during past visits.

[jpalbny]

From Kocabağ, we headed to Ortihasar to find the castle. This was a little challenging, because it wasn't remotely near where Google had said it would be! After a few minutes of wandering, following very spotty road signs, we found it, and even more remarkably, managed to find a parking spot as well! Here's a view of the castle from partway up:

 

 

We were the only ones there for a while – there were great views all the way back to Üçhisar. That small pillar in the distance is Üçhisar castle.

 

 

What a bizarre landscape!

 

 

 

And the same mountain kept cropping up in our pictures. It was hard to stop photographing it!

 

 

Several other small groups were coming up as we left, so we were glad to have had the top viewing platform all to ourselves. The stairs up/down the castle here felt quite exposed, and the "railing" wasn't very substantial. But we did fine.

 

 

Looking down at the carved-out rock dwellings in the valleys, seeing the occasional donkey cart, made us thing we'd been transported back to another simpler time and place. But if you look in the other direction you see regular city dwellings, roads, and cars. The proximity is strange.

 

One of my friends who'd visited before tried to discourage us from attempting this journey through Cappadocia on our own. I had done a lot of work with guidebooks and Google maps prior to leaving home, and created a spreadsheet of GPS coordinates for every landmark or site we wanted to visit. I was able to load these points of interest into my Garmin GPS so we had great guidance from point to point. Only a few of them ended up being "off" so I have to say that it's possible to do this trip on your own, with a little legwork beforehand, if you're willing to take the plunge. Glad we did!

[jpalbny]

We were looking for Rose / Red Valley next to do some hiking. This was the hardest activity to get information about before our trip - I really had no good idea where to go, so I got some (vague) directions from the hotel and we eventually found a short hike.

 

The trail went down into the Red valley,

 

 

with views of Rose Valley

 

 

and also a cafe, seemingly out of place in the otherwise empty valley. Some old ruins of a church, winery, etc.

 

 

Speaking of wineries, that reminded us to head off to Urgup and Turusan Winery, for a tour and wine tasting which was refreshing after the hike. Here is their "Display" cellar:

 

 

And the view from the front entrance:

 

 

And a few glasses of wine, waiting for tasting!

 

 

We bought a bottle of red (Okuzgozu) and the put it in a bubble-wrap container for us so we could pack it in the suitcase and bring it home. Happy to report that it made it all the way back to New York in one piece!

[jpalbny]

We eventually took care of that wine at Turasan:

 

 

Leaving the winery, there was a nice scenic lookout near Urgup, on the road back out of town. Nice rock pillars, with mushroom heads balanced precariously on top of them.

 

 

Then, back to Goreme for "Love Valley" – we only went to the panoramic lookout as our legs are getting pretty tired from all of the walking the past 2 days. The view is pretty nice - and the real name of this place is Baglidere Valley, BTW. I'll leave it up to you to figure out why it's called Love Valley...

 

 

The landscapes here are otherworldly. Such great vistas every way you turn!

 

 

By then it was still pretty early so we figured we'd try the last item on the Cappadocia Museum Pass which was the underground city at Ozkonak. Not without a little scare first; the police were out in full force near Avanos, and they were pulling everyone over to check their paperwork. But they were happy with ours, and once they ascertained that we were American, they were satisfied. So we went on.

 

The underground city at Ozkonak was a pretty neat place that felt old and lived-in. We just beat a large tour group in which was lucky, because there are a lot of narrow passageways to squeeze through!

 

 

 

At last, it was time to head back to Kayseri. Our time in Cappadocia was coming to an end, but tomorrow we're boarding the ship!

[jpalbny]

From here we took some small roads through the country back to Kayseri. We had some unexpected beautiful scenery along the way - This lake along the Kızılırmak River was completely unexpected:

 

 

The hot air balloons over the horizon reminded us of what could have been:

 

 

And along the way, we had to wait for a Cappadocia traffic stop!

 

 

Glad we took these back roads - much more interesting than the highway. We drove through small villages and rural areas, passed a few tractors on the road, and finally reconnected with the main highway back to Kayseri.

 

Filled up with gas a few miles out of town, which was easy because it was full-serve; we're all set to head to the airport tomorrow morning. On to our hotel – we felt very secure because you have to scan your bags and go through a metal detector (like Egypt) to enter, but they had lost our reservation! They accommodated us, though - apparently there had been a known glitch in their system for a few days earlier this summer, so once we told them when we'd made the reservation, they understood why it had been lost.

 

The view from our window was beautiful, as the sun set over the mountains, and the evening mist settled over the city:

 

 

Dinner in our hotel – regional sampler for appetizers, including stuffed grape leaves, dumplings, and a very tasty yogurt dip to go with it!

 

 

Beef tenderloin for Chris' main course,

 

 

and kofta for me. Delicious dessert consisting of pistachios over a very fine crunchy pastry soaked in sweet syrup.

 

We tried to get to bed early, but stayed up too late. We have a 9:00 flight to Istanbul tomorrow... Even though the airport is only a few minutes away, I think we are a little bit excited to board the ship tomorrow!

 

Cappadocia has been wonderful! So glad we decided to come early and see this magical part of the world.

[jpalbny]

Wednesday 10/22 – Embarkation Istanbul!

 

Up early for no good reason, following our usual pattern of alternating nights of good sleep... Breakfast at the hotel, then check out, and loaded up the rental car for the drive back to the Kayseri airport for our morning flight to Istanbul. It was so cold this morning that there was frost on the car! Had to warm it up for a minute, so we could see to drive!

 

A little traffic back to the airport, and one wrong turn, but got there in plenty of time. A bit of a scare when there was a malfunctioning gate that into the parking lot (also the rental car return) that wouldn't open. We all had to back up to get out of the line; luckily the other lane worked and we got into the parking lot. Someone flagged us down as we entered, and we were able to return the car right there - quick and painless. A longish wait at security to get into the airport, then again on our way to the gate (compounded by a large tour group who tried to cut the line) but made it in early enough to get to the Turkish Airlines lounge – which was surprisingly very nice for such a small airport! The departures side seems much nicer than the arrivals side...

 

Soon we were boarding – Nice flight, and again pretty nice food for a short domestic hop – fruit salad, assorted cheeses, spinach savory, cheese toast, and I had some more cherry juice.

 

 

Great views while leaving Cappadocia: one last view of Mount Erciyes:

 

 

We also saw Ihlara Valley, and we flew over Ankara. The highlight was flying over the whole of Istanbul and the Bosporus, with multiple passes, while we zig-zagged back and forth to get our place in the landing sequence:

 

This is a view from the South, looking North at the Bosporus. The sea of Marmara is to the left and the Black Sea to the right. You can barely see the Golden Horn to the left of the picture, pointing up, and there are 5 cruise ships docked at the pier! One is ours...

 

 

Here's the Bosporus Bridge:

 

 

And the cruise ships, closer up. From L to R, #2 is Oceania Marina, and we are #4. I can't remember what the behemoth in #1 position was...

 

 

We flew over the Golden Horn before landing. Great sunshine reflecting off the water, as it flows into the Bosporus, then the Sea of Marmara:

 

 

Landed without incident, and bussed in to the terminal. This time our luggage made it (though it took forever).

 

We braved an Istanbul cab to get to the ship, and actually made out very well. Hotel Sultania had recommended that we do this rather than arrange more expensive private transportation, and they had written directions to the cruise pier for us, but for some reason that didn't help the driver at all. I showed him a map of Istanbul and pointed to the pier, and thought he understood, but he wanted to take us to a ferry boat – so I showed him a picture of our cruise ship and he understood, finally.

 

Easy ride to the pier with nice views as we circled Sultanahmet, though a little tough to get into the port itself; finally there for 60 TL – not bad at all. Once we were in, though, it was a very circuitous walk back and forth to drop luggage, then check in, then walk to the ship. We kept running into Oceania's representatives, which for some reason were much more conspicuous and welcoming than the Silversea reps. The walk was way too far – we did not relish the thought of walking that distance back to go into the city. But finally, we are here, and thrilled that we are!

[RachelG]

Love the pics!

 

My experience with taxi drivers in Istanbul is that they really can't read maps at all. If you can tell them some landmark near where you are headed, it helps.

[spinnaker2]

an MSC ship. Not sure which one.

I have been one the splendida in the yacht club twice. I recognize the configuration. It's huge.

However, we loved the YC and would go again, and plan to soon.

We enjoy your posts so much!

Did you have an issue in the airport getting out?

We had a major issue.

[jpalbny]

RachelG - I had to use all of my tricks, but we got there!

 

spinnaker2 - you are right; I blew up the original picture on my computer and it's an MSC ship. I looked at some other pictures that I didn't upload and #3 is the Thomson Celebration. Not familiar with that cruise line.

 

Which airport did you have trouble with - Kayseri, or Istanbul? No major problems at either of them for us.

[jpalbny]

Onboard the Silver Cloud

 

 

The CD David Lawton was waiting for us at the gangway, and check in was very fast. We met Monteza, our favorite wine stewardess, as soon as we boarded! She had champagne for us and it was like we never left - She had been on our first SS voyage 5 years ago to Antarctica, and we've seen her a few times since. Always great to see old friends!

 

We decided to head for lunch before going back out. La Terraza was closed until 12:30 so we went to the pool grill and had spinach salad with strawberries, and a pizza with cheese, tomatoes, and arugula. Very tasty, and it went very well with many glasses of Sauvignon blanc. Even a double espresso didn't give me enough energy to head back to town, so we unpacked, rested, enjoyed the view of Istanbul from the ship, and decided to head back into town next time!

 

Galata Tower - we climbed this last visit, and the views are really quite nice from the top:

 

 

Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque shimmering in the afternoon sun:

 

 

Lifeboat drill at 5:00, and it was very quick. We wondered why the lounge was so empty. There was a sailaway event at 6:00 so we went to that – as a bonus, some great views of the Istanbul skyline at sunset. Beautiful colors, over Topkapi Palace and Aya Sofia:

 

 

Süleymaniye Mosque at dusk:

 

 

A strange thing happened – as we were admiring the view, a lady tapped my shoulder and asked if we were on her Svalbard cruise (3 years ago) because she had remembered us dancing in the lounge every night! Wow. They were Jackie and Derrick from England – we hadn't met them on the cruise (that we could remember) but she sure remembered us. And even more small-world, they had just visited Silver Cloud when it was docked in Leith 2 months ago – during our last cruise!

 

We went to dinner a few minutes after it opened at 7:00, and surprisingly had no trouble finding a table for 2 - by the window, no less. The dining room never seemed to get busy, and after a while the head sommelier (Biljana) wandered over to talk to us and we learned why – there are only 150 guests on board! Astounding. Wonder why?

 

Dinner was delicious as usual – baba ganoush and duck carpaccio for appetizers, spinach and ricotta canneloni and Caesar salad, then sea bass with lemon, olives, capers, and lamb kofta with mint yogurt sauce for mains. Delicious, accompanied by an Italian Sauvignon blanc blended with a tiny amount of Chardonnay for the white, and a Marlborough Pinot noir for the red. Desserts were a Persian chocolate cake with Turkish coffee ice cream, and a baklava with pistachios. Monteza found me a nice dessert wine to go with it.

 

After that we are pretty much spent for the day so off to bed. An unexpected sea day tomorrow, as Lesbos has been canceled due to rough seas expected tonight and tomorrow. It was scheduled as a tender port and the Captain didn't think it would be safe. Instead, we will be at sea tomorrow, and we have a bonus port (Marmaris) after Kusadasi. So our itinerary looks like this now:

 

 

We will have to scramble to plan something for Marmaris. I was looking forward to Lesbos, because my Greek friends had been telling me that they make the best Ouzo there... I e-mailed our car rental place in Lesbos to cancel the reservation for tomorrow. Hope that works OK.

[wills47]

Hi Jpalbny, I just want to thank you for such a great re-cap of your Cappadoccia part of your trip. It looks like you were able to cover so much ground on your own. Would you kindly consider sharing some of your research or just give advice as to the resources you used? Rental cars and getting around stuff?

 

Really enjoying your report!

Thanks!

Wills

[jpalbny]

Hi Jpalbny, I just want to thank you for such a great re-cap of your Cappadoccia part of your trip. It looks like you were able to cover so much ground on your own. Would you kindly consider sharing some of your research or just give advice as to the resources you used? Rental cars and getting around stuff?

 

Really enjoying your report!

Thanks!

Wills

 

Thanks, wills47.

 

Unless we are visiting places that are unsafe, we almost always go out on our own, and have been doing this for years now. We rented a car from Sixt at the Kayseri airport - pretty cheap, less than $100 for the 3 day period. They were working with another agency (which I found to be common in this part of the world) - http://www.carrentalcappadocia.com

 

We also rented cars in almost every cruise ship port, with varying degrees of convenience. I usually just google "car rental xxx" for each port and see what comes up. Or I look at Google Maps and see if any car rental businesses pop up near the port. In other countries, the ports themselves have robust websites that list rental car agencies close by but that wasn't really helpful here.

 

Other Resources and tricks... (1) Frommer's Turkey from our local library; found a 2014 edition. We read this and used it to figure out what we wanted to see in each stop. (2) tons of internet searching time to figure out opening hours, admission prices, etc. We also look at Trip Advisor to read about other people's experiences, to try and get a feel for what we want to see. (3) Google Maps, to (try to) find the exact locations of the sites we wanted to visit. Right click on the map point once you find it, and you can get exact latitude/longitude coordinates. I copied these in a spreadsheet and made a point of interest (POI) file. Use Excel, but save in *.csv format; add coordinates and name for every POI you want to enter. (4) Once completed, I loaded the POI file into my Garmin, and I had exact driving directions to everywhere we wanted to go. I have an old Garmin that has both Europe and North America maps. Very helpful, as Garmin's Europe files are very extensive, and they keep adding countries. I bought a lifetime map update years ago, and I use the heck out of it... :)

 

NB: Google is amazingly good but not perfect. Some of the locations it gave me were off, though most were incredibly accurate. We figured it all out... Sometimes, that was part of the adventure!

 

So - if you're comfortable going off on your own then this is very doable. I will caution you that if you've never done a self-guided adventure like this before, Cappadocia or other places in Turkey may not be the easiest place to try it for the first time. But we are very glad that we did it this way.

[wills47]

Thanks JP! I use Tripadvisor a lot as well, however my experience with renting cars in Europe is limited to Germany-love the autobahn. I looked at your other trip reports and I admire how much you see! I was enthralled by the Cappadocia report and that is definitely a must do destination for me now, whether cruise or land travel!

 

I also like that you seem to be a kindred soul in the value department. I use public transport from airports to town and for getting around cities unless it's overly inconvenient not to, but then I prefer business class airline travel and luxury cruises!

 

I will definitely be referencing your trip reports in the future! Thanks!