Time to explore

12.5.25

My transfer from Turkcell to TTnet mobile is complete!. Super efficient. Very impressed at the speedy and smooth transition.

Time to leave Çeşme. It’s been great.
Alacatı was just 12 minutes drive away. We thought the parking would be awful, but found a large gap very close to the main area.
We spent about 2 hours wandering, it is stunning.
Not many places were open as it’s pedestrianised until 11am, it was great to stop and take soooo many photos without hoards of people and seeing it gradually opening up and coming to life was so nice.

Absolutely no apologies for photo overload.

There’s so many little streets and alleyways.
The usual places are in town such as the banks, chemists, A101 supermarkets etc, they’re blended into beautiful buildings alongside the many cafes, souvenir and jewelery shops.

We visited the PTT, post office and sorted the toll road fee. A grand total of 42tl, less than £1, but we paid 300tl so that we have credit when needed.

We got back to Naz feeling so pleased that we had finally visited Alacatı and how perfect the weather and lack of crowds was.

Our smiles were wiped away when we saw that the road we parked in now had red and white metal posts across it.
I went over to the Zabita office and told the very attractive officer how silly we’d been. I think I may have been a bit girly and fluttered my eyelashes.
He rang for someone to come and unlock the posts.

After 15 minutes another Zabita officer appeared and let us out.

Next we pulled up outside a toilet block we’d spotted and John went inside with our toilet cassette while I gave the lady the advertised 10tl and got back in the van.
When John came out she started to shout. She was definitely fuhttps://brettispaghettitravels.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/woman-traveling-in-france-2023-11-27-05-16-47-utc_Easy-Resize.com_.jpgus. She threw our 2 5tl notes from her kiosk onto the ground.
John picked them up and gave them back to her which seemed to make her shout louder.
We have no idea what that was about, I wound my window down, shrugged and said sorry ‘English and we drove off.

Our destination from here was Inciralti Orman Park. Just over an hour away towards Izmir.
We were shocked how close we were getting to huge sprawling Izmir and how crazy the traffic had become.
There couldn’t be a large green space here surely? As we approached the barrier to get in was 2m.
So that was that. 😢

A bit further along was an area chocca with vans and caravans. We stopped at the barrier while the guy got someone to chat to us.
Its actually a private site, but if we go 1km further along there’s a huge car park, Çinar Car Park.

Wow! Fabulous. We parked by a grassy area and had lunch on the grass. Even better it was just 50tl to park.
We walked along the stunning prom until we reached the lagoon.
I’d read about the flamingos, and there they were.
They just came out as blobs on photos, but around the other side of the lagoon were more and they were much closer.

We walked back, then sat and played rummucub in the sunshine.

It’s been a lovely day – for me.
Not so much for John. He has a huge sore blister, he got yelled at by the toilet lady, stressed by the road barrier and to make the embarrassment worse stalled while manoeuvering to get through the unlocked barrier.
He’s hit his head 4 times in the van today and I beat him at every game of rummucub.

In a attempt to cheer him up I suggested the short stroll to the Ozdilek avm, where we might find künefe in the food court.

The avm, shopping mall, was just a very large Ozdilek supemarket, same stuff as all the other supermarkets here, just different shelf labels.
Upstairs was a large Ozdilek towel and bedding centre and a John Lewis sort of set up with a few major brands within the store.
There was a bargain basement of Ozdilek, Mavi & Koton clothes, small and not very bargain.

After chicken doners, tonights Netflix film was The Painted Veil.
Probably the best of the others we’ve watched over the past few days.
We then tried again to get into Season 2 of Squid Game.
Now we’re 2 episodes in and ready for number 3.
A beautiful day, love where we’re parked. Plenty of cats for John to play with and more huge soppy dogs.
Looking forward to where we’ll go next.

‘