Bursa and starting the long journey home to Fethiye.

17.10.25

At 11pm the Polis were in the museum car park. They shone a torch over and I opened the door to speak to one of them. ‘What are you doing? ` ‘ We’re going to sleep here and go exploring tomorrow. ” OK. ‘

As he walking away I called him over and whispered that there had been a fight. ‘yes’ ‘oh, you know? He nodded. “have they gone?’ ‘gone’.

This morning all that remained was a blood stained tissue, a fag packet and some beer cans.

As we were right next door to the 1326 Panoramic museum we thought we should take a look.

We started on the ground floor and enjoyed the Ottoman Empire paintings, clothes and artifacts.

We paid our 20tl (about 30p) to go up the escalator. Once at the top it was a definite ‘wow’ moment.

Inside the dome is a massive 3d effect painted area depicting life in 1326.

I’ve scoured the Internet for photos, but am very impressed with my own, although I they don’t capture the 360 degree experience because it was so large.

The best 40tl we’ve ever spent. I can’t think of enough adjectives to cover what we saw!

There were also sound effects of livestock, horses, people, birds.

Did I mention it was incredible? Be sure to zoom in to the photos.

From here we drove to the very pretty village of Cumalıkızık, about 30 minutes away. For fellow dwellers of Fethiye – it’s a bit like a cross between Üzümlü and how Kayakoy may have looked, but bigger, with a very touristic centre.

We began heading back, via the fırın to get more tahin pides, and are planning to stay in Akşehir overnight. We found a really pretty picnic area at Göleti.

Some women had decorated their picnic bench area and within minutes of us arriving brought us 2 chunks of delicious birthday cake. We subjected them to our singing of ‘happy birthday’. How lovely, Turks are so generous.

We sat enjoying the beautiful sunshine and played rummicub for a while.

Sadly the huge car park area is used as a race track, the cars blaring loud music and the incessant motor bike revving was too much. We couldn’t even contemplate how bad it would be in the evening or overnight.

No choice but to leave, sad as it was the perfect place to make breakfast tomorrow.

We drove another 40 minutes or so to Tekiloğlu. A small village. John had found a lake with a review saying it was peaceful.

We drove through the village, along along, along, over some rocky pot holes and into the pitch darkness. ‘You have arrived’ said Google.

If ever there was a remote place to get murdered this was it. And the lake had dried up, so not even a view in the morning.

John found another recommendation. Another 40 minutes away.

We pulled off the main road, along a bumpy sand type road that got narrower.

‘turn left, then turn right’ ‘you have arrived’

Seriously?? This was our view..

It was surprising how many vehicles passed by to somewhere. John turned round, didn’t follow the map and we ended up here.

2 or 3 helpful people stopped to tell us we wouldn’t get through. John was convinced he could do it. The van was definitely too high if not too wide, so no option but to reverse out of this nightmare. A random man appeared at the end of reversing and guided us back and forth to get onto a manageable track.

It was truly terrifying. How do people find these parking spaces? Or in this case space.

We made a pact that we would jointly choose the parkup spots from now on.

So off we headed for Alaşehir, not far away. Took a wrong turn, kept going, up a steep hill and ended up by a lovely park. Perfect.

It was 9.30pm, John was hungry, I had ptsd sickness, but we had spagetti bolognese and began watching Sullivan’s Crossing. It’s so similar to Virgin River, swear it’s the same music, but not as good. There’s 3 seasons, maybe OK to have as easy background tv on winter days. It’s the same writer.

Although aafter the last few days I’m thinking of restarting Magnificent Century, about the Ottoman Empire. Started it years ago, discovered how many hundreds of episodes there are and decided I would never have enough time.

Don’t ask me why, but young Turks love a Tofaş car. Probably because they’re old and cheaper. They like to lower the fronts, put big exhausts on etc. I get that, I myself had a big bore exhaust on my sooped up twin car mini back in the day.

Then they fill the entire back with sound systems. Honestly at our first stop there was one so loud it filled the huge park. He could have held a concert with it.

Then they drive up and down blaring out banging Turkish tunes.

We had picked their gathering place. By 11pm it was getting worse not better. Time to leave.

Down the hill, through the town, round the roundabout. I was following the map. ‘By Bellona’ John turned. ‘ no not here’. He thought I’d say now pullover.

Sod it, this’ll do.

Night night!