A wild and anxiety fraught exit. Looked like a very simple train trip from town to Ataturk airport and it would have been ....... IF: Sam hadn't forgotten his newly purchased clothes at our airbnb. We rode the metro to its last stop and before transferring to the airport train, he realized. We had lots of time so he took off back, ran the kilometre to the airbnb, ran back to the metro and in about half an hour was back with me. Good thing he's an athlete. But his Opa was in a sweat. And IF: I hadn't left my iPad in the tub at airport security. That sent me into a tizzy. Realized just before we went through security to the boarding gate. I hate to confess it but my travel life is set up on that little device and I've become quite dependent on it, (some of you may be able to relate). Hotel info, flight info, contacts, books, banking, and most importantly, this blog ;-) So I raced back to the checkpoint where I thought I'd left it and, no they said, no tablet, go downstairs. But the sign for lost and found pointed upstairs. Upstairs and downstairs I raced. No lost and found. Dripping with sweat, I finally gave up and started back upstairs to the gates resigned to the loss of the tablet. Inadvertently I strayed out of the security controlled area and had to go back through another security check and realized that that was the one we'd originally come through and, YES!, they had my iPad! A very big whew. Smooth sailing after that. A 45 min flight to Izmir, another large city on the south of the Sea of Marmara and a flukey bus connection immediately to our destination, Selcuk for the visit to Ephesus. Lovely, warm weather in Selcuk and a wonderful hotel, Homeros Pension. Such a relief after our scuzzy airbnb in Istanbul.
The dining room
Breakfast at Homeros
Not much to the town, lovely setting with mountains all around, an agricultural place with a section for the few tourists who don't visit Ephesus from their cruise ship.
I noticed hot water solar setups on almost every house and have been surprised to discover that this is the case all over this region. No solar for energy production though.
In fact, Turkey is almost totally dependent on imports for its energy resources and consequently has the highest gas prices in the world at $9.98/gal US. Doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent to driving though, or an incentive to develop other forms of transportation or energy.
Sam went for a run then we had dinner at the same place and that was it for the day.
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