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Turkey
I was recently in Turkey for 8 days during which I visited Istanbul and a place called Bodrum.
Istanbul is where the east meets the west, it’s in both Europe and Asia and is one of Europe’s biggest cities. It is pretty and in the old city there are loads of mosques that look beautiful, especially in the evening when the sun sets. Women need to be covered to visit the inside of the mosque but they provide a cloth to drape over your head and shoulders.
When I was walking around the old city you really notice that you never see Turkish women working and you don’t really see that many Turkish women around, when you do they are usually covered from head to foot.
I visited the spice market- there are loads of beautiful Turkish delights to buy and every spice, herb, nut and dried fruit you could ever imagine. The Grand Bazaar is in a huge dome shaped building and completely full of jewels, rugs, pottery and loads of evil eyes (a blue eye shape that wards off evil.
The food is different from home. My favourite was a red lentil soup and then an open kebab, which is thin bread, served with salad and meat that has been cooked over hot coals. Turkish coffee is served in a tiny cup, it’s very strong with a funny after taste and it’s kind of gritty at the bottom, I think it’s an acquired taste.
A highlight of the trip was visiting a Turkish bath. I went to a very old historic one, which was €20 for everything. Basically I lay on hot marble wrapped in a cloth in front of other tourists and once I was warm I poured warm water over myself. Next you go into a small room where a man poured cold water over me and then rubbed me over with a kind of pumice cloth. The next bit I didn’t like too much- you get massaged all over but I couldn’t stop giggling, I think it was a combination of being nervous (I don’t like my feet being rubbed) and I was naked. Then you get rubbed down with a warm soapy cloth and washed down. Lastly you drink Turkish tea.
Istanbul has loads of historical sights to see, but that’s not really my kind of thing, a few places are enough for me. There are also places to smoke Hookah which are huge pipes with different flavoured coals that you smoke, which is nice for a wee bit as long as you don’t smoke too much.
Bodrum was another cup of tea all together; it’s down the coast so I flew there. It was very touristy and full of trashy/cheesy bars. There’s a stunning beach near by and even though it was October it was the perfect temperature to sunbathe and swim. It was lovely to swim in the sea, as the salt content is so strong you float with out trying. Bodrum had more markets, food and clothes and a lovely harbour with lots of yachts. Bodrum was more chilled than Istanbul.
All in all I think Istanbul is worth checking out, I probably wouldn’t recommend Bodrum unless cheesy bars is your thing. I will say that I found it to be quite expensive, so you really wouldn’t want to be on too tight of a budget.
By: Amy Hoedemakers
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