Assos

Peri, Wolfgang, were doing daytrips in the area by car in the next couple of days. It was great chance to see some more of Turkey, it would have been really hard or impossible to get to some of these places by bicycle during this trip.

On the first day, we went to the ancient greek city Assos, and the two mountain villages Yeşilyurt and Adatepe. We had breakfast around 8:30am and started driving to Assos around 10am. Since I have seen many of the ancient greek remains in the last weeks, I was fine walking around the village and having glimpses on the greek theater and some pillars. The village was really beautiful though with old stone houses. Its villagers were selling selfmade goods, such as carpets, bracelets, and things for decoration. We walked around a little and had a really nice and special type of Turkish coffee on a sunny terrace before driving down to the ancient harbour of Assos. :) We also had a walk around the harbour, however, it was a little more touristy and busy than the village and we didn't stay for too long. It was worth the visit though, haven't been right by the sea for a while, it's crystal clear water but too cold to swim for me at this time of the year. :D

We then continued our trip to the mountain village Yeşilyurt, which is on the way back to Altınoluk. Apparently, it is used as a film set for many traditional Turkish movies due to its old stone houses. With Wolfgang and Peri speaking Turkish, I was able to have a look into one of the private traditional houses right next to the market square. The owner was so friendly and explained us how his former relatives used to live up here (all sleeping in one room, the kitchen was the only option to heat). I loved strolling around this village and found a lot of beautiful little hidden places. :)

After spending some time in Yeşilyurt, we drove further to Adatepe. This village has also been used as a film set many times, also due to the stone houses. People living in both Yeşilyurt and Adatepe are rather rich people who come up here during the summer time, when it's too hot to stay down at the coast. However, the locals who have been living in the villages all their live are pretty happy about them buying the old houses so that they're not just falling apart over time, it's quite expensive to renovate these houses.. We also had a stroll around Adatepe, exploring the little streets and gardens before heading back home in the late afternoon.
On the way back, we bought some fresh fish from the market, where I watched a cat stealing the little fish right off the counter anytime the shopman was busy not looking. :D Cats generally really live a good life in Turkey. :D Back home, Peri showed me her delicious self-made hummus recipe, which we had togeter with the fish and some salad.

In the evening, we sat togehter and watched TV - there was a terrorist attack on the İstiklal Avenue in Istanbul today and it was all over the news. This street is the main shopping street on the European side of Istanbul causing many deaths and wounded people. I remember one sentence of a Turkish person I met really well with respect to the bombing: "Anytime an election is coming up, bombs blow up in Istanbul". It was crazy how fast they have found the person, who had allegedly dropped a bag with explosives on a bench. They showed the same short video of the woman walking in a crowd on almost every channel for hours. The next day, the government-controlled media (which is a huge majority of all media channels in Turkey) wasn't allowed to report on it for at least 24h. Talking to Turkish people in the days after the bombing, there was a lot of suspicion and distrust towards what was reported in the news and some stated that they wouldn't be surprised if the government had something to do with it to present themselves as heroes having everything under control with a quick arrest of the alleged perpetrator.Read more