Miss Travelette

Thames River, Big Ben

A friend of mine and I will be in London for 3 days next week and I've prepared a very detailed program for both of us as 3 days are not enough for the places we want to see and we should dedicate ourselves to a plan somehow.

Me on Mondello Beach, Palermo, SICILY

One of the best places in Palermo...

Mondello Beach is a bit far from the town - you definitely need to hire a taxi, preferably a good one, because otherwise they'll ask you to pay more than it actually takes - the distance is not comparable to the distance you'd have in the town - you're going a bit far - 15 minutes in total maybe, but Palermo is a small town, so 15 minutes is a long time there.

2 years ago - or more - I had completed a post grad degree in London, where I had the best year of my whole life. Considering all the freedom, away from the parents, and the availability of reaching any kinds of cultural stuff, like operas, exhibitions, galleries and etc. BESIDES the pubs, nightclubs, even only the streets at nights, it's been a great experience for me. (Almost same for all the foreign students!)

Apart from the opportunities you have, the city itself is beautiful - very beautiful. Well, not the way Paris is, or let's say Amsterdam (the beeeaaautiful channels looking like landscape posters...) But the old buildings, which look very traditional and old fashioned - I love the oldfashioned! - they are just a great way of describing the city's history visually.

I recently visited the well-known tulip heaven we have in İstanbul, and it definitely was worth seeing!

Tulips remind me of Holland all the time, and seeing so many tulips together made me feel like I've been in Holland for a while, once more.

If you ever consider visiting the historically rich Turkish city İstanbul, I offer you to come before the summer, I mean in the middle of the spring, so that you may go and see those tulips with their extremely well-organised pattern.

Pinky red tulips from the garden - photo taken by me

There is a very famous plantation area in İstanbul, which is called 'Emirgan Korusu*' and the tulips I mention here are located in this area, distributed everywhere in a greatly wonderful order! Colours are dancing with each other and the sizes of the tulips are just surprisingly at the same height. No mistake can ever be done in this huge garden, they are absolutely perfect!

According to the historical information we have got, the first tulips were owned by the Ottoman Empire, and after the Ottomans gave some of these tulips out as a present to Holland, Holland started planting them. Now they are famous with their undeniably beautiful tulips and tulip gardens, while we have a few tulip gardens and no fame with tulips.

Annefrakhuis, is a museum located in the area Prinsengracht, where a young Jewish girl used with her family and other a few acquaintances as a hiding place during the World War II. The house is famous with the bookcase located right in front of its entrance. The apartment was used as an office, and entrance to the hiding place was through a door hidden behind this bookcase.

As a result of the diary written by this little young girl, Anne Frank, the house has a worlwide fame, and whenever you go to the museum, you'll have to wait for a long queue no matter if it's winter or summer. We waited! For almost 1 hour, at outside, when it was cold, but yet it was nice to see this house by our own eyes.

The diary of this young girl is also sold in the museum, that's where I bought two books for myself; one for myself in English and the latter one is for my dad in German. The book is all covered with what Anne Frank had written, but there are some different editions of this book, once edited by her father and the next time edited by the publication company as I remember, but I'm sure you can find the complete one in this museum.

Me, in front of the famous "I amsterdam" around the Museumplein

As most of you has already heard, Amsterdam is just a great place to live, to hang out, to travel to, and to... well, it is just great for everything. I spent only four days in Amsterdam, and I would not recommend you more than that. It is such a small city, and you will find a couple of things to do at nights and days. But yet, it was great to get into that atmosphere where everyone is happy and smiling during the day!

Me, having a break by a cannal