Miss Travelette

Me on the beach

Summer is about to come! It's already more than 25C degrees in Istanbul. Time to go for a holiday!

If you are planning a trip to Turkey, which is one of the most famous summer places around Europe for the last few years, I have loads of places to recommend. One of them is the Kaputaş Beach where I visited 2 summers ago, and found fascinating!

The beach is between two cities, Kaş and Kalkan, so if you are visiting any of these cities, you will surely have a chance to go and see the beach. Bring your bikinis with you and spend a whole day there!

The Kaputaş Beach is a bit different compared to other popular beaches in Turkey as it is actually located on a lower point when you look from the road, and there is nothing else around the bay except some local & foreign people having sunbaths on the beach!

If you are with a car - and I really don't know what else could get you there! - you must leave your car near the stairways in a little park lot, and start going downstairs. There you will have to handle 180 steps of a stairway both as going down and going up back to your car. So 360 steps in total! But never tiring! The view is so adorable! You will enjoy all the steps up!

The water looks turquoise all year (particularly in the brightest summer days) because it directly comes from under the ground, all fresh and icy! Explore what's behind the rocks to see more!

You'd better bring your own food to the beach because there is nothing around; no shops, no restaurants, no houses... Only the blue water and yellow sand, and people.

What else are you looking for anyway! ;)

Kaputaş Beach from my camera (taken on the stairways)

How to get there: If you are looking for a place like Kaputaş, then you must choose a place around Antalya to stay. Both Kaş and Kalkan are linked to Antalya, which is one of the hottest summer cities in Turkey. I remember crying because of the hot weather when I was a kid, because I was literally unable to sleep as it was impossible to breath!

There is an airport in Antalya where you can fly to, and in Antalya you might rent a car to drive up to the north side to get to the beach.

I've had a few other posts about Paris previously and this post is more likely to be "my favourite places in Paris".

Being in a new country - even for a few days - means learning new things about that culture - and the country itself of course! Sicily has a few cultural & archaeological things I noticed and I think these were worth writing here at least in one post!
These important points are going to be the points that should be kept in mind when you are in Sicily.
Because people will talk about them anyway...


One of the Largest Theatres in Europe: Teatro Massimo  

Teatro Massimo di Palermo

Designed by Giovan Battista Basile, Teatro Massimo di Palermo is known as one of the largest and most prestigious theatres in Europe. The theatre has a surface area of almost 8.000 square metres, and its magnificent Neoclassical facade is definitely worth seeing! In the picture on the left, you can see me standing right in front of the theatre. I wish I could have entered the theatre to see its inside, because most of the sources I read later on mention how beautifully it is decorated inside the building.

Me in Canterbury, Kent

Maybe this is not the same for everywhere, but here when you say "England", only one thing comes to people's minds: London!
It's not like Italy, which has Florence, Rome and Venice as its popular cities. People go to these three cities at one journey, but when it comes to England, they generally prefer seeing London and nothing else - which I didn't like at all.
For the last 5 years -or even more- I kept begging my family to buy a holiday package which includes only the Lake District in England. Even before seeing London, I wanted to see the country life over there.

Well, now LUCKILY as one of my friends from the secondary school with whom I used to study together lives in Rye, East Sussex this year. She's met an English guy 5 years ago, and been married to him for the last 3 years, but until the last months of the last year, they preferred living in Istanbul as they both love the warm weather more.

Now they're in England for career development, and that's been a great chance for me to see both my friend and the lovely country life of England!

As she wants to see more of London -of which I'm fed up with really-, we made a plan: 3 days in London, 3 days in the rural area (which are Rye, Canterbury and Tenterden).
So that's how it started!
Very unluckily the terrible weather had us frozen the first days of the trip and we eventually found ourselves running between the attractions we wanted to see in London! And veeery luckily, the last three days of our holiday was much much better, so we had plenty of time to explore the rural areas.

To start with, I will summarise what we've done in London and what we'done in other parts of the country.

First day, Tuesday - We met in our hotel, which was Best Western Paddington, that I would definitely recommend! Good service, quite luxurious rooms (a bit tiny though), clean, quiet and everything we were looking for! After leaving our luggages, basically followed the programme: Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, lunch at Hyde Park, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Kensington High Street, Holland Park, Notting Hill and back to hotel - Dinner at Leicester Square.

The second day, Wednesday - Sherlock Holmes Museum (for which we were a bit late, so bought the tickets and visited again the next day), Oxford Street for shopping, lunch in Oxford Street, picking up our London Pass cards from Leicester and then National Gallery - shopping again (English books this time, from Waterstones) and back to the hotel - dinner at Leicester with a friend from London.

The third day, Thursday - Sherlock Holmes Museum-Baker Street, Kensington Palace, Westminster Abbey, London Eye, sandwiches for lunch(take away), London Cruise Tour, Tower of London(Inside the castle), Tower Bridge(Tower Bridge Exhibition), run to the hotel, take the luggages, check out and go to Sevenoaks - my friend's husband picked us up from there and we headed to East Sussex... That night we're staying at the Corner House, where actually my friend lives. The Corner House was a very very lovely place with 5-6 rooms, 2 horses, a big big garden and a little lovely lake - the Turner family owns it and has been running it as a Bed&Breakfast for the last 30 years. They are a very lovely family and I loved to spend time with them a lot - their rooms are very nice, yellow, pink, blue, colourful and clean - you have everything you need inside... and more. So I would definitely recommend you to stay there when you visit the town Rye!

The fourth day, Friday - Canterbury, Kent - we had to use the train to go there, spent a few hours around, but didn't have time for another cruise tour on the river. Dinner at home with the Turner family (Their traditional Fish&Chips Friday).

The fifth day, Saturday - Tenterden, Kent, and back to Rye, explore the little town. (Nice weather, tourists around, everything was perfect on that day!) Dinner in Rye, and a night out in Rye (Go to the George Pub/and another pub later on) - Drunk at the end of the night!

The sixth day, Sunday, go to the woods in Rye and to the Camber Sands Beach later on (when the water is not up!), lunch at home, get ready for the train which goes to Heathrow Airport.

Busy holiday it was! And I enjoyed the last three days more to be honest! London was exhausting for sure, but Rye and the others were great as we had too many chances to just chill out, long hours of eating, drinking tea and exploring the environment with no rush!

When my friend asked me which one I liked the best, my answer was Canterbury for some reason. But I think now it is Rye, with it's woods, beach and shopping area - little, traditional and warm - just as I like it!

Good news! We'll have a trip to Vienna soon! City of music and art... Exactly my cup of tea!!!
I've already started begging for the things to be O.K. so that the trip won't be delayed! Vienna, Budapest and Prag for 7 days is like a dream to me. So many exhibitions, so many galleries, Gothic buildings and many more... I know most of the people want to see Prag, but I've always wanted to go to Vienna - it's all because of my art love (or addiction...)

Considering I'll probably be there in June (but this may be delayed to July as well), I'll have looads loads to write here soon. I'll start with Vienna for sure, and go on with Budapest and Prag later on.

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 in the garden of Dolmabahçe Palace

This is an answer to the question "where to go in Istanbul..." 

I've lived in Istanbul more than 20 years; seen many places, been to many palaces, churches, mosques, parks, and many further, but the only favourite of mine has always been the Dolmabahçe Palace (Dolmabahçe Sarayı). - (If you want to get into the palace and see it, you will have to wait for probably an hour or more in the queue, but I assure you, it's worth it!)

Its unique architecture, and its location make it one of the best places in Istanbul and make it worth seeing for the tourists. I have been to the palace more than 4 or 5 times; accompanying my tourist friends most of the time, and I never get bored of it. - It's main importance comes from being our leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's home for his last years, although it had been used by a couple of other leaders the Ottoman Empire had.

Today I've found a great mobile application - Voice Translator Free (Well, there are loads with the same name, so choose the purple looking one!)

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.

Hey, there! Today, I wanted to mention a very helpful city guide application that I've found for my iPhone. Pretty sure it'll be working on some of other phones as well (yet not sure if it'll be working with Android).

I hope it won't be looking like an advertisement, BECAUSE it is not. I love sharing useful stuff with everyone so here we are:

GuidePal! Yes, the name is GuidePal. You can search on your phone's app store, and find it in a sudden.

Easy to use. Very short texts are included, so you'll get the main points only. Not the details, but still it's helpful when you have to decide where to go, where to eat, what to do in a city that you're not accustomed to. I think every travel lover should get this application and use it abroad.

Notre Dame by night

Gothic cathedrals and Art Deco designed churchs... All can be found in Paris. Variety is limitless. Most of them have stories, done by kings and religious people to prove victory and religious loyalty. Art can be seen all around. Very detailed figures on the façades of buildings, but especially churchs. An epic atmosphere is created by the view of all these architectural beauty. This is what Paris looks like. It makes you feel like you are wandering in the medival era, not in 2000s. Only people are ridiculous in this frame. As if all others are the true reality.

Entrance of a metro station

Metro tickets for one use

A part of Paris metro map and where the Porte de Versailles station is

 

One of the bridges on Seine

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