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.

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.

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.

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.