Sunday, August 23, 2009

A wonderful vacation

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After weeks of rain, a trip to the Turkish Riviera was Great !
This is the first vacation DH and I are doing on our own in the summer. The girls are growing up!

The lovely town of Alanya was our choice and a good choice it was indeed!

The beach, shopping, sightseeing, long walks and lovely sunshine - it was all there :-)

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The view from the town castle down on the Kleopatra beach. The castle has been there for centuries and has an interesting history of different rulers and different times.
Alanya has also been a famous pirate harbour some time in history, for having a very easy defendable harbour.

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The wall around the town castle is 6,8 km long.

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The harbour on the other side of the castle hill - also close to the city centre, where you can find the main bazaar and the night life.

We did enjoy the outdoor life in the evenings, wining and dining at different places every night.

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We did enjoy the Turkish kitchen very much!

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In the impressive Dim Cave - under ground natural drip stone cave - 350  meters one way and 50 meters the other way.

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A LOT of stairs in the Dim Cave, and I walked them all :-)

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Alanya town in the horizon.
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The view was impressive in all directions outside the Dim Cave.

Inspiration for patchwork was everywhere:

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This is outside the Archaeology Museum in Alanya

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A beautiful fence around the museum.

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Inside the museum.
It is special to see the embroidery traditions of other countries and how they often are quite similar in many countries :-)

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Beautiful intarsia work.

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A wooden window cover with an interesting pattern.

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Ancient mosaics. I can see elements from the Dear Jane quilt here. Can you ?

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Can you see how these ancient burial boxes are shaped and carved as houses, with windows and all ?
Due to the hard ground these boxes were not buried into the ground and they are quite small, like doll houses.

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A mosaic on the pavement downtown Alanya.

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The Kleopatra Restaurant was our favourite night cap place, where the service is excellent and Kadri, Ahmed and the others made their best effort to make us all feel ever so comfortable and welcome. We met other night cap drinkers there, many nights in a row :-)

Ahmed, to the right, is an absolute wiz with Irish Coffees!! The best I have ever tasted! The same goes for the Strawberry Daiquiris. :-)

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The minaret close to your hotel had a lovely mosaic / patchwork pattern too :-)

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I think the bottom line to this one week vacation is that it was sooo good for body and soul, in every way.
Alanya area still has a lot to offer that we have not seen, eaten, shopped or smelled,
so we will go for “a Schwarzenegger” - We Will Be Back - some day in the future :-)

Hanne

8 comments:

  1. Alanya is a great place to have a vacation. I'm going back there too.

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  2. Never been in Turkey, but I can imagine it's nice to spend a vacation there. It seems you and your husband had a great time. Thank you for charing.

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  3. Fantastiske mosaikkbilder som rører et quiltehjerte! Resten gir meg også lyst til å reise og se / oppleve herligheten :)

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  4. It looks like a lovely place to visit. Holidays take a dramatically different turn when the baby birds have flown the nest. We have found they are a whole lot more relaxing.

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  5. Ser ut som dere har opplevd masse på kort til i "Tyrkiet".

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  6. Oh, Hanne, it looks like a beautiful place. I'm so glad you got to go and relax and have such a good time.

    PS, I really love your basket quilt and you're right, the quilting is gorgeous.

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  7. That looks like a wonderful place for a vacation - I want to go!
    I'm glad you got a chance to go, and share it with us, so we can at least experience it through your pictures.

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  8. Wonderful that you enjoyed a good time. Of course you need to come home to rest up from your vacation.

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