Antalya. That’s it

We spent our last day in Antalya being tourist and taking a tour. We had tried to work out how to take a public ferry around to the cable car and to visit the waterfalls but they were all far apart and it was easier on a tour. Off we went with the gang and it was pretty well organised but long. Thankfully we had free time at most places as of course there were the usual couple of whingers on board. The tour also through in a boat trip of about 40 mins on a boat that was meant to make us feel like millionaires but it was small compared to its neighbours at the dock. The boat just went out along the coast and turned around and came back. It was good for us to see the mountains from the oceans and to see them rising so steeply from sea level and realise that some how we had picked our way through them. The tour leader also through in a ‘lovely surprise’ – a visit to a jewellery store. It was huge, massive. About the size of 4 football fields and we kept on being invited into 2 more apparent rooms where the real diamonds were kept. In the ordinary rooms they kept sky diamonds which are manufactured diamonds in Switzerland and some other Turkish stone that changes colour in sunlight. It was one of those dreadful experiences where and assistant follows your every move and tries to show you something and offers discount. It was a completely overwhelming and unpleasant experience. Probably our worse experience in Antalya.

The tour did include a visit to the old town which of course was where we were staying. However when we got off the bus in front of Hadrians gate there was a large group of school kids all dressed up and singing national songs while being filmed. It’s 99 years on Saturday of Ataturk overthrowing the Ottomans and the republic being declared. We could not pass through the gates for about 10 mins, cutting the city tour in half which suited us as we walked all the streets we had walked the day before.

The whole day was a long one but we did manage to see some parts outside the old city and to ease our bodies back to some normalcy. We are both feeling rather fatigued and realise this particular walk has taken a lot out of us. We packed our bags and ducked around the corner for a pizza dinner at an alleyway restaurant that we had noticed the night before. It had a guy playing a guitar and singing with an average voice, but singing songs mainly from 60s through to 80s. He sung a lot of medleys and broke into Louis Armstrongs Wonderful world at one stage. it brought back memories of celebrating my birthday and catching up with Louie and Al et al in Coimbra Portugal several years ago. After too many drinks at dinner we all sang the song walking home down those very steep, narrow streets with our noise bouncing off the walls.

Well that was Antalya done and dusted. A really lovely little city that I would easily recommend. Just make sure to stay in the old centre and don’t go in the high summer season as I doubt you could move. Late October was ideal