arrival in Turkey (from Europe to Asia)

Friday 21.03 We set off to drive to Brussels from where we were going to be flying to Turkey. Bad weather had been forecast for the Easter weekend in the shape of snow for most of northern Europe which has not seen snow since 1975 and Easter this year was the earliest for 95 years. We hit blizzard conditions driving through the Ardennes and the drive took twice as long as it normally would have done. After eating dinner in a local Chinese restaurant we went to bed early as we had ordered a taxi to take us to the airport for 2.30am. The taxi arrived early and we had only just got out of bed! It was only a very short drive to the airport from my friend’s house where we had been staying and where we had left our car. We duly checked in luggage and went through the security controls.

Our flight was due to leave at 4.40am but they were late boarding all the passengers and then there was a further delay, totalling almost an hour, while they waited for all the snow on the wings of the aircraft to melt.

We landed at Bodrum airport, in south eastern Turkey, at 9.30am on a lovely sunny morning. It was so nice not to be wearing a coat of any sort. Not many people got off the flight as most of them were continuing on to Izmir so we were quickly though the customs formalities and P now has another visa stamp in her passport. Billy (brother in law) drove us to our house after stopping for a quick lunch en route. P has been enjoying looking at a very different landscape and style of architecture from what she is used to and is hoping to help me take lots more photos.

The weather is much warmer than it was at home and there are masses of wild flowers growing on the hillsides. P has remarked that the wild fennel plants are as tall as I am.

There are lots of bright red poppies,

yellow broom and other plants that I cannot yet identify. For the rest of the year it will never be as green as it is now – later on the landscape becomes a desiccated brown with little colour to relieve the aridity everywhere. A new housing complex is being built next to ours where once eagles soared – such a shame and the landscape is fast becoming a concrete jungle. The reason that so many people wanted to visit here is rapidly disappearing. The following are views from the house – looking to the left, straight ahead and to the right.

We went for a walk in the late afternoon. From the top of the hill behind the house you can see across to the bay of Gundogan on the other side.