Kusadasi, Turkey

Sunday, October 20th, 2013

Our first visit to Kusadasi, Turkey on this trip.  We arrived at noon and left at 7pm.  We will be back on November 1st for a full day.  On that day we have a trip scheduled with a local driver to visit the house of the Virgin Mary, where it is claimed that she spent her last years.  One of the popes declared it to be true some years ago.

Today, however, was spent in town, in their bazaar.  It is much smaller than in Istanbul, but the sellers are no less persistent.  We visited several carpet shops and were pleased with the amount of negotiating room allowed.  It has been a rough year for the shop owners.  There was the unrest in Istanbul and then the threat of a war involving Syria.  Apparently quite a few cancelled their cruises and that is the main source of revenue here.  The shops will shut down in late November for four months, so everyone was anxious to lower inventory levels.  Many times we heard the come on 'end of the season, best prices'.  We had an appointment with Abdullah, whom we have purchased carpets from two other times.  This time we will be bringing home two new carpets.  We are pleased.

The weather today was the best of the cruise, warm and sunny.  The seas have calmed down and it is smooth sailing and dry again.

Tonight we had a cocktail party and a photo with the Captain.  We received an invitation to the gathering of 'most traveled passengers' .  There were about 30 of us and at least 14 senior officers.  It was very nice.  They passed about two dozen different kinds of appetizers, then the dessert of fresh fruit with some kind of whipped cream, delicious.  Then they started passing trays of about 12-15 kinds of small pastries.  And this was all after we had dinner and dessert.  We will be walking more tomorrow to try to walk this off.  It was delicious!

We celebrated 23 years of marriage today, it was a wonderful day.

Colleen and John