Bike Ride to Cesme

A fitting way to officially end summer
vacation AND to spend the last weekend together with Eric before he headed back to Saudi was to have a weekend get-a-way at a resort on the Aegean Sea. And, in typical Jansen style, what better way to reach that destination than by bicycle?! Saturday morning we caught the 8:45 ferry to the opposite of Izmir Bay (and cut the trip by about 30 kilometers and avoid lots of traffic).

Here is a picture of an Turkish Naval Museum including a submarine.

Our first stop is coffee..

Our next stop was a melon stand where we convinced the owner to cut open the melon for us.

This is at the top of the last long hill. The scenery was not so go here and it was very hot. But those hills in the distance are our goal.

 The view from our hotel window. The ride was worth it for this.

 Heading to the spa and steam baths (the dome shaped buildings on the left by the pool) for some muscle repair...

 Heading to the beach for replenishing the lost liquids from our journey.

 View from our dinner table.

Our appetizers...homemade sarma and fresh calamari. 

 The restaurant cat waiting for his share of dinner.

View from our ferry back to Bostanli. We were about 10 meters from this cargo ship. I guess the ship captains are pretty good at those algebra problems..."If one ship is traveling north at x mph and another ship is traveling east at y mph and they both maintaining full speed ahead,  how close can they get without hitting each other?"