Beirut - 6th to 8th of October 2011

Ange's birthday weekend away was chosen to be Beirut, "Paris of the Middle East", and supposedly the clubbing capital also. We arrived late thursday night and did our best to try and find some cool bars, but were largely unsuccessful and had to make do with a few quiet ones in an almost deserted sports bar.

Usually on weekends away when we are only there for a short time, Warren is cracking the whip and making sure we see all the sights and make a good go of it. But it was Ange's weekend, so we slept in till late, made it to a nearby cafe for brunch, and had an afternoon snooze before we finally got involved with a walk around town mid-afternoon.

Beirut is a crazy place, still very much recovering from years of war. You are just as likely to come across a bullet ridden deserted building as a shiny new skyscraper:The central hub of Beirut seems to be its corniche waterfront. So we wandered down there and found a great spot for a quick drink and some quality Lebanese snacks of hummus and bread. Just in time too, for a nice romantic stroll along the waterfront, dodging roller bladers and joggers.
Back to our hotel to get dolled up before having more Lebanese food for dinner. Ok no we didnt, wood-fired pizzas it was!
Again we tried to find some good clubbing action. We managed to find some very cool bars for some very cool cocktails, but were unsuccessful on the clubbing front, probably due to the fact we were heading to bed at a sensible hour. We're too old for this!

With not too much else to see in Beirut itself, we hired a driver for the day on Saturday to take us over the hill to the wine region (it was Ange's birthday weekend after all). It took just over an hour to wind up and over the mountain, past the Army checkpoints, towards the Syrian border. But another complete world away. We had a quick buffet lunch, a few tastings of the local wines and a very quick tour of the working vineyard. A very enjoyable afternoon in the sun! By the time we made it back into Beirut we had a few hours to kill before our late night flight back to Dubai. Only available option was to find a bar and have a few drinks!

More fun times in Dubai - September 2011

A busy month of September in Dubai, so thought we would share a few more photos of "home". Our friend Vanessa arrived for a week as part of her 6 month tour of the world, so we showed her the real Dubai, i.e. partytown. Starting off with an awesome pool party at Nasimi on the Palm, full of clubbers in bikinis and boardies. More photos of the tallest building in the world from the following day.A trip into "old Dubai" for a ride on the creek and through the spice market.One of the many nights on the town, this one at a cuban bar. Down to Abu Dhabi so we could get dressed up at the Grand Mosque.
More of the 5 star hotels we like to walk around and pretend we can afford to stay at.
Dubai has been going crazy with these "Cobone" deals, that you buy online in advance for all sorts of things like dinners, massages, hotel stays, etc. The previous trip down to Yas Island was a Cobone deal, and we had found one in August for a track day at the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi where they have the F1 race in November.

So we booked it in for late September, and took the Lumina (i.e. left hand drive Holden Commodore) for a blast. We had 3 lots of half hour sessions, which Warren drove and Ange rode passenger.

This is us in white, about to overtake the red Astin Martin down the pit straight...

In the it garages that the F1 guys will be in next month

Pergamum, Ephesus and Kusadasi - 1st to 3rd of September 2011

Our issues with Troy two days ago meant we had to cram in a bit more touristing than originally planned on the way from Foca to Kusadasi. And having to replace our tire before getting going didnt help, although thankfully was easy enough.

We backtracked north for an hour or so to Pergamum, the pre-eminent medical centre of ancient Rome.Up the hill to the acropolis, thankfully able to drive up the hill, as it was a pretty warm morning!

Back almost past Foca to the best-preserved classical city in the eastern Mediterranean, and certainly the best we saw in Turkey, Ephesus. A fairly long drive, and lonely for Warren with the girls passed out for most of the journey!

Ephesus is just around the corner from our destination: Kusadasi. On arrival we learnt that we were staying in an all inclusive package type holiday place, i.e. all the food and drink you can stomach. Arriving in time for a quick swim, the girls quickly drunk them out of white wine while Warren had a couple of beers waiting for the buffet dinner to start. The food wasnt the highlight, but was "free" so mustn't complain!

We had 2 nights in Kusadasi as well, planned to be our days of R&R at the end of our trip. So we slept in, spent the day by the pool, and worked on our tans.

At night we cabbed it back into the centre of town for some dinner and a few beverages, plus a spot of knock off t-shirt and handbag shopping.

Our final day on tour was far from the most exciting - we had an hour or so car ride back north to Izmir airport to drop off our hire car and catch a hour and half flight back to Istanbul. We'd given ourselves lots of time in case there were issues with the first internal flight, so had a pretty hefty wait in Istanbul before Nic flew back to London and us back to Dubai.

Foca - 30th August to 1st September 2011

The road south from Troy to Foca was a long one, but the closer and closer we got the more dramatic the scenery - plenty of stops along the way for photos!We arrived in Foca as the sun was setting, and so again dumped the bags and the car before walking back around the bay and into town. Foca seemed to be the place for local Turks to holiday, and all the little restaurants lining the harbour were overflowing. We'd planned two nights in Foca, with a day on a boat in between, so spent our first evening booking the boat tour and having a scrummy dinner harbourside.
Back into town the following day to jump onboard the Gulay for our day in the sun.It was an amazing day spent lying on the top deck catching some rays, jumping overboard and having a few cheeky beers. We departed around 11am and returned about 5pm, so a good solid day of sunshine and relaxing.
A relatively quiet night of cards and dinner at our hotel capped off arguably the best day on tour.

Canakkale and Troy - 29th to 30th of August 2011

Having spent a full day in Gallipoli, we made the half hour car-ferry crossing from Europe into Asia at 6pm. We were staying a few hundred metres from where the ferry dropped us off, so we dumped the car and the bags at the hotel in Canakkale, grabbed some kebabs and watched the sunset over the water.
With nothing really to see in Cannakale, we had a (failed) attempt at finding some nightlife, and ended up having a pretty quiet night.

On the road early the next day for an hour and half trip around to Troy. Bad news awaited us, because of the public holiday it wasn't opening until 1pm! Very annoying since we had got up so early! A quick team talk and we decided to trek out to the coast, approximately 40 minutes away, to spend a few hours at the beach until opening time. Thankfully it was a pretty decent beach, although the water a bit nippy for swimming!
40 minutes retracing our steps back to Troy. Obviously a pretty famous place, but not even close to some of the best ruins we've seen. We finished up at Troy mid-afternoon for our drive further south to Foca.

The Gallipoli Peninsula - 28th to 29th of August 2011

On and on and on west we went, along the top of the Sea of Marmara to the Gallipoli Peninsula. The trip took most of the afternoon, arriving in Eceabat around 5pm. Gallipoli needs no introduction, especially for Kiwis and Aussies, and the place certainly has a Kiwi/Aussie feel - our hotel ("Crowded House Hotel") even had an Aussie bar.

But the main reason for visiting is obviously to see the battlefields, Anzac cove, the war memorials etc. We decided to do it as a little tour put on by the hotel the following day, which was probably the best decision we made all tour as it gave us real insight into the objectives, successes, failures of the mission. Our tour guide was even the grandson of one the Turkish soldiers!

The first stop was Brighton Beach, a nice wide expanse of beach where the ANZACs were supposed to land in 1915.

Around the corner to Anzac Cove, a rocky little beach flanked by hills, were they actually did land. The error (made in the middle of a very dark night) is one of the reasons for the failed campaign, given the Turks had a strong defence helped by the natural terrain.

Inland by less than a kilometre to the highest point actually reached by the allies in 8 months of brutal fighting, to see some of the memorials.

Fairly sobering afternoon really but very insightful. A full afternoon in the sunshine, we made it back to Eceabat for the 6pm ferry crossing to Cannakale.