Onward to Izmir, Turkey’s third largest city, and formally known as Smyrna. It is said that Old Smyrna is the birth place of Homer (author of The Iliad and The Odyssey) and playground of Alexander the Great. We rented a car at the airport in Izmir and drove on to Sirince — a charming village known for its fruit-flavored wine. Sirince was settled by Greek immigrants who built white houses with red tile roofs which Read More…
The journey continues…we flew to central Turkey to explore Cappadocia, a region created by three volcanoes that haven’t erupted for thousands of years but have left behind soft rock formations that give the area an other-worldly look – a cross between a science fiction set (I’m told the last Star Wars movie, chronologically the first, was filmed here), and Monument Valley. Wind and rain have eroded the soft rocks and shaped the area into a Read More…
Today after a leisurely breakfast and perusing a couple of papers (I always try to get an English version of the local paper) it’s time for a tour of the Bosphorus. Our boat, like other passenger boats, goes up and down the sides of the straight while the big oil tankers cruise the middle – boats go from the Black Sea to the Sea of Maramara for half the day and the reverse direction for Read More…
NOTE — Over the next two weeks Qmuze will be coming to you from Turkey and Israel. I will be tweaking the Qmuze model of politics, culture, and entertainment by commenting on what I saw, what I thought, and what I wore. Grab your passport and stay tuned! (I apologize in advance for any spelling or other errors — this will be fast and furious.) Day 1 –ISTANBUL I have such fascination with Turkey: physically, Read More…
I left San Francisco late morning Thursday and 24 hours later, on Friday night local time, arrived in Delhi. About an hour before landing, I struck up a conversation with a pilot deadheading to India. He told me that it was tricky landing in Delhi on Friday because Delhi’s “fog” problem was complicated by smoke from the crematorium. He informed me they cremated their dead on Thursdays and the crematorium was near the airport. This Read More…

Follow Qmuze...