A Free Day in Antalya

Rooftops of Kaleici

We had two free days in Antalya. The first day, we decided to take a public bus to Kaleici, the old part of town where there was reported to be good shopping. We had very specific instructions from the concierge on how to do this: walk out to the main road by the beach, cross the road to the bus stop on the other side, get on a #5 bus. (Actually, I don't remember what the bus number we were supposed to ride was: five will do for the story though.) We waited for quite awhile for a #5 bus, and were starting to get nervous that we had been given the wrong directions; but we asked around at the bus stop and someone who spoke english reassured us it was the right one; and just then, lo and behold, a #5 bus showed up! We were able to figure out where to get off, too, thanks to all the helpful bus riders.

The National Ascension
Monument-read the description.

Description of the monument.

Rooftops

More rooftops.

Close-ups.

Carol and Anne shopping while Claire relaxes.

Attalos II-born in 220 BC; founded the city
of Antalya.

Old city guard tower.

After looking up the waterfalls we had visited yesterday to find out what they were called, we discovered another waterfall in the area that emptied into the sea, called the Duden Lower Falls. (The upper falls are smaller and up in the mountains above Antalya.) You can see the falls from land of course, but it looked much more dramatic (and sounded like much more fun) to rent a boat and go see the falls from the sea.

We decided to do our boat trip before shopping, so we made our way down to the harbor. After haggling with the boat captains, we ended up with an almost private tour (only one other young couple) on a nice yacht. The captain helped us go pick up some sandwiches and drinks for lunch onboard, and off we went.

On our yacht in the harbor!

The Oyler's up top.

Claire and Anne

Small waterfalls along the way.

Claire talking to the folks down below.

Bob and Anne on our yacht.

Many small waterfalls along the way.

Lovely cliffs and water.

More waterfalls.

And more waterfalls!

City castles.


 Then came the impressive Duden Falls!

We enjoyed our yachting adventure! Here we are with our crew- 
for some reason, Blogger has decided I can no longer put captions on pictures, so I'll just have to include it in the text. Wow, I love Blogger!

After yachting, we wandered through the streets of Kaleici, doing a little shopping and having random discussions with the friendly turkish salesmen. They were fascinated by Claire's being able to speak Kyrgis--as it is apparently an ancient form of Turkish so they can understand a bit of it.
Below are random doorways, kitties, street scenes and cool peacock fountain statues. 

         
After our shopping we headed back to find our bus stop. Returning turned out to be much more difficult then coming though--after many misdirections by friendly and helpful Turks, we finally ended up on a bus going towards our part of town--but not quite; it overshot our hotel by many blocks and we had a long, hot hike back. The pool sure felt great when we got back though; and we had another late night dip in the Med. Amazing how many people (men, women and children) were swimming at 10 at night!