backtracking to Athens

Planning the onward trip from Athens I felt like Forrest Gump opening a box of chocolates  – you never know what you’re going to find inside.

View from the Parthenon

That’s the sensation we got looking up all the possible flights we could take out of Athens –  international trains stopped running last year and buses are proving hard to research with no timetables in English and a different story from everyone you ask – that you could reach all these exciting, new cities just with a click of the mouse. 

Except it wasn’t that easy, because Tirana, Albania, was proving too expensive to reach by plane and, even if we could face the 13-15 hour bus journey, no-one could tell us where the bus left from. Travelling via Corfu seemed an option for a while, until we realized the ferry service from Patra wasn’t up to speed yet (despite a few packed cities, it’s still not high tourist season yet).

Our second choice, Montenegro, was proving just as elusive within budget and time constraints.

Flea market Athens with Dee and Shirley

Stuff it, we thought, we’ll go elsewhere.

So that’s how we ended up in the Serbian capital of Belgrade last week, after a two-hour flight that took in views of the snowy peaks of Mt Olympus, the rocky peninsulas of Thessalonika, the mountains of Macedonia and a bird’s eye view of its capital, Skopje.

All because I couldn’t handle the idea of a second day in Athens.

After the laid-back, clean, picturesque setting of Paros, Athens proved a sensory overkill, in all the worst possible ways. A lot of people sleeping on the street (and performing all other bodily functions on the streets, too) and, as John describes it, walking through the morning streets felt like being on the set of Shaun of the Dead, with zombie-like creatures at every turn.  

Typical buildings, Athens

The city looks very unloved and its people discontent, with many resorting to self-medication to ease the pain.

“I will stay and watch my city die,” declared the taxi driver who took us to the airport, after explaining that he couldn’t join his cousin in Melbourne because he was divorced and it would mean leaving his 10-year-old son.

The elections of May 3 weren’t seen as offering much hope to the people we spoke to, either, with most describing the options as ‘disappointing’.

“Nothing changes,” was the phrase used by both our taxi driver and Vasili, from Santorini. “Maybe a new face here or there, but behind it’s all the same.”

Greek sandals

Ironic sentiments from the birthplace of democracy.

However, we did enjoy seeing the main monuments from the top of a double-decker tourist bus (which we usually avoid but distances and temperature meant it was the easiest option) and exploring the Acropolis, although it was the most crowded site we’ve visited to date and I think we were a bit spoiled by the quality of the prehistoric, Roman and Hellenistic ruins in Turkey, many of which are worthy of as much attention as the Acropolis. I was actually more impressed by the story of building the Stoa of Zeus, which is in a less impressive site near the centre of town, but which took 600+ years to complete.

Stoa of Zeus, Athens

Athena’s temple took about a tenth of that, but its position overlooking ‘her’ city is certainly awe-inspiring.

We were in Athens on a Sunday, staying in a retro hotel (authentically old-fashioned, not artificially contrived) but in a seedy part of town and, as we escaped the mid-afternoon heat in our room, we could hear the (99%-male) crowd in the taverna down the street gradually getting more and more rowdy until we decided we might stay indoors for dinner. We haven’t felt like that in any city before.

So by 10am the next day we were in Belgrade, staying in a tiny hostel room set in a crowded apartment block with the most archaic lift I’ve ever seen and set around a central ‘void’ that echoed up a zillion partying voices from other floors as we tried to sleep, preparing for an early morning train to Sarajevo the next day.

Gridlock, Athens

But it was in the heart of the city, so an excellent base to explore the meager offerings in the market (very cheap and reasonably fresh but quite limited: polyester clothes, cleaning stuff, fruit and veg [apples, cabbages, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumber and some leafy green the staples], and one more interesting stall with an old buy selling bags of dried herbal tea mixes), the bohemian quarter with its  the Sava and Tisa rivers, forming the Danube, a pretty park with a touristy craft market, where I bought an embroidered shirt, and the many  wide boulevards and avenues where Belgradians relax with a coffe, cigarette, meal, cigarette, or beer and cigarette at ridiculously cheap prices (for us).

Belgrade city walls

The currency is startling at first, with the cost of a (large, 500ml) beer 150 dinars – until you realize it converts to less than 1.50 Euro or $2.

But if the cost of living is low, so too is the standard; most of the tourists seemed to be from neighbouring, former East-bloc countries and English is not widely spoken, few of the shops I saw offered much beyond the basics of life and, according to a TV cameraman we met (working as a builder’s labourer for want of ‘real’ work), most people work long hours for little pay and fewer opportunities.

We were there on the eve of the May Day holiday, though, and can bear witness to the citizens ability to enjoy themselves. In a city where Big Brother still casts a shadow (our hostel had to register our presence with the police), we couldn’t imagine these free-dressing, colourful characters submitting to any authoritarian overlord. In wonderful spring weather, the streets were packed with people out enjoying themselves – keeping it nice – and, from the train the next day we saw hordes of happy campers out making the most of the sun, good food and company in the shade of homes, vineyards, trees by the river or even just under a shade tarp on the edge of a ploughed field.

Belgrade fromthe air

Yet after Greece it was noticeably organized, clean and orderly, in the city as well as the countryside. Not a scrap of farmland seemed wasted from what we saw from the train, although the plentiful hedges and copses seem to support a good level of wildlife – we could hear songbirds all along the tracks.

OK I’m rambling so here’s some brief word associations:

PAROS – good coffee, cute villages, sun-dried mackerel (who knew it could be so yummy?), sunsets over the harbour, mussels with haloumi, marble quarries, wild sage. Byzantine Way – I still need to find out what that was all about.

ATHENS – Zombies, gridlocked traffic, graffiti, run-down, honey and yogurt, crowded, dirt and cigarettes.

Belgrade fast food

BELGRADE – cheap, sunny, skinny people, meat and potatoes, beer, river houseboats, clean, orderly (pedestrian traffic lights count down the seconds til they change to curb impatience), horse chestnut trees, Cyrillic.

 TRAIN VIEWS – Flat plains at first (inspiration for Terry Pratchett’s Sto Lat?), wheatfields, cabbages, limewashed fruit trees, chalet-style houses, corn storage sheds, tall trees (pine, sycamore, elm, ash, linden, poplar, beech, birch), barbecues, chalet-style mosques, cigarettes, rubbish dumped along river, broad rivers and high mountains.

Houses and haystacks from the train.

Wall art (and grafitti) Belgrade.

Pack horse, Belgrade.

Awesome VW, Belgrade.

Life-threatening walks. Belgrade

Crazy mone, Serbia.

Fountain, Belgrade. There are heaps throughout most towns.

Wildlife in the war zone

There’s a songbird that likes to perch in the scrub of almond and fruit trees outside our window here in Mostar, in southern Bosnia, and he’s been singing his heart out all night. I don’t know what a nightingale sounds like, but I’d like to think that’s what it is.

One of Mostar's bombed out buildings

I wonder what happened to the wildlife during the three-year war here in the ’90s when about 80 rockets a day were apparently being fired from one side to another. Certainly the pictures we’ve seen of the city when peace was finally brokered in ’95 show how much of the beautiful old Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian architecture was reduced to rubble, despite its thick stone walls, and the trees were bare, leafless stumps.

Our hostess, Jedrenka, told us how most people had no choice but to hide in their basements all day long, venturing out occasionally for buckets of water or food. She evacuated first to Croatia with her two young children then, because she is married to a Muslim and has a Muslim surname, had to move on and ended up in Norway for two years. Her sister is still in Bergen, where she works in a fish factory: “She is rich,” Jedrenka said. By Bosnian standards, she probably is.




Site where Franz Ferdinand was shot.

 

Her husband stayed behind to fight and, luckily, survived but Sarajevo especially is full of overflowing graveyards packed with bright, new, shiny white gravestones of the many thousands who died between 1992-1995. I'd forgotten, too, the role Sarajevo played in WWI, as the site where Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand and his pregnant wife, Sophia, were assassinated, prompting the start of hostilities. We visited the site, where there is now a small museum. 

Mostar's tourist traps - views and good food.

Jedrenka has named her hostel – which is really just part of her home – after her 32-year-old daughter, Nina, who also lives there with her husband and their two-year-old son, and pretty much runs the business except for meeting travelers off intercity buses. We were met from the Mostar bus at the main terminal and gladly accepted her offer of a room at reasonable rates – and a lift!

“Mostar survives just on tourism now,” she told us. “So thank you for coming to Mostar and helping us.”

view from the bus

My pleasure, I replied, and I meant it. On the bus ride in we’d been stunned by the magnificent mountain ranges of layered rock – the higher peaks still topped with winter snow – and the many rivers run fast and wide in shades of clear blue, green and turquoise, depending on the bedrock. White water rafting and skiing are becoming popular but we haven’t met any travelers who’ve taken up the challenge yet. The water is predictably icy cold and taste wonderful in the taps but even in the 25-30C days we’re enjoying, you’d have to be brave the take on the rapids we’ve been seeing.

On our last morning in Mostar we saw someone jump off the 21m-high ‘old’ bridge – locals get tourists to pay them to dive so we thought it was someone earning his living from the busload of Italians passing through town at the time. However it turned out to be an American overseas student (about to spend a year in Poland) who we caught the Dubrovnik bus with. He did it for his own ‘fun’ but said it was freezing. And a long way down.

Grape vines growing in the valleys near Mostar

The villages are reminiscent of Austria with wide, chalet-style roofs on the houses protecting the last of the winter supply of wood, a few chickens, goats or sheep around the home and always a meticulously laid out assortment of vegetables being tended in neat rows, often edged with lime-washed fruit trees and with grape vines growing in the lee of the house or shed. Further down the valleys corn appears to be a staple, and many properties have long, thin timber storage sheds with vented walls, all packed with dried cobs of corn.



Tea house, Sarajevo.
Might look old but the proud owner
said he only opened 10 days ago



Both Mostar and Sarajevo have at their centre a network of narrow streets and alleyways full of timber-shuttered buildings dating back to the Ottoman Empire times, when Turkish customs and architecture influenced the architecture, while the more recent stone buildings have the larger, grander style of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Handicrafts are still a mainstay of the tourist stalls – carpets, silver and copper/bronze jewellery, woven fabrics, ornate coffee pots and cups, knitwear with intricate patterns similar to Austrian or even Scandinavian designs, plus more recent military memorabilia: medals, old guns and sabres and 1990s bullets fashioned into ballpoint pens. And lots of nationalistic flags and hats.

Souvenirs, Mostar

Wine is a big local industry too, and not bad from what I’ve tasted.

We also visited the local brewery in Sarajevo, which is in a wonderful old building with domed, brick-lined ceiling and ornate chandeliers and side lights. They only brewed three beers – dark, light filtered and light unfiltered – but all pretty good. It cost 5KM for 500ml = about 2.5 Euro = $3.50-$4. Even cheaper in the shops, where a ridiculously large 2L plastic bottle of Sarajevskaya costs between 1.80KM to 3.50KM, depending on size of the supermarket.

Food is also very affordable, with a full place of Cevapi (10 meat fingers, round bread, salted cream sauce and chopped raw onion) only costing about 7KM ($4-$5) even in tourist areas – less elsewhere. The yummy Beg soup (hearty chicken and veg) was only 4KM ($2-$3). 

We’ve been impressed with standard of English of some young people we’ve met (and the responsibilities they take on – our hostel in Sarajevo was being run by 18-year old son of the owner, done while juggling legal studies and some seriously hard partying on May 1 - which we joined for a while) but then unemployment in Sarajevo is apparently at 50% and, while there’s a lot of building a repairing still going on, it’s impossible to ignore the extended and overflowing graveyards everywhere and the pock-marked buildings, either half-occupied or now deserted, that keep the recent troubles right at the forefront of your consciousness.

John on official beer-tasting duty.

On the surface, everything seems fine, although I’ve heard the ‘front line’ road in Mostar now separates the population more than it ever did before, and children in schools are more likely to be separated by religion than in mixed classes, but the people we’ve met have been positive and hopeful – and falling over themselves to make your stay comfortable and enjoyable. OK, maybe not the tram driver who wouldn’t let us on because we didn’t have local coins after arriving on an international train on a public holiday when all the banks and exchanges were shut, but the Dutch/Bosnian good Samaritan couple who paid our fare for us certainly made up for her.

  

Stream through graveyard, Sarajevo.

Inside Sarajevska Brewery

Sarajevska Brewery

John by shot-up building, Sarajevo

Marble cobblestones, Mostar bridge

Market stalls by mosque, old Sarajevo



Mostar's rebuilt 'old' bridge at sunset



View from Yellow Bastion overlooking Sarajevo. Snow on peaks top left!

Site of caravanseri, Sarajevo - offered free accommodation.

Anyway, I have a bus to catch to Dubrovnik, and still haven’t told you of our high-speed travels from Athens to Bosnia, so the next blog will have to be a bit of a restrospective.

Breathtaking views

distracting orchids




Climbing the rocky path up to ancient Thira, it’s hard to focus on your footing, there are so many distractions for your senses: tiny green and terracotta-speckled lizards dart out of your way as you approach, watching cautiously from the safety of a rocky crevice, and huge black bees, fat flying beetles and butterflies – mostly blues – dart around as you disturb their spring feast; the air is full of the heady scent of wild thyme, sage, fenugreek and chamomile from the massed wildflowers somehow finding enough sustenance in the dry, thin soil, 45 degree slope and full sun, and the view past their colourful blooms is even more hypnotising as more is revealed with every step you climb up the hand-hewn marble track.

Lizard - NB minus half his tail



Beetle on fenugreek

Up here, close to the gods and hundreds of steep metres above the nearest flat land or source of water, it’s hard to imagine why such a spot would suggest itself as the site for a city. But it’s also hard to imagine any pirates or marauding tribes bothering to invade such a citadel, and that, I guess, is the whole point. Ancient Thira is one of the first re-settlements on Santorini, founded in about 7 BC after the island was deserted for about a thousand years following the huge volcanic explosion that buried the coastal city of Akrotiri in several metres of ash and rocks and rendered the whole island uninhabitable. Serving the homes were several temples, a gymnasium, agora, theatre and other buildings. All perched on a tiny flat space on the second-highest point of the island. A monastery now stands on the highest point, but nowadays it is served by a road.

And the ancient city was amazingly advanced for its era, with painted frescos, gold ornaments, complex two-storey buildings and a sewer system and quality pots and grinding stones. Not bad for the bronze age.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akrotiri_(Santorini)



Houses crammed on the cliffs

 Still the tradition of building on steep rocky spaces continues today with shops, cafes, apartments and hotels appearing to be competing to find the steepest, most precipitous spot to build on the gravity-defying cliff of the caldera – the steep inside cliff of the still-active volcano rim that is Santorini. The laneways and steep, winding staircases that serve these buildings are too narrow for traffic and offer the most spectacular of views of the brightly painted blue, white and pastel-rendered and dome-roofed churches and properties clinging to the black cliff above the azure-blue Aegean below, and beyond that a sea filled with endless islands punctuating the water to the horizon and disappearing into the mist. Predictably, property prices for these view-blessed buildings have sky rocketed since tourists, photographers and artists discovered and popularized the place in the past few decades, and visitors now pay a premium for enjoying a beer, meal or even a glass of water anywhere that offers caldera views.

Ironically, the views across the ‘flat’ side of the island are nearly as enchanting – although not so dramatic – and prices there are far more reasonable. Guess where we stayed?



cute shops

As explained in my last entry, we’re currently at the mercy of our Turkish travel agents re: choice of accommodation, and arrived with two other Australian couples – one paying 2-star prices and one paying 5-star. All were delivered to the same hotel, so understandably, the mum and daughter Shirley and Dee, who are paying twice what we are per day, were not impressed. Being in the hospitality industry themselves (restaurant at Maroubra) they complained long and loud and finally got transferred to a rather fancy place a bit further out of town. They were with us at the Hotel from Hell at Bodrum, so not surprised they were mad!



Our balcony and view

We were happy enough with our blue-and-white room in a blue-and-white hotel with its blue-and-white pool next to our blue-and-white balcony. Still falls short compared to some more modest backpacker joints, but nice view, good location and ok staff.

However the driver, Vasili, who kindly stayed up til nearly 2am to collect us from the late ferry and who we have since spent many hours chatting with, believes the island is too full of people putting too much importance on money instead of providing good service. Still, with 2-3 cruise ships arriving each day while we were there (rising to 10-12 a day in high season), each disgorging several thousand tourists to the island, all with pockets full of cash looking for somewhere to spend, who can blame them? After all, the island completely closes down in winter (it was only just kicking into gear when we were there; an awful lot of empty pools and streets smelling of fresh paint) and islanders are left to battle the fierce winter winds and harsh, infertile soils on their own again, so why not make hay when the sun shines? Plus it’s hard to treat travelers as individuals when they arrive in such large numbers.

Having said that, we met some lovely locals who were very kind and delivered excellent service, so we were either lucky or came at the perfect time of year. Not too hot – we swam but the water was ‘fresh’ – and probably variable weather, but the sun shone for our two-day stay, so no complaints.

Red Beach

We hired a 125cc scooter for two days and explored the many nooks and crannies, such as the archaeological dig revealing the lost city of Akrotiri, and ancient Thira (which was, ironically, closed for the afternoon so we climbed the adjacent slope and looked down on it instead!), the various beaches (black, red and white, depending on what sort of volcanic rock makes up its hinterland) , an underground wine cellar and museum, regular farming villages and the touristy destination of Oia, which sells itself as offering the best sunsets. All very lovely, although the local wine is ‘interesting’ – due to the harsh climate the vines are pruned and shaped into low wreaths with the new shoots on the inside, to create some protection from sand-laden winds. Yields are very low but favour quite complex, sweet blends, especially the Vin Santo, for which grapes are semi dried before crushing.

Vines trained into wreaths

Found a wonderful local restaurant tho – so good we went back again. Tried liver with thyme and white wine, Santorini sausage (very herby and not too fatty), yummy haloumi, delicious grilled mushrooms, stuffed calamari, cheese croquettes and lots of other meze stuff. Got a complimentary drink each night too – raki with honey and cinnamon one night and vinsanto the next. Yum.  

Now we’re on the ferry to Paros, which sounds a quieter island, and after that we’re off to Athens, where we’re rather dreading the hotel that gets fairly poor reviews on Trip Adviser. Dee and Shirley are booked in at the same time so will blaze a trail for us!

on wall of an art studio



John on his 125cc





Roadside shrine. Lots of them.



Looking down over Fira from ancient Thira



Cheap is cheerful

We’re sitting by the pool watching the sun set and if the scrub-covered hills catching the dying rays were the only sights on our horizon it would be perfect but, as it is, we’re looking out onto a pool where the waterslide is dry, the muddy pool deck is being used as a parking lot and the garden in front of our small terrace is full of glass and weeds s, sadly, the reality of the image just falls short. 



Enjoying an Efes beer at the rootfop by Efes (Ephesus)



Such is life in middle-range hotels that charge international prices but can’t quite get their heads around international standards. So we have aircon but you have to pay extra to use it; the website offers free shuttle service but when we asked for a lift to the ferry we were told ‘you walk’; an ensuite is provided but no shower curtain so it floods with every shower; there are mini toiletries and the toilet paper is folded but there is no hot water; the beds are nicely made but only with a sheet – no blanket is provided. And the ‘village breakfast’ proved fairly meager compared to every other breakfast we’ve had – and all this at the most expensive place we’ve stayed at so far.

Until now we’ve stayed at local ‘pension’ and family-run guest houses and they’ve been great. All very individual but clean, basic, good value and reliable, often with guests sharing a family table or rooftop area for breakfast so plenty of opportunity to meet other travelers and the owners, and a ‘help yourself’ mentality when it comes to making tea and coffee or swapping books etc.

Tonight – and for the next eight days – we’ll be at slightly different accommodation that will cost a bit more but, to be frank, threatens to not be as good.

The reason is long and complex but started with some ‘suspicious’ activity on our credit cards. Our bank recommended stopping the card and, to cut a long story short, we ended up facing a long weekend in Turkey without access to cash.

So we picked an easy way to keep moving on – use my backup credit card to pay for the ferry trips and accommodation between Turkey and Athens. Simple. Only travel agents choose different sorts of accommodation to what we’d pick for ourselves, which Is why we’re looking out at a car park centred around a pool.

Antiques at Selcuk market.

This is Bodrum, a three-hour bus ride south of Selcuk, which is a lovely, colourful town with heaps to see. The Saturday market was full of cheap clothes, touristy stuff, some wonderful antique bric a brac and piles of fresh vegetables, all brought in by farmers on their tractors. Most of Selcuk’s streets are lined with orange trees, so the air is full of the most amazing perfume, too.

Fruit stalls at Selcuk market.

Bodrum, by contrast, is a total tourist-ville.



Bodrum from the mediaeval castle.



It’s very pretty, all set around a gorgeous bay with white houses right down to the waterfront and featuring a massive castle that was built by the Knights of St John (and used as a base for their piracy) before they were run out of town by the Ottomans. There’s a Roman amphitheatre and Don Quixote-style windmills on the hills, too, but the quaint, narrow lanes of the old town are packed with tourist shops now – trendy clothing shops, pricey restaurants, souvenir rubbish and bars. Lots of bars. Our hotel alone had three. And lots of boisterous young Brits, French and Scandinavians, all pink from rushed sun-worship and baring way too much flesh for most of the locals’ comfort. Or mine, for that matter.



Mediaeval glassware recovered from shipwrecks at Bodrum



Apparently a lot of foreigners – especially English – buy homes in Bodrum and the seafront is packed with expensive boats, but most of them look Turkish, so the local cruise trade must be fairly healthy. It was actually relatively quiet when we were there (apparently – seemed hectic to us) and certainly all the venues seemed to be gearing up for a huge increase in numbers, so it must be heaving in summer.



Amphorae at Bodrum castle museum



Anyway, we enjoyed the sights, explored some back streets, toured the castle (which is now a museum holding underwater artefacts, most discovered by sponge divers), had dinner at a waterfront restaurant, and were happy to leave on the 9.30am ferry to Kos.



Fisherman mending his nets, Kos



Bodrum proved to be a good introduction to Kos, which relies heavily on the tourist industry as well, but with a slightly more laid-back approach. (Bodrum also has heaps of blue and white buildings and both have been enjoyed alternating Greek and Turkish/Ottoman rule over the eras). The restaurant touts are slightly less aggressive in Kos and more locals are out enjoying the sun and getting on with their fishing or other businesses, not all tourist-related. Despite hearing such dire reports about the Greek economy, Kos at least seems fairly immune. Business appeared good in Turkey, but there are more signs of wealth in Greece: most taxis in Kos are Mercedes (not sure we saw a single Merc in Turkey), there are some very expensive motorbikes being driven around town, the locals seem more part of the holiday lifestyle than observers, and we didn’t see any beggars. The cats, however are ever-present and just as grubby.



Tourist 'road train' around Kos town.



Dropping off our bags at the ferry terminal, we decided to join the hedonists for the day and, after a quick tour of the town on a tiny ‘train’ that drives a circuit of the main ruins and sights, we ate, drank, sat on the beach and relaxed. Even went for a swim in the chilly but enticingly blue Aegean – the first time the water’s looked clean enough to go in.

Kos is very picturesque with the blue and white buildings, cute fishing boats along the harbor and flowering trees and pot plants everywhere. The air is full of the scent of honeysuckle and a type of frangipani, and the sound of a dozen different languages.

Despite the hour’s ferry ride from Turkey, from Kos you can still see the individual houses on the Turkish mainland, which is probably less than 1km away.

Leaving on the 8.30pm ferry to Santorini tonight, we finally bade farewell to our last views of Turkey and it seems appropriate that a crescent moon and single evening star were hanging in the sky,

Town lights as we leave Kos on the ferry.

Things we will remember from Turkey

Merhaba (hello – about the only word we truly mastered).

Bus journeys are much better when you have a ‘host’ serving free drinks and snacks.

Poppies make any collection of wildflowers look magical.

Honking can be a form of communication, not a sign of road rage.

High petrol prices deliver great public transport.

Cats will eat Muesli bars if they are hungry enough.

No Euro means cheaper prices.

When someone appears to pour washing up liquid on your hands, they’re being polite; it’s handwash.

Turkish people wash their hands an awful lot.

Turkish coffee is not nearly as popular as Turkish tea.



Buying simit rolls at Selcuk market.



Turks don’t eat (what we call) Turkish Bread. But simit sesame rolls are yum.

The pink gunk that (UK confectioner) Fry covers in chocolate does not deserve to be called Turkish Delight.

More people should adopt cucumbers as a snack food.

The sewerage system might not have advanced much since the Roman times but you get used to anything.

 



Roman latrines. Modern ones have walls but lack views.



Hi-rise housing for storks on Selcuk aquaduct

Dinner by the water, Bodrum

Mediaeval graffiti at Bodrum castle, in the English tower.

Greek cats eat pepperoni. Turkish ones eat Muesli bars.