Selçuk, Türkiye

We had a down day in Selçuk, with nothing planned. We thought about driving back to Kuşadasi to walk along the boardwalk, but there was a 1,800 passenger cruise ship in port from 7am-1pm, and in the afternoon we wanted to pack up for our flight. So instead we just explored a bit more of Selçuk.

İsa Bey Mosque was almost finished with their restorations, but it’s not yet open, so we couldn’t visit :(

We walked across Atatürk Cd, sort of a dividing line between the tourist and local parts of town. There we checked out the remains of the Roman viaduct, beside the main plaza. Also near the plaza was a cool art installation, which creates a shadow of Atatürk when the sun is at a particular angle once a year. (Probably twice, but the sign only had one date).

That covered off the remaining highlights of Selçuk listed in the Lonely Planet. We wandered down the road a bit, and saw what looked to be a street market. Indeed it was a market, and a really extensive one at that! Later I looked it up, it’s the Saturday Market in Selçuk. The farmers’ market part of it was amazing, with really good produce on display. We were offered and tried a new fruit to us, a type of almond, before it becomes a nut. We walked around for almost an hour.

It was getting close to lunch, and we saw a rotisserie chicken place in the market that looked good. We then came to the fish market section, and instead decided to have fish while we were still on the coast. I had battered anchovies, and Heather tried the calamari. Both were excellent. We were able to ask for two teas in Turkish, iki çay.

The sky was clouding over, so we just called it a day after lunch. Plus I had to look through all my pics from the past few days, now that I had my phone back. (We’d been on the go since I picked it up from the repair shop yesterday).

We had dinner at Kybele Gastro restaurant, next door to the hotel. They had live music and it was packed, most of them smoking. It’s been a while since we’ve been in a restaurant with smoking inside. The food was good, and the band was good too, playing traditional Turkish music. Everyone else was in a partying mood but we called it an early night as we had flight in the morning.