Beautiful Antalya

We are still enjoying our time in Turkey.

The weather is still perfect–well perfect if you don’t mind being a little hot and sweaty. I’m sure it’s much cooler than in the summer, but you still get plenty hot riding in a car at night even with the windows rolled down, or waking in the open sun.

We spent yesterday in the historic center of the city checking out the some of the landmarks and perusing the shops along the cobblestone streets.

A lot of the old landmarks in the city were built by the Romans, some even by the Greeks.

A three-arched gate built for the Roman ruler Hadrian’s triumphal entry.

Ashley is having a hard time passing up the hand knotted silk and wool rugs and the hand painted ceramics.

Second rug shop. There’s probably more than a million dollars worth of rugs in there.

Ashley admiring the ceramic handiwork. This shopkeeper painted all of these. Some of them take over a week to finish.

This is a famous Turkish pattern. This particular rug is made only of silk. That means the knots are smaller than those of wool. 1000 knots per square centimeter. This partially finished, small rug (one foot by three feet) represents 7 month’s work. Another 6 months to completion (working 3-4 hours a day on it).

Jane, fashion forward as always, has given up her fake pony tail and now chosen this ear “grill”.

All I gotta say is thank goodness we’re all travelling with a carry-on per person, so there’s not much room for souvenirs.

For my part, I’m having a hard time passing on all the knock-offs. Every namebrand item in clothing and shoes, and they honestly look legit to me.

Apparently, Turkey is the capital of high quality knock-offs.

And what do I need with a fake Rolex watch anyway…….but it’s kinda hard to pass them up. They have them with Swiss, Japanese, or Chinese movements (cost is based on the source of the internal movement). From what I’ve read online, they’ve even paid experienced Swiss craftsmen to help them refine the quality of these “genuine fakes”.