Touring Turkey

Turkey Izmir is the first Turkish city I set foot in in my life — Smyrna, as it is called — the third-largest city after Istanbul and Ankara, the capital. Here, with a taxi, Mark and I go to visit the ruins of ancient civilisations as well as the Turkish Lourdes, where the Virgin Mary was venerated. Here the roads are well paved, people drive on the right and the traffic is much like Italy's, with reckless overtaking and so on. One positive thing that strikes me is that the houses are all clustered together on the neighbouring hills rather than scattered here and there; the town planning here works well, so you see one place with nothing but houses and the rest all nature, just like in Cape Town.

The second city I visit is Istanbul, with its 15 million inhabitants: the great bridge linking west Istanbul (in Europe) with east Istanbul (in Asia) — here is one of the few places where you cross from one continent to another by car; the other one I've crossed is the tunnel under the Suez Canal. As is well known, I don't much like cities, with their chaos and concrete, but I love nature; still, since I'm here, I take the chance to do a tour on a double-decker bus around the city. Ancient walls, a new tram and the city's first metro line catch my attention, while the urban chaos is best forgotten. On the channel opposite, through the Strait of the Dardanelles, ships of every kind pass, bound for the Black Sea; at 62 km long, together with the Bosphorus Strait they form the border between Europe and Asia. bye