I had the good fortune of spending the afternoon with someone that speaks Turkish. Off we went on the ferry to Karisyaka, known as the other side.
It was a grey but beautiful day. Riding on the ferry gave me the opportunity to take some bird pictures. These Bonaparte’s gulls, yes that Bonaparte, Charles Lucien was a distant relative and a trusted naturalist. They are so graceful and seem to just glide at times.
I saw them both in Istanbul and Izmir. Okay, I guess this is another bird lesson. We will learn together. It doesn’t make much sense to me to just post favorite pictures without explanation.
As a side note, some folks ask me how long it takes to write a blog…well…if I was just storytelling, which I can do by the way, it would probably be much faster.
The problem for me, if I am going to spend the time to take these pictures, seems reasonable that I would tell you a little something about them. Okay, glad I got that out of the way.
Back to these gulls. As it turns out, the one’s with the black heads are breeding adults; while the ones with the white heads are juvenile’s known as First-winter.
You’ll notice that in this photo, you can’t see the legs.
Yet in this one, legs are dark and prominent. I’m no expert!!
And sometimes they’re just hanging down.
And don’t be fooled by the previous few photos; they flew in flocks as well.
I didn’t just take bird photos, no way; there were a couple of cats, but of course, worth sharing.
Now let’s get down to business…the food shops along the main streets. Incir Dolmas are stuffed figs.
They love their Turkish Coffee.
One of the very popular street foods we saw were Simit Sesame Ring Breads.
They aren’t exactly like bagels; there is a larger space in the middle. You can see the popularity displayed in this sculpture.
Have I mentioned that since there weren’t any pork products, never bacon for breakfast, I replaced eating bacon with olives!!! I could not get enough olives, every morning without fail. So many varieties and all just full of flavor, okay and salt.
The stores represented what many of us see in farmers markets across our country. These cabbages were huge as were the leaks.
Where do I stop??? Let’s finish this part up with something sweet to eat and traditional to drink. These are called mini apple pies. Oh wow, that’s all I can say.
Join me upstairs in the
for some Turkish tea and goodies to hold us over until later.
Gotta catch the ferry back to Izmir for more shopping and another tea and coffee break. What a great day. This young man was trying hard to have the Bonaparte gull land on his hand and it almost did!
Come back next time for a little more time in Izmir before we head off to Athens!