I must give my apologies to you, my readers. I sometimes leave you hanging. . .
You may recall the posts I did back in September after a four day trip to Çanakkale. Unfortunately, these types of posts, with lots of photos, are very time consuming. So once again, I never got to the last day of our trip, which honestly, was the most fabulous part!
But first, if you want to catch up, you might check out these earlier posts:
Caught up? Great! After Bozcaada we spent a quick night in teacher housing in Ayvacik. Really nasty. I do not recommend it to anyone for any reason, ever. When the sun rose, so did we and we got the heck out of Dodge.
And we moved on to Assos! Assos, whose modern name is Behramkale, is a small historically rich town in the Ayvacık district, an Aegean-coast seaside retreat amid ancient ruins. Visited by St. Paul and Aristotle, the latter built a school there. It is now home to many retired professors and artists. Very low-key. Absolutely fabulous.
I have so many photos to add, that I am going to let you do the research on the town itself. I am simply going to share my photos with you.
Photos of the village and the waterfront hotels:
The historical ruins:
A road trip to Babakale, the westernmost point of Asia:
And a shameless plug for our boutique hotel, “Joy Inn.” With new owners, the Joy Inn was truly charming and freshly renovated. What they lose with small rooms, they make up for with their friendliness, attention to detail, and delicious surprise with each breakfast. By the way, if you fall in love with their olive oil, ask them about it. Don’t expect to find it that good elsewhere.
Adventures in Ankara 
Nice picture of Agnus Castus at the top.
Good eye! Thanks for the identification!
. . also known as the Chaste Tree – the liquid from the dried seeds, steeped in hot water is said to work wonders for hormonal imbalance in ladies and keeps randy priests under control (I’m not suggesting you try it)
Whoaaaa, absolutely amazing that a friend of mine gets to walk around, look and think of times past in all things that happened in these architectural wonders.
Keep it coming cause we here in Sharon Hill, PA, USA love it!
I thought you might like this one Artie! Sorry to keep you waiting . . .
Thanks for sharing your trip about Assos! It’s been on our travel list since I always enjoy Claudia talk about it on her blog. Great photos! And trust me, I also know what it’s like to weed through/edit/delete a ton of photos before I post them on my blog. 🙂
Thanks Joy! We should have a blogger meeting at Claudia’s place! What do you say Claudia???
.awww this was such a fabulous post for me as of course I know all those places – and people – intimately. The boy is Hasan who lives next door to us and whose circumcision party we went to, and the guy is Levent who makes super jewellery and will fix any bits free of charge for we ‘locals’! And Joy Inn! Why, our house is just over the road!! I am glad you liked it so much as it hasn’t had much luck and the people keep on changing. But sounds as if it’s in good hands right now. Let’s hope they stay. If you ever go again, you must let me know so you can come and enjoy our view of Lesbos from the end of our garden!! We haven’t been since bayram and are starting to miss it all…
Claudia! I don’t think I knew you had a place there until after we went. It’s your summer place, isn’t it? We really got a kick out of Hasan. He really knew his stuff about the olive oil. He was quite the salesman! We purchased a ring from Levent for my mother’s birthday. He’s sizing it in the photo. I really loved it there and will definitely want to come back soon for a longer visit.Please let Levent and Hasan know about the post when you see them. Best to you!
Hi again Terry! I couldn’t resist having another look at your pics of the place! Hasan is lovely but did you meet his little sister? She’s such a cute little madam and is called Sumru. I have bought innumerable bits of jewellery from Levent over the years not to mention taken every single visitor we have ever had .. the trouble is that the character of the village is changing. So many of the villagers now sell Chinese souvenirs instead of olive oil or kekik.. and that awful cafe on the left going up the main drag, Ey li Keyf.. every summer it seems to get bigger and bigger. We’ve had our house for 19 yrs now, imagine that!
Sure I’ll tell H and L about this post 🙂
We didn’t meet Sumru. I believe it was his mother who was there at the time. We did buy mountain kekik from a woman who was walking the streets (and a wooden spoon just for the heck of it.) I also bought limon kekik. And I believe I came home with at least 15 liters of olive oil! But I wish I had bought more from the folks at Joy. A friend of theirs made it. I did a taste test when I got back, and it was by far the best!