Wednesday, 23 July 2014

Aveylik to Setluk

I was expecting to be eating different food, but not such consistently wonderful fare. Examples include Jellied Turkish Delight covered in icing sugar, thicker Turkish Delight pistachios, soups of tripe, sheep’s head or lentils, olives and salads of lettuce and red cabbage, cucumber and tomatoes and incredible olive oil with every meal. Breakfast today was olives, cheese, bread, tea, coffee, eggs, jams, tomatoes, cucumbers, all served on a terrace overlooking the town.

I ran to a market this morning and bought fresh cherries and oranges. They were probably picked yesterday.  Where we have maple trees along the roads, Turks have orange trees. While touring we went to a carpet co-operative and watched them being woven.  The process takes four to twenty four months depending on whether silk, wool,mixture, carpet or kilim.  Gorgeous work.  It will take about five weeks for my chosen one to be delivered. 

Roses and oleander are blooming everywhere.  There are lots of greenhouses and the tiniest plots outside of apartment buildings given over to roses and veggies.  Huge fields of onions and more peach trees than in Niagara.

Dinner this evening was in the mountain village of Sirince which is full of restaurants, tourist shops, beautiful handmade lace, pottery, dream catchers and fruit wines.  Everyone agreed mulberry was the best.  The setting was incredible.  Wild olive trees are all over the mountainsides with hotels and houses tucked in between pines and olives. Sirince was a Greek village before the great migration of Turks back to Turkey and Greeks back to Greece after the breakup of the Ottoman empire.  

No comments:

Post a Comment