Well, I'm back in the English countryside from adventures in London and Bordeaux. So it's time to get caught up on my travels. While I still have just under 2 months to go before I head back to the US, it's hard to believe that I've been gone from home (San Francisco) for 5 months! That includes the great trips to Illinois, Ohio and Utah - but since I wasn't home when I was there, it counts!
Anyway.....as you probably know from earlier postings I have a very good Turkish friend. We've known each other for something like 8 years. We were lucky during this visit that he was in town when I was there - we got to catch up and spend a lot of time hanging out in cafes and wandering around Istanbul. His family every summer goes back to the village his grandparents lived in. They (Suphi's family) was very nice and invited me to go with them this year. Here are a few pictures of where we were.
They have a small house up in the hills above a little town called Keşap on the Black Sea Coast. This link takes you (hopefully) to a Google Map of the area. This is what it looked like from the balcony of their place.
At the base of this valley is the sea - there are too many clouds in the way to see it, but on clear days it's visible.
Suphi's family has a large hazelnut orchard by their house. I think I have a few photos of that - if I do I'll post them. The orchard is on a very steep hill. At the base is a small stream, and this abandoned water mill is down on the stream. I guess you can just buy your bread and flour at the store these days.
Finally, the day I arrived, Suphi and I went looking for mushrooms in the forest. Usually there are lots, but this year there were only a few. I think we found just one. So later in the week we bought some, and his mom made a really tasty, very spicy mushroom stew that we had on rice. Very very nice!
I'll put some more photos up soon.
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