Visiting Gokceada

After we moved out of our apartment at the end of June, we took a month-long trip around Turkey, and our first stop was the island of Gokceada. I'm not really sure why we decided to go, but my sister-in-law's husband's mother offered us her house, so off we went!

There's not a lot to Gokceada, but it's a lovely little place to hang out for a week or so. The island -- formerly known as Imbros -- has been inhabited long enough to have been mentioned by Homer in the Iliad, but today, the main activities are hanging out at the beach, wandering around after a meal at one of the small restaurants, and checking out the local wildlife (mainly sheep). There may be other things to do on other parts of the island (like visit Turkey's westernmost point), but the bus only goes to four spots on the eastern side, so we weren't able to do a lot of exploring. (Plus, admittedly, it was really, really hot when we were there. We spent a lot of time in the shade.)

Our vacation there was pretty relaxed. Probably the highlight of the trip for me was the couple of evenings we spent on the balcony barbecuing on the mangal as the sun went down. It was Ramadan while we were there, and for the first time, I heard the cannon shot at sunset announcing the breaking of the day's fast. (In Istanbul, I never even knew it was supposed to happen -- did it happen? Is it too loud to hear it in the city? I'd also never known there was a drummer who went around alerting everyone to the pre-dawn meal, but we also heard that in Gokceada...at something like 4am. But I digress...)

Toward the end of our week, we had dinner up above Kalekoy, at Yakamoz. I'd highly recommend it -- great food, great sunset views. Up to that point, we'd spent all of our evenings in Gokceada town, which is where the house was and which was always totally dead at night. Turns out, Kalekoy is hopping at night -- there was a small crafty market, live music and a TON of people walking around.

 We also spent one day at Kefalos/Aydincik beach, which is popular with windsurfers and kite-surfers. The wind there was roaring and, surprisingly, there was sand on the beach, a very rare find in Turkey.

That's all for now...baaa-bye! :)