Travel Day to Selçuk

We got up and ready on Wednesday for our busy travel day. Having breakfast at the hostel, there were hot air balloons flying over. We had decided not to go on them, as the good companies were €150 per person, and we’d rather have the time and money for our other tours (which were far cheaper). We didn’t get a confirmation from our airport transfer company, so 15 minutes after we figured they should be there, we booked an alternate transfer. We flew in to Nevşehir, but were flying out of Kayseri so got to see a bit of different scenery on the way. It was about a full hour in a minibus getting there. We got all checked in to our flights and headed off.

Our first flight was on Pegasus airlines to Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen airport (on the Asian side). The most notable point of the 1 hour flight was the pre-flight safety instructions. They had done up a video with children playing all the parts (flight attendants, passengers, pilots) and it was quite funny and a good take on things. Once in Istanbul, we had 45 minutes to transfer to our other flight (on Iz Air, operated by Pegasus) to Izmir. The flight again was an hour and not all that interesting. We got to Izmir and got our bags and noticed that it was scorching hot, with the high scorching us at 37°C. We loaded up our packs and sweated our way out of the airport, across the street to the train station (conveniently located). We sat and waited for 30 minutes for our train and it was just roasting. The train ride from Izmir to Selçuk took about an hour, and thankfully it was air conditioned. The only real note of it was one section of track about 4km long where it looked like they were doing work to twin it and the tracks were not evenly spaced or level with each other. The train slowed from its usual 110km/hr to 20km/hr and we swayed back and forth along it for a good 10 minutes. After getting in to Selçuk, we walked about 4 blocks uphill to our hostel, which mercifully enough has air conditioning. Not too bad for a travel day with a minibus, 2 flights, and a train, and making it in only 7.5 hours.

 

The first thing I noticed arriving in Selçuk were the storks. There were storks on the top of the old aqueduct pillars, on rooftops, on hot water heaters; everywhere.

After a quick break to cool off and checking in, we wandered over to the St. John’s Basilica. It was built in the 6^th century over the tomb of St. John. There wasn’t too much left as it was mainly built from brick and wood, but would be the 4th largest church in the world today if it was fully intact.

 

From there, we wandered down the hill to the İsa bey Mosque. It is at the base of the hill from St. John’s Basilica, and was constructed in 1375. It has some neat architecture, and is still a functioning mosque, so we wandered around and in and checked it out.

From there we grabbed some dinner, and went to the rooftop of our hostel to watch the sunset. We cracked a bottle of vodka and stayed up there until just past midnight.