May 19-20, 2022

May 19-20, 2022

We woke early intending to have breakfast again on the rooftop deck of the hotel. Today it is cool, blustery, with rain coming. Our first. So far, we have had perfect weather. I guess Mother Nature is telling us it is time to go home.

While the rest of the world has eliminated Covid testing, our ridiculous country still requires vaccinated citizens to test negative. So we pay to have a supervised test performed. With fingers crossed, we passed!

Our tour bus drops us at the Izmir Airport an hour away. That is almost prophetic because today is a Holiday celebrating Ataturk's return to Anatolia one hundred years ago starting the Turkish War of Independence. It ended with Ataturk marching into Izmir, taking this last Greek stronghold. Back then the city went by the Greek name of Smyrna. It would take the Turks another year to write a constitution establishing the secular Republic of Turkey in 1923.

At the airport, we boarded our Turkish Airlines flight. Humorously Morgan Freeman is the narrator of a pre-flight commercial. I wonder why they picked him. We traded my window seat for an interior one on a flight two hours earlier. I regretted that, as the sky was clear as we approached Istanbul. The one-hour flight is quickly over. Unfortunately our next flight is not until tonight. We spend all day in the airport.

At 8:30pm we catch our British Airways flight to London Heathrow. Once again our business seat is just economy with a guaranteed empty middle seat. Our flight approaches along the Thames River with the Tower Bridge and London Eye Ferris Wheel both lit up. 

We arranged to overnight in London to break up the long trip. Little did I know that Heathrow of all airports shuts down early. We had to roust up the inter-terminal bus driver to get a transfer across the airport to our next terminal. After what seems miles of walking and asking directions we find the airport Hilton inside the parking lot of Terminal 2. We have nixed Heathrow airport off our list. On the plus side, Aimee and I both get a great nights sleep. We wish we could stay longer.

We are up early to make our way back through Heathrow security (a US passport is the ultimate VIP card) and have breakfast at the business class lounge. At 9:30 am we board our ten-hour flight to Phoenix. It is cloudy almost the entire route. It finally clears over Arizona as we cross over the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately we have another three-hour layover till we can catch our puddle jumper to Tucson. We are glad to be home.

Turkey is a wonderful country to visit. It is scenic, colorful, and full of interesting historical and natural sites. The Turkish people are nice and friendly and apparently very industrious and hard working. It is one of the cleanest countries we have visited. I don't know why it is off the radar on American’s bucket travel lists. The only downside of the trip was Rick Steves. Disappointingly, his travel company was inferior to all the others we have used.