It is 8:30 pm and we are enjoying a cold one in the garden of the Belen Hotel in Side. This city, which we thought would be quiet, is far from it. Maybe the photos we had seen were what misled us, we just didn't see people in them! Plus, we had been experiencing small numbers of tourists on the eastern Mediterrean coast which is a far different situation here. For one thing, there is the coastal road and it is being reconstructed. this disrupts all traffic going east to west and vice versa. The mountain highway. westward from Anemur is about 40 or 50 miles long, and separates the sleepy towns east of it from the frantic resort development to the west. The road itself has been two lane, filled with hairpins and blind corners. It's right along the Mediterranean coast, but at an elevation of about a thousdand feet. Unfortunately (to our minds, at least), the gov't is carving a new four-lane highway through the area, and this will open up the eastern side to development.
The bus dropped us along the highway, a few miles north of our destination: the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Side (which may mean "pomegranate", but who knows?). We caught a cab with a driver who didn't know the area, but with the help of a map on the IPad, we got there. Finding the intended hotel was another matter, but we got there only to find that they were full. The proprieter steered us here to the Belen, an so here we are.
The bus dropped us along the highway, a few miles north of our destination: the ruins of the ancient Roman city of Side (which may mean "pomegranate", but who knows?). We caught a cab with a driver who didn't know the area, but with the help of a map on the IPad, we got there. Finding the intended hotel was another matter, but we got there only to find that they were full. The proprieter steered us here to the Belen, an so here we are.
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