Tuesday, May 5, 2026
We made it to Antalya yesterday evening, staying at the Elegant East hotel. Our room is appointed with faux French antique furniture and there is a sitting area and dining table outside in the common hallway. Interestingly, there is a notation in the hotel information that states “no outside food or drink”. Just let them try to stop me with I get back from the grocery store. 😊
When we arrived, our rooms were not quite ready, and even when we got in, we found that there was no toilet tissue. No biggie, just let them know and it was delivered promptly. Then. a few minutes later, a bottle of wine and plate of fruit arrived with a note of apology. Party time!
This was our "vacation from your vacation" day and we were free to do whatever we wanted. Most of our group opted to go on a boat cruise but Lyle and I were more adventurous. We took the city bus out to the Upper Duden Falls. There must be a lot of tourists going out that way because the bus driver asked us if that was where we were going and also let us know when we arrived. Good thing, because these bus stops are not labelled nor is there an information inside the bus to let you know where you are or what stop is next.
The admission fee and bus fare were
quite modest, and the falls are actually in a beautiful park. On our way from the bus stop, we heard a
persistent tapping and rounded the corner to find a man doing metalwork and another
sharpening knives.
At the park, there was an ancient tomb
and also the remains from an ancient olive oil factory.
You could go down into a cave and walk
behind the falls. There were also viewpoints at various sites in the cave.
.
But the best view was at the cave exit at a level near the base of the
falls.
However, getting back was where the adventure came in. We wanted to take the bus again down to the Lower Falls that actually fell into the sea. That involved a bus transfer, and unfortunately the bus we were on decided just to pass that stop entirely. We got off at the next stop and walked to a place to catch a different bus that would take us to the Lower Falls. According to Google Maps, that bus was arriving as we arrived, but we saw no bus. Then Google told us that the bus had departed. It was 30 min before the next bus would arrive and we decided just to go back to the hotel. It would have been a 45 min ride to the Lower Falls, then 30 min back and it was already past 1 pm.
We finally made our way home and had a snack. Lyle went to rest and I took a walk down to the marina to scout out a place for a sunset picture.
Hadrian’s
Gate was not too crowded, so I got a decent picture there, with a detail showing
the coffered design of the arch ceilings. I used this picture for the title of this blog post, but I'm posting it again so you don't have to look back.
The plan was to walk down to the harbor area to scout out a place for a sunset picture. The Hidirlik tower looks like a good spot. It took a while to get down there because people kept spreading across the pathway and then walking at the pace of death. But I finally made it.
The
tower is a Roman-era structure thought to be a tomb or possibly a
lighthouse.
I
also got a nice picture of the Taurus mountains with some lovely purple flowers
in the foreground. (I did have to step
over the stone wall at the side of the cliff to get it, but the edge was at
least a yard wide).
We had a very good pepperoni and mushroom pizza at the Vanilla Restaurant (and yes, I picked off the mushrooms and gave them to Lyle). The restaurant was named Vanilla in an attempt to appeal to everyone. They actually didn’t realize that “vanilla” typically meant “nothing special”. But it had garnered a good reputation despite the name.
While people-watching during dinner, we saw a
man walk by with his all bandaged. Very
likely he had a hair transplant. We
didn’t realize how popular Turkiye is for hair transplants and cosmetic
surgery. Yaren told us that once she was
leading a tour and one of the ladies had blood oozing from her face. She had decided that since she was coming to
Turkiye anyway, she would get a facelift – 3 days before she started a 13-day
tour!!!
Interestingly,
we saw about half a dozen guys with hair transplant bandages in the airport
coming home.
After
dinner we hung out near the tower to catch the sunset.
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