Sunday, October 31, 2010

Republic Day in Alanya

We drove on from Anemurium, several hours of mountain/coastal road, more road construction, down into a valley and the sea, then back up another mountain precipice, and on and on. The agriculture in these parts is all banana "plantations," sometimes quite large, sometimes outside, sometimes in humongous green-houses. Anemur is famous for its bananas, so we picked up a bunch at a road-side stand. We drove on. There were no rest areas, no truck-stops, and the three campgrounds we had been counting on had all closed for the season. Night fell. It started raining, hard. We drove on. At length we came to the outskirts of Alanya and put up for the night at a large gas station.

Alanya is the beginning of the Turkish Riviera, and we
awoke the next morning to find ourselves surrounded by
giant resort hotels, some like mountain-top fortresses

















Happily, we were right along the beach--the beginning of
a public beach that goes on for miles and has impressive
amenties--picnic areas, walk-ways, cafes, exercise stations,
playgrounds, for miles; here's a view of Alanya promontory
with its medieval castle (another one we skipped)



















It was Republic Day in Turkey, celebrating the founding
of the Republic in 1923, under it's strong-man leader,
Moustafa Kemal Ataturk; Ataturk is reverred in Turkey even
more than Mao in China (and deservedly so); one sees as
many likeness of him as one sees of the flag; they are
usually side-by-side



















We stopped by a little school celebration of Republic Day















Nationalism is very strong in Turkey; we hope it will remain
so...

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