Let’s start with a famous bridge

and a less famous bridge.

That’s Bektaş and family, just off a flight from Turkey. Except for Seda who visited San Diego many years ago, it was their first time in the US.

We also found the famous curves of Lombard Street.

I had never heard of the houses called “Painted Ladies”. Maybe it’s an instagram sensation?

My Dad remembers feeding the ducks at the Palace of Fine Arts when he was a kid. What will Irmak remember in 80 years?

Unlike me, my Dad was able to find his grandparents’ house around the corner from the Palace of Fine Arts.

Grace Cathedral probably doesn’t make most people’s short list, but it was near our hotel, and Ferda and I quite enjoyed the time we spent in (also Gothic) Westminster Abbey a few weeks earlier. (If you’re unsure, skip Grace Cathedral.)

We used the rental car one day to go see the coastal redwoods in Muir Woods National Monument. These trees are the tallest living things on earth and can be up to 2000 years old.

That’s a Wow! Interesting to remember that on two previous road trips in California we saw the Giant Sequoias, the largest trees in the world by volume, and the bristlecone pines, the oldest living trees in the world. Are all those superlatives really correct?

I’m saving the best for last. My favorite time in San Francisco was the hour or so we spent at the Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park. My Dad and I agreed — it’s as good as some of the gardens we visited together in Japan two years earlier.

Kind of makes one want to go back to Japan…

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Our first stop was in Ventura at the San Buenaventura Mission, one of the California’s missions that perhaps even my Dad hadn’t been to before. It was the third that Ferda and I have visited together after Alcalá in San Diego and San Miguel Arcángel on another road trip with my Dad two years earlier.

Buenaventura Mission was the 9th and final mission established by Junípero Serra in Alta California. We watched a propaganda video describing how well Junípero Serra treated the natives. I haven’t read enough to have much idea about how accurate those claims are. I’m sceptical. As a non-sequitur Junípero Serra was the name of the street I stayed on when I studied Spanish in Guadalajara.

The mission grounds were pretty.

We spent the night in San Simeon, followed by breakfast at a classic American diner — fun.

Next up was a section of Highway 1 that I had ridden 25 years earlier on a bicycle tour. I remember being astonished to come upon the elephant seals completely unexpectedly. This time Ferda was astonished. She knew we’d stop to see elephant seals but had no idea what to expect. I didn’t really either. There were far more than in the winter 25 years ago.

The elephant seals are an uplifting conservation success story going from near extinction to about 250,000 individuals. The females come on land to give birth and nurse, but they were gone by the time we got there (beginning of July). The males come on land to molt and practice sparring.

We continued north through Ragged Point and Gorda and then turned east toward Nacimiento and Hunter-Liggett on a wonderful road I had never been on before. Great for cycling, I thought, and then we saw two!

You won’t be surprised that our next stop was Mission San Antonia de Padua, one of the more remote missions in California. My Dad had been here before.

We spent the night in Palo Alto with Terry and Mike, one of my Dad’s Stanford classmates. For 4th of July the alumni took Ferda and me on a tour of the beautiful campus.

Disappointingly, because of the holiday we couldn’t get in any buildings. There’s a lot of outdoor artwork to enjoy.

Favorites include Rodin’s Burghers of Calais and the Gates of Hell.

Back in Ketchikan? Or Lithuania?

Finally, if you find yourself in Palo Alto, I recommend a visit to Tony Foster’s gallery. He adds maps and other mementos to his watercolors and groups the artwork into a collection called a “journey”. Excellently done and thoroughly enjoyable.

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and people we’ve heard about for years like Shakespeare, George Washington, Mr. Bean,

Mary Poppins and Princess Diana.

We got to see the interior of 13th century Westminster Abbey during the 10am Sunday service. At other times they want 30 gbp/person to get in. It’s a fairly standard Gothic cathedral which we saw many times in Portugal though construction was about a century later.

Southwark Cathedral, also Gothic, doesn’t charge an entrance fee,

but we bit the bullet (26 gbp/person) for 17th century baroque St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The dome is filled with scenes from Paul’s life including the earthquake escape from jail which I found so fantastic at Philippi.

The view from outside the dome was fantastic in a different way.

The UK does things backwards from many countries — you pay to get into churches, but many museums have no entrance fee. We spent two days at the British Museum. One of my first goals at the British Museum was to see the tombs from Xanthos, a site I’ve visited twice. The big missing monumental tomb at Xanthos is, of course, the Nereid Monument.

Payava’s sarcophagus tomb was found up the hill from the Nereid Monument.

The original location is, I believe, here.

We can see (a copy of) the frieze around the top of the Harpy Tomb (aka Tomb of Kybernis) in the left in this photo,

but it’s easier to see the detail at the British Museum.

The Mausoleum at Halikarnassos in modern Bodrum is not an interesting site to visit.

Would it be any better if the stone lions were on site?

Knidos is missing this larger stone lion. Ferda and I have both been to Datça twice but haven’t bothered making the trip to Knidos. Now we’ve seen the lion!

In Tehran we saw a copy of the Cyrus Cylinder. The British Museum has the original.

The plaster casts from Persepolis are now in better shape than the originals which are exposed to the elements. Reminiscent of the incredible Persepolis carvings was the exhibit from Assyrian Nimrud (near modern Mosul). You enter via a gate of stone lions, reminding me of what the Hittites were doing some 400 years earlier.

The carvings depict a royal lion hunting scene, including bringing the lion to the hunting grounds, chasing it with a chariot, and killing it.

One of the pieces that I was most excited to see at the British Museum was the (double-sided!) carved marble tombstone from Cambay (aka Khambhat), Gujarat. For about two hundred years (1300-1500 CE) a workshop in Cambay sent these tombstones all over the Indian Ocean littoral. I’ve been reading about pre-Portuguese Indian Ocean trading. These tombstones have turned up from Kilwa to Kerala, Yemen (this one), Oman, as far away as Sumatra and Java.

We spent two days at the museum, and I’m sure we barely scratched the surface. I’ll end with this Roman vase, “one of the finest surviving pieces of Roman glass” according to the sign.

On the Cambay tombstone theme Ferda and I made an effort to get to the Victoria and Albert Museum because I knew they had two pieces from Cambay in their collection. Doh! They’re on display in Muscat, and somehow I missed them when I was there. Contemporary with the Cambay workshop are these tiles from Tomb of Buyanquli Khan (outskirts of Bukhara, Uzbekistan).

The V&A has impressive collection of plaster casts. Ferda and I have never been to Florence, but now we’ve seen David.

We’ve never been to Rome, but now we’ve seen Trajan’s Column.

Remember when I said that (a part of) the minbar at Sultan Qaytbay Mausoleum had been stolen? I didn’t find it here at the V&A, did?! Same patron…

Another museum that Ferda and I enjoyed was the National Gallery. I’ll just show three of my favorites.

Mostly we walked around London. We used the tube one day, buses a couple days, and rented bicycles one day. Bikes are the best of course.

I guess that’s about it. What else do you expect from a week in London? The bus trip from Edinburgh took about 12 hours with green rolling agriculture fields the whole way. Not terribly exciting, but I was glad to see it. The bus took us into the center of both Newcastle and Leeds. Neither looked so amazing, but I reminded myself that few cities look nice when you come in and out on busy main roads.

The reason we used the tube one day was to visit Kew Gardens which was about 17km west of where we were staying at Elephant and Castle. I’ll end with photos of our day at Kew.

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On our first afternoon we happened upon the Mansfield Traquair Centre on the one day/month that they’re open to the public. It’s an old church now used for events.

The highlight is the colorful frescoes by Phoebe Anna Traquair.

You should also not miss the beautiful embroidery by Phoebe Anna Traquair at the National Gallery in Edinburgh. Sorry, this photo is horrible.

The highlight at the National Gallery is a pair of paintings by Sir Joseph Noel Paton from A Midsummer Night’s Dream: The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania and, shown here with another poor photo, The Reconciliation of Oberon and Titania — lizards, fairies, devils, bugs, owls, creatures with instruments for noses… reminiscent of Bosch. I spent a long time here and kept going back for more.

I complained about Bayt al-Razzaz Palace being closed when I was in Cairo last winter, but, look!, here’s a painting of the inside of the palace.

Last summer we saw another version of the Three Graces by the same artist, Antonio Canova, in the State Hermitage Museum.

Here are three others that I particularly liked at this museum. This first one by Gainsborough is the most stunning painting of the whole collection.

Another museum that we enjoyed spending time in on a rather rainy day was the National Museum of Scotland. The cast iron Grand Gallery is impressive

with this cast iron drinking fountain in the center.

Remember Dolly the sheep from early (1996) genetics work? Stuffed and in this museum.

Another thing to do in the rain is visit St. Giles’ Cathedral.

On our first day in Scotland that it didn’t rain Ferda and I walked up Arthur’s Seat where we got some views of the city.

That excursion was shorter than we expected so we visited (mostly 17th century) Holyroodhouse Palace that afternoon.

On the side is the ruins of the old abbey.

For a royal palace the interior is surprisingly modest. Photography’s prohibited, but this painting, showing the murder of David Rizzio, Mary Queen of Scots’ secretary, in Mary’s private apartments in this palace is supposed to be historically accurate.

Mostly what we enjoyed in Edinburgh was walking around the city.

Edinburgh was built along a ridge with the buildings packed pretty closely together for defensive purposes. As you walk along this ridge — called the Royal Mile — the land drops off on both sides often with stairs heading down to another part of town like this:

kind of opposite of Dubrovnik where the alleys off the main drag head up on both sides. Between the buildings are alleys called “close”. These are often dead-ends or lead to parking lots or trash dumpsters, but some lead to squares:

or courtyards:

or housing:

One close even led to this wonderful garden.

Indeed exploring the many (over 250?) closes was my favorite thing to do in Edinburgh.

Harry Potter fans visit Greyfriar’s Kirkyard where Rowling poached many of the last names for her books including apparently Potter, Riddle, Black, Moodie, McGonagall, Cruikshanks, Scrymgeour.

instagram influencers visit photogenic Dean Village.

We met up with Cansu and Yiğit for a couple hours one afternoon and talked about Adıyaman, Strasbourg, Alevis, political philosophy.

After a restaurant meal the four of us sat in this pleasant park for a bit.

Thorough tourists will probably visit Edinburgh’s castle. If that’s on your list, get a ticket early. The next available tickets were a month out when we were there!

Here’s another shot that you can find all over the internet.

Like I said before it’s all about the wandering.

See you in London.

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In the immigration line at the Glasgow airport we ran into friends of friends, Cansu and Yiğit, another childless couple living in Antalya and traveling around.

I checked the internet and saw that if we hurried we’d make it to the Glasgow Cathedral before they closed that afternoon.

Well, that’s the cathedral, but the actual closing time is two hours earlier than what’s posted online. We walked around the Glasgow Necropolis instead.

This tomb reminded me of the Capilla del Pocito in Tlaxcala.

I must have had Mexico on my mind ’cause this gazebo near our hotel reminded me of the kiosko so common in the center of towns in Mexico.

For our only full day in Glasgow we headed over to the Kelvingrove Art Museum where the highlight — in its own room — is Salvador Dalí’s Christ of Saint John of the Cross. Ferda pointed out that it’s more like Christ coming back to life than being killed.

Sure enough after looking at the painting, we watched a short video where a priest concurred with Ferda’s observation.

I liked this Monet

and this impressively carved elephant tusk.

We stayed longer than we wanted to at the museum ’cause it was raining so hard when we were ready to go. We caught the 1pm organ concert. Here’s the museum building from the outside.

Next stop was the University of Glasgow. Mostly we wanted to look at the buildings, but when it started raining again, we spent some time in the museum, another excellent one, where we learned a bit about the Roman Antonine Wall.

During the next lull in the rain we walked around Glasgow Botantic Gardens.

I’m sure there’s more to see, but that’s all we had time for on this quick visit. Edinburgh’s calling…

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I took a public bus to Seydişehir and got dropped off at a restaurant on the main highway just 2.5km from Kuğulu Park where some of us camped the first night. I set up my tent about 5pm (before the rain) and was surprised there were only about four tents already there. Most people arrived the following morning since they had to work on Wednesday.

Before leaving Seydişehir we poked our heads inside the 14th century (Selçuk?) Seyyid Harun Veli Camii.

That mosque has a wooden interior, but I managed a better interior photo of the 16th century Ottoman Muallimhane Cami.

Morning sunshine suckered me into wearing my tennis shoes instead of boots, and I ended up with wet muddy feet the first day. We passed lots of nice flowers, but my phone was mostly too wet for photos.

We camped above Yenice.

It was pleasant walking, and I got into the social aspect. I ate lunch in Seydişehir with a man who had visited the Altai Mountains, Tuva, Somalia, Tanzania, among other places; I walked uphill with a man who had been up to 8500m on Everest, summited Elbrus, Kan Tengri, Aconcagua, Matterhorn, and visited 86 countries; I chatted with a retired woman who essentially continuously joins walking tours like this one in Turkey; and I walked on the last day with a woman who spent last winter in Thailand (like me!), Cambodia, and Vietnam. Dang, people get around!

Between Yenice and Taraşcı we crossed the road that climbs up Reze Beli. I loved my ride up that road one morning eight years ago.

At Taraşcı Göleti I camped next to Hussein Abi and learned that he’s from Gökçam and of course knows Hacer and her mother. Small world.

It rained every day — five days in a row — but, well, as my friend Jeff pointed out recently, we’re waterproof!

We spent our last night back at Kuğulu Park where it rained so hard that they moved dinner from the park to somewhere covered. Noticing I hadn’t made over it there, İpek very kindly delivered dinner to my tent for me.

Our last day was short and enjoyable.

Fatma had arranged a private minibus for the group from Antalya, and a space opened up so I could squeeze in with them for the ride home. Lucky me (again!).

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It’s unclear why they chose this difficult-to-access location for their city, likely for that exact reason: it’s difficult to access. There are some cisterns around to collect rain water. There’s a rock quarry conveniently within the city for building materials, but what about food?

The history is the typical Greek-Roman, abandoned in the early Byzantine Period. Now it makes for a nice day hike.

We started walking from the trailhead about 1.5km south of Göynük Yaylası, but I wonder if you couldn’t also start from Zivinde Mevki, the cluster of houses visible in this photo.

The trail isn’t always easy to follow so it’s useful to have an idea of where you’re going. The stage/theater is approximately here (wgs84): 36.65647°N, 30.48394°E

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The best thing was that we went with a fun group of friends. This was the first time we’ve seen Emek and Görkem since Şavşat four years ago.

Likya Yolu apparently didn’t scare away Gülizar and Ali. They joined us again from İzmir.

Here’s Ebru with some students dressed up for the 23 Nisan festivities at the school in Mahmutseydi

and Ferda showing off our campsite in Bayırkozağacı.

We crossed (Beylik period) Ali Köprüsü over the Alara Çayı toward the beginning of our first day of walking.

We spent that night at the tiny village of Aydolin where only six houses are still inhabited. I said hello to one family in the morning, and they gave me some pişi which they called sakız. The campsite there was the best of the trip.

The scenery on this tour was hardly spectacular. It’s certainly not worth backpacking, and unfortunately the villages don’t have accommodation so the best way to walk through here could be a tour like this one where large bags are transported from camp to camp by truck.

We spent the second night at appropriately named Güzelbağ. I had been through here twice before, once by car and once by bicycle. For camping they stuffed us into a caged sports field near the school.

The only ruins we saw was not-very-exciting (Pamphylia) Colybrassos (aka Kolybrassos) Antik Kenti.

We spent that night in Bayırkozağacı which was the funnest village we visited, worth exploring a bit.

Mahmutseydi has a 13th century (Selçuk?) mosque with a wooden interior — thoroughly restored/rebuilt, I believe.

As is not unusual on trips like these, at the end they like to corner the only foreigner for a short TV interview. For highlights the best I could come up with was the terraced agriculture and old stone houses.

There were beautiful women too.

Till next time…

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Closed restaurants were less of a problem. People were very friendly and invited us for food multiple times.

This place normally is a restaurant, but for the holiday they had prepared dishes for friends and family (and bicycle tourists?!).

It’s one of the few (the only?) times I had tempeh on this trip.

Restaurants in larger towns and on busier roads were more likely to be open.

Muar, Batu Pahat, Benut, Pekan Nanas, Johor Bahru — we weren’t exactly hitting Malaysia’s big tourist draws. In Muar every single hotel was full (another consequence of the holiday). When we finally found a place, well, it was pretty awful and one of the most expensive rooms of the whole trip. We got smarter (I guess) and booked ahead in Batu Pahat and Benut. The forecast called for rain every day, and it absolutely poured in Benut and Pekan Nanas. I’m not sure if this part of the world has much of a dry season.

The scenery was ok, not great — still lots of palm oil like we saw almost everywhere on this trip. For variety there was some coconut, rarely sirsak, some mango, banana, and pineapple.

On the busier roads there was roadkill — quite a few monitor lizards and at least one monkey. Then along one of the many canals was a sign warning of crocodiles. Great — I really don’t want to see a crocodile from my bicycle. I stopped in the shade to oil my chain, and Ferda watched a guy dragging a giant reptile from his scooter with a rope. Must be a giant lizard… or a crocodile? I got over there just as the man managed to dump the thing half dead into the canal. It was a snake — 4m long (?) and thick as my thigh. Is that really possible? Yep, in this part of Malaysia some park rangers found an 8m long python a few years ago.

Maybe we should stick to main roads?

Trying to avoid busy highways into the big city of Johor Bahru we spent about an hour messing around on tracks that there were a muddy disaster from construction work (and rain?). We gave up and were heading to the main roads when we ran into Zoë and Jody, a couple of the very few bicycle tourists (the only?) that we met on this ten-week trip. Amazingly we started our trips on the same day (though they started from Chiang Mai) and were flying out of Singapore the same day. They were also heading to Johor Bahru that day but still had energy to try one of the tracks that we hadn’t tried yet. We heard from them later that it was a muddy mess. Going on the main roads ended up being quite easy, and riding in Johor Bahru was better than I expected (a low bar).

The next day immigration (out of Malaysia and into Singapore) was easy. I had been worried about the causeway, but riding that wasn’t bad. It was the first 4km in Singapore on US-style interstates that I hadn’t expected.

The rest of the riding in Singapore was fantastic on some of the nicest urban paths I have ever seen. Pedestrian and bicycle infrastructure is superb. This was my third time in Singapore but the first I rode a bicycle there.

Ferda gets brave and approaches a monitor lizard

to find that two of them are sharing a turtle.

We picked up bicycle boxes, packed, and left everything in the lobby of our hotel for the lalamove package people (to bring to the airport for us). Then we had a few hours for some Singapore sightseeing.

The small streets around Sultan Mosque are a tourist trip. We had never been to this part of Singapore before.

Then we happened upon Parkview Square

and were treated to Salvador Dalí (Snail Queen (1974))

and Fernando Botero (Dressed Woman (2003))

and this fun one was as well.

If you go, don’t miss the interior.

Time for İstanbul via Mumbai and onto Antalya.

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In Tampin we stayed in another large Chinese hotel, had a good Indian dinner, and found these street murals.

The next day we actually did pedal our bicycles a little — all the way from Tampin to Malacca! Like Kangar and Penang this was one short day of riding followed by another city break, this time Malacca (aka Melaka).

For some years Malacca was the busiest port in the world. This must have been the time when the famous Ming Dynasty admiral Zheng He (aka Cheng Ho) sailed the huge Chinese fleet across the Indian Ocean in the early 15th century. Here’s a Chinese map showing the route from Nanjing to Mombasa at the time.

It’s a fluke of history that the Chinese took their navy (the most powerful and technologically advanced in the world) back to China, leaving the Indian Ocean trade routes for the Portuguese to take over a few decades later.

The importance of Malacca declined with Portuguese monopolistic practices and later the British preferred to develop Penang and Singapore.

As 21st century tourists it was easy to spend three days exploring Malacca checking out Malaysia’s typical mix of Chinese, Indian, and Malay. On Harmony Street (aka Jalan Tukang Emas), for example, within about 100m there’s Buddhist Sanduo Temple, Hindu Sri Poyyatha Vinayagar Moorthi Temple, and Muslim Kampung Kling Mosque.

Or by food — Chinese, Indian, Malay:

As in Penang it feels like the Chinese culture is dominant.

We visited yet another (after Penang) Baba and Nyonya Museum/Mansion.

These museums usually had examples of the fine bead work often done on Chinese women’s shoes. Then Ferda and I came across a man in a shop who was actually doing this work. He was happy to show Ferda how it’s done, and she sat down and gave it a try.

Ferda and I were in Malacca for the end of Ramadan holiday so some attractions were closed like the 100-year-old wooden Malay house of Villa Sentosa

and the reproduction of a Malay sultan’s palace, Istana Kesultanan Melaka,

but we got to see families dressed up for the holiday. We were invited in for food and drinks multiple times.

Oh, we can’t forget the Europeans. This is Dutch Square with, I believe, a British church.

Mostly we spent the holiday doing what many Malays do, wandering the streets of Malacca.

I never did get used to the huge monitor lizards in this part of the world.

One evening at a food stall I sat down, pointed, and said, “I’ll have what she’s having.” Turned out to be cuttlefish, perhaps my first time eating cuttlefish, not an experience that needs to be repeated. It was tasty, but cuttlefish? Really? Oh well.

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