Kusadasi is somewhere we have been a few times, and we visited Ephesus many years ago from Izmir so today was a bit of a kickback day. We arrived before sunrise just before 5:30am so managed to see how the place looks in the dark.
Once everyone had departed for their tours, we went for breakfast in O’Sheehan’s which is a sort of bar-come restaurant. Its menu changes throughout the day but to date, we have only eaten breakfast there. This has become a regular place for breakfast because it pretty much stays open 24 hours and was useful for our early Israel starts. They have a breakfast menu where I can have eggs cooked to order while Nicole has also managed to get a couple of breakfast options in there too so it works for both of us. And it’s never that busy and very close to the cabin 😁
We found ourselves off the ship at around 8:30am and made our way through the plethora of traders and taxi drivers that had congregated outside the cruise terminal. In Kusadasi, this area has been set up like a complete tourist trap with no obvious way around it.
Last time we were here in 2015 we walked to Pigeon Island which when we got there found it to be closed. Since our last visit, it has had a lot of restoration done and today we managed to get in. It’s free entry and once inside it’s basically a walled garden/park which we enjoyed walking around.
We stopped for a coffee at one of the cafés near the terminal after which we made our way along the promenade in the opposite direction from which we had just come.
We covered about 1½ miles before turning around and making our way back to the ship. We briskly passed through the tourist trap and were back onboard just in time for lunch. The afternoon consisted of blue skies and scattered clouds and out of the wind, it was not too bad. We managed to find a coveted spot and stayed until around 4:00 but eventually, the wind blew us inside where we found a couple of seats in the atrium.
While sitting there, I decided to have a look at some of my photos from 2015 (pre-refit) and compare them with what is there today. The first thing that struck me was the quality of today’s photos which came from my mobile phone and the ones from my camera in 2015.
Tomorrow we have a day in Istanbul which will be our 4th visit to this port.
Really enjoying your posts, so informative and helpful. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your cruise.