Today there was morning tennis and an afternoon excursion to Alanya. More and more players are showing up including Aussies, Kiwis, along with UK, Ireland, Germany, Netherlands and Mexico…maybe more.

I didn’t play much today but there was a lot of doubles going on and mixed, organized by Christina. I went to the gym.

At noon eight of us went to the Alanya castle about an hour to the east, along the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, which is gorgeous. The coast reminds me a lot of Mallorca…same plants, same cerulean blue water and clear blue skies, but it is much more developed even than Mallorca..one huge hotel with a waterpark after another, many brand new…tourism is big here and it’s nice to experience the off season. We stayed about two hours up at the castle site, looking at the views and wandering the grounds. The castle is medieval and can be reached by taxi or funicular (which I didn’t realize till we arrived). The cost to enter the castle is 12 euros (payable in cash). The castle itself has its origins over 2000 years ago…but most of it was built in the 13th century atop Roman and Byzantine ruins.

The taxi driver (which waited while we toured), then drove back to the shopping area, or at least to a shopping area and we had a little over an hour to find souvenirs and for Erin Boynton to eat something. I was a bit late returning to the taxi since I decided I really wanted to look at a Turkish grocery store and went the wrong way (plus made a late decision to find one). I did find one, wandered around quickly and bought some berries (none on the menu this year at Ali Bey), popcorn (same), Turkish pistachios (curious..they are smaller than California ones and crispier and barely open in the shells..and darker). And Fanta Zero just because. The store had a lot of Turkish delight, lots of candies using pistachios, unrefrigerated milk, eggs (and some in the fridge too), honey galore, but was a Migros so not super exotic. On the way to finding the Migros, Christina and I came across an unusual air conditioning layout, a “mystery steak house”and I saw several Turkish “dryers”.

The driver put the pedal to the metal on the way back and we returned at 6pm. It was a fun afternoon.