{"id":442,"date":"2014-11-06T02:14:05","date_gmt":"2014-11-06T00:14:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/?p=442"},"modified":"2014-11-06T12:25:09","modified_gmt":"2014-11-06T10:25:09","slug":"more-local-discoveries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/?p=442","title":{"rendered":"More local discoveries"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s getting colder now. Late last night the thermometer went into single figures (9 degrees) for the first time. But most days are pleasant and sunny, and we’re pushing on with a long list of projects. Small steps, but we’re getting there. For example, we had a solar hot water system installed on the roof today, and I spent the afternoon pulling down the last of the old shed so we can re-use the bricks to make raised beds in the garden.<\/p>\n

Still, that kind of activity doesn’t necessarily lead to good photos. So I’ve decided to use this post to show you more of the beautiful towns and landscapes we’ve found on our days off, \u00a0touring around what was once Ionia.<\/p>\n

First, ?irince: this pretty town in the mountains is very popular and worth the drive up from Sel\u00e7uk. Local mythology says it was founded by escaped slaves from Ephesus. Until 1926 it was called \u00c7irkince (“ugly”) which was apparently a strategy to discourage too many visitors.<\/p>\n

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Distinctive Greek architectural influences.<\/p><\/div>\n

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View from the window of the old Byzantine church.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Looking across the rooftops as the sun sets.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Shop selling fabric.<\/p><\/div>\n

On another trip we visited some friends who were staying in the much quieter village of Eski\u00a0Do?anbey, on the south side of the Dilek National Park peninsula. This place has a similar Greek heritage to\u00a0?irince. Both villages were inhabited by Greeks during Ottoman times, and it was only in the earliest days of the new Turkish state, during the population exchanges of 1923, that Turkish farmers first moved in. In\u00a0Eski Do?anbey those farmers found that they preferred working the flatter, more fertile land down in the Menderes valley, and so the town was abandoned for many years. In recent decades \u00a0people have started restoring the traditional stone houses, but the village remains a quiet place to get away from everything.<\/p>\n

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Looking south from \u00a0Eski\u00a0Do?anbey to the mouth of the Menderes and the Aegean sea.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Restored house with fantastic bay window.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Streets of \u00a0Eski\u00a0Do?anbey by moonlight.<\/p><\/div>\n

We also returned to the mountains behind our house. We tried a different road this time, east to ?ncirliova (halfway to Ayd?n) and then north, across the hills to Tire. It is very special up there.<\/p>\n

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Pine forest, lake, and sweeping views in the mountains.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Top left shows geological strata in a road cutting; bottom right there’s a tiny farmhouse.<\/p><\/div>\n

And finally, the latest animal-related drama: we always suspected that S\u00fctla\u00e7<\/span>\u00a0had had a litter of kittens in summer. They must have been under our noses all along, as the three of them are now living in the field across from our house, and we’re feeding them regularly. Ayd?n\u00a0has a shelter for dogs, but there’s nowhere to take cats, so the responsibility is on us.<\/p>\n

They’re just a bit too timid to allow themselves to be picked up (yet), but are very sweet nevertheless.<\/p>\n

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More kittens.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s getting colder now. Late last night the thermometer went into single figures (9 degrees) for the first time. But most days are pleasant and sunny, and we’re pushing on with a long list of projects. Small steps, but we’re getting there. For example, we had a solar hot water system installed on the roof […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[45,54,25],"class_list":["post-442","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-around-us","tag-cats","tag-mountains","tag-tourism","post-preview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=442"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":463,"href":"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442\/revisions\/463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=442"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=442"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ioniaguesthouse.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=442"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}