My name is Marion Vermazen. I am a traveler, hiker, reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, YouTuber, Spanish and French language student, knitter, weaver and genealogist.
In September of 2015 Duke and I were preparing to leave on a 9 week adventure in Peru and Ecuador. As I was preparing to start blogging again I discovered that Typepad doesn’t really support blogging from an iPhone or iPad anymore. So I left Typepad and moved to WordPress. The old blog address was marionvermazen.blogs.com.
All my post before September of 2015 have been exported from Typepad and imported into WordPress.
Duke and I are getting ready to leave on another grand adventure. This time we will be spending two months in Peru and Ecuador.
New blog – marionvermazen.com
Eventually I would like to transfer my old content over here but there probably isn’t time to do it before we leave. So if you want to look at blog posts before this they are at –
Saturday, March 5, 2016
Friday was a very long day. We flew from Istanbul to San Francisco. As we were leaving our hotel I took a picture of the cat who has obviously adopted the hotel. It was outside the door whenever we came in or went out.
We spent Friday night in Walnut Creek at the Bruce's. Our granddaughter is much more confident on her feet then she was two months ago. She seemed happy to see us.
This morning we drove home to Reno. It rained almost all the way. It is very good to be home. The whole two months were an absolutely wonderful trip. We are already talking about where to go next and what we will do next time we go to Spain!
Thanks everybody for following along with us through this blog. I loved seeing your comments and likes. It made me feel connected to all of you and made the trip more enjoyable.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Tomorrow we fly from Istanbul back to San Francisco so today was the last day of our trip.
This morning we took the bus to Taksim square and wandered around a bit then had a coffee. The square is where demonstrations happen when there is unrest here. Today it was quiet and wet.
Then we visited the Basilica Cistern. It is a massive cistern built by the Byzantines in 532. There are 336 columns many of which are recycled from ancient temples. The whole massive structure is under the square by the Blue Mosque. It was just opened for public viewing in 1987.
It was raining most of the day but it stopped in mid afternoon and we were able to take a nice walk in the gardens around the Topkapi Palace – Gülhane Park.
For dinner we went to a restaurant called Matbah that serves dishes with historic roots. The dishes are called Ottoman Palace Cuisine.
Happy Birthday Duke!!
Wednesday, March 2, 2016
Duke and I did the Golden Horn loop on the hop on hop off bus this morning. Afterwards we had lunch in a little shop in the bazaar.
They rolled out the pita and filled it with meat filling before cooking it in the pizza oven behind Dike.
Then we went shopping in the Spice Bazaar
