Tintype images on Cunda Island

This morning we took a dolmus (shared taxi, 2 TL per person) from Ayvalik Main Square to Cunda Island. The fish restaurants at the harbour have lines of olive oil bottles, the regional speciality, and freshly caught fish on display. We chose to eat at a restaurant further inland, but be warned that you should negotiate prices beforehand to avoid being hit by an excessively large bill. The unbearable midday heat led us to set out on a search for the best beach, and after walking past a shipyard, olive groves and grassy plains with farm animals we found a tiny plantation of beach umbrellas and decided to take a dip. Unfortunately the water was shallow, with some treacherous rocks underfoot, so we only swam for a few minutes to cool down. We subsequently found out that it was a private beach, with a swimming pool and a 20 TL cover charge to get in, but if you act fabulous (or swim and sneak away, as we did), it's unlikely that anyone will hassle you. Disappointingly, we didn't see any fishing cats, but a few locals confirmed that the rumour was true, and that they had seen cats catching eels and small fish.

Cunda Island is beautiful, with dry grassy fields that look like they came straight out of cowboy tintype photographs. The beaches aren't all that, but the raw beauty more than makes up for the painfully saline water. Further inland are some crumbling churches and Ottoman houses, all of which have been inspected and catalogued by the Turkish government. The cobbled footpaths and slowly decaying stone houses on the approach to the top of the hill make you feel like you're in an old black and white film, and once at the top you get a 360 degree view of the island and the bluer than blue Aegean water. Turks have intensifiers for all colours, (for example, mavi is blue, but masmavi is extremely blue) and the view here makes the reason for that obvious.

The local cuisine is mainly fish and vegetables cooked with herbs and olive oil, apparently prepared in a way that is unique to the region. After peeking into a couple of places, we ate at the excellent Ayna, a bright, charming slow-food restaurant. We shared the Balik Sahanaki - Cubed Mediterranean white fish cooked with vegetables and tomato sauce. I haven't eaten fish in a while, so it was a lovely surprise.

Istanbul to Ayvalik

We packed up our whole flat into our snail-bags yesterday, dropped off our suitcase at a friend's place and set off for Yenikapi to take a ferry to Bandirma. Sadly our spur-of-the-moment "plans" didn't quite work out as the 12:30 ferry was full. Instead of opting for the 8 hour bus to Ayvalik we decided to wait for the 6:30 ferry and catch a movie while we waited. Given my penchant for big-budget action films and the fact that "Salt" was out with Turkish subtitles, this worked out perfectly.

The ferry to Bandirma took about 2 hours. Sadly, we didn't take any pictures as our energy was focused on getting non-sleazy accommodation for the night. We did walk around a bit later on after getting a pile of fasulye (beans) and pilav (rice). Surprisingly, Bandirma's center is quite well planned, with a large square and Ataturk statue (of course!) and a lit up bridge linking two parts of the harbour that provided a pretty cool vantage point for the sea as well as the city. There's not much to see in the city, but that's exactly what was nice about being there. That it was just a normal place.

After an uneventful night we took the bus to Ayvalik, sleeping most of the 4 hours. The countryside looked more and more arid, but absolutely gorgeous - stretches of nothing but olive groves on one side, a smattering of buildings and the sea on the other.

As always, we managed to find a delightful guesthouse in the center of old Ayvalik, surrounded by crumbling Ottoman era houses. We finally found what was eluding us in Istanbul - the opportunity to swim. It was awful to be surrounded by water and yet not be able to take a dip in the scorching weather. The beaches of Sarimsakli are only a 15 minute (gorgeous) bus ride away from Ayvalik.

So far, so good. There aren't even any bugs here. Tomorrow we head to Alibey/Cunda Island, where there are apparently fishing cats. We will report on this soon.