Azerbaijanis and Iranians

Bus from Cirali to Antalya today - still on the coast, officially the end of the Lycian Way, and a completely different feel to the other towns on the coast. Feels a little less overrun with topless, overweight, lobster-red (seems the sun-smart message is still yet to really sink in over here!) tourists, which can only be a good thing!

Antalya is quite a big town, but we're staying in the Old Quarter down by the water, which feels like a small village. It has a maze of alleys, cobbled and marble streets and plenty of Ottoman houses - some beautifully restored and some run down with wooden planks criss-crossing the windows. The edge of the maze is at the harbour, which is hemmed in by the stunning Bey Mountains to feel more like a lake than the coast.

We had some interesting encounters wandering the streets - the first was stumbling into the art studio of an Azerbaijani artist. He actually does copies of a more famous Azerbaijani artist's work, Assim Resuloglu. Both artists were in the shop, sitting together sharing a beer and a smoke. They clearly get along famously, calling each other 'great artist'. Would be interesting to know how the copyright laws over here work...

The second was with a spice vendor on the street - the subject of this blip - who sucked us in with a free cup of iced tea... and then sucked us in further with spices galore, with the piece de resistance... Iranian saffron. Forty lira later... still, we have more saffron than you can now poke a stick at it. Let's hope we can get it through customs!

PS Changed yesterday's picture too...