Day 4 Monday 29th August Nemrut Dagi to Lake Van

Being our 24^th wedding anniversary, I organised a couple of treats for the good wife.

First was to drive her up to the viewing area for the sunrise effect on the statues, an incredibly rough and twisting hill climb to the top.

Our party totalled 7 & 3 other guests so we were amazed to see about 40 other people up on the platform waiting for sun-up. They had come up from the other side which had much easier access.

Atop Nemrut Dagi

Then back for breakfast at the guest house, and departure in convoy for the lesser used road to get us to the ferry crossing. This avoided the awful road on which we had travelled up. Finding the route though was a bit tricky as there were very little signs and often a fork road would have none at all.

Dina asking the way to the ferry

  We happened across a wonderful fort perched high up on the rocky crop (Yeni Kale fort).  Along the way I then provided for Laurette, a river cruise on the Euphrates river. This was actually a 20 minute car ferry ride. As the ferry came in there was a mass of purple. Women in lovely purple headgear & men in purple turbans. This had some religious significance but we weren’t able to ascertain exactly what. It was the end of Ramadan so maybe it was a local tradition to don the purple.

Ferry arriving on Euphrates river

Our anniversary cruise on the Euphrates river

The roads leading to this point were again rough and bad.

The Morgan was still running hot.

After another long hot drive we could see the wonderful blue of the Lake and reached our hotel in time to see the sun setting.