There may be hope yet for keeping entranced by idle travel. Today’s marathon-prep bordered the rocky cliffs of Antalya cascading into the Mediterranean; seedy bits near project apartments (summer housing?) to encourage a sprint. Sabah pension is near City Park. Park of local lovers, wedding photographers and Efes-drinking elders. Restaurants: all orange trees, hibiscus blossoms and tranquil pools. Outside the old city – walk across the glass paved bridge – we find $3 meals of meat stuffed eggplant, stewed green beans with red peppers, and spanakopita.

We caught a bus from the Pullman station in Damascus – goodbye smog and rude men - arriving in Antakya in the deep hours of the night. After a breakfast of olives, cheese, baguette and tomato, we fall asleep in an assortment of beds and sofas made available to the weary bus-time traveler. A man comes by and props my head on a pillow, my feet on a chair.

The last time I slept in a bus station it was between a very fat woman sprawled over three seats and a hungry kitten. The Syrians and Turks treat bus rides like first-class affairs: air-conditioned, coffee and tea-toting, spacious leg room, wide windows, deep-reclining seats.

All the beauty that was North! We pulled into Antalya, Turkey last night at 1 a.m. The bus ride was a series of hair-pin turns winding down steep mountains falling into the ocean. The boys at the front of the bus have a roller-coaster view of incoming lorries and Peugots. We pass small villages brimming with greenhouses; the countryside is lush compared to Syria’s yellow. Green hills among grey scraggly rocks; small forests of pine trees.

After spending the night at the Antalya bus station, we bussed into town. Walking through the older areas – the broken minaret – we are immediately charmed by the sea-side hanging city. The Sabah pension is somewhere in the heart of this heaven among bushes of honeysuckles and cozy warm-pastel colored villas. Sara leans out our bedroom window into a fragrant bush of fuschia pink flowers.