A lot of what we want to see and experience in Turkey – Bodrum, the Turquoise Coast, Cappadocia and Istanbul coming up – are pretty standard tourist places. Sometimes, though, we like to take advantage of the time we have to try something a little more unusual. Enter Egirdir, a town of about 20,000 people about 115 miles due north of Antalya.

Egirdir sits on the shore of Lake Egirdir, a beautiful freshwater lake about the size of Lake Tahoe (or, for Minnesotans, a little smaller than Mille Lacs), and thus attracts tourists looking for a little adventure. And at about 3,000 feet above sea level, the climate was a lot more temperate than what we’ve been experiencing in Turkey. Our little two-day/three-night stop consisted of one longish and kind of hellish bike ride and a beautiful day touring yet more old Greek and Roman ruins.

For our first full day in town we rented bikes to ride 20 miles out to Lake Kovada National Park. The ride was described as “through apple orchards,” while Lonely Planet says the park is “nice for hikes, picnicking, and flora.” Sounds good, right? Well, not exactly. The ride was on a road beside apple orchards, and they were beautiful with miles and miles of millions and millions of ripening apples along with a few assorted apricot, peach, and pear trees. The problem was that “through apple orchards” made it sound cool and shady, when in fact the ride was in the blazing sun. And the park? I think of nicely watered and even manicured lawns for picnics and all that. This one, not so much. There were pretty limited facilities of any sort and the trail was pretty basic without particularly attractive views or anything.

And then the ride back. It so happens that when you’re biking on a slight downhill stretch you don’t really notice it; you just think you’re making good time. Until, of course, it’s time to go back. On the return, then, we were riding slightly uphill. Oh, and into a headwind that had come up. And now in the mid-afternoon heat. Officially I enjoy biking in most any situations, but this was a tough ride back; I’m not sure Mark has forgiven me yet for suggesting the ride and I was still sore the next morning.

Our second stab at an adventure in Egirdir was measurably more successful. Sagalassos is unlike other ruins we’ve toured. It was an important regional city 2,000 years ago, but it was never of the importance of a place like Ephesus. At an altitude of 5,300 feet, it’s high up in the Tarsus Mountains and thus significantly cooler than other sites we’ve toured. Although the city was destroyed by earthquakes and devastated by the plague, after it was abandoned it was never pillaged and thus makes for a great opportunity for archeologists. Very much an excavation in progress, it is almost entirely, utterly free of tourists.

The little pension we were staying at arranged for someone to drive us up there and let us walk around as long as we wanted. The town had prospered under Roman rule in large part because it exported grain to Rome, which seems so improbably based on the land and climate today, which seems anything but agri-friendly today. The scientists who study this stuff, though, remind us that 2,000 years ago the climate was somewhat more mild with measurably more precipitation. The town of some 5,000 people, then, had a distinct elite, wealthy superstrata and, as a regional center, a theater that seated 9,000 people with incredible views over the valleys below.

Now we’re headed off to Cappadocia, with a quick one-night stop en route, and from there to Ankara, the capital.

A few weeks ago our Albanian friend Rezart saw a Facebook post of ours from Greece and suggested we come up to Albania to see him. When we explained that we really wanted to explore Greece and Turkey he said “OK, why don’t I come down to Turkey then?” So, two years after we spent time with him in Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro, we spent a short week with him in Turkey.

From Kalkan, then, we caught a long bus to Antalya, a largish city on the eastern end of the Turquoise Coast. After a couple days there we went back west a bit to the tiny town of Çirali, and then came back to Antalya for a couple days as Rezart flew back to Tirana. All else being equal we would have worked our way east along the Turquoise Coast a little slower instead of making quick time to Antalya and then doubling back, but that’s where Rezart was flying into, so that’s where we went.

The first challenge was just getting to Antalya. Earlier I wrote that we were really enjoying the bus system of Turkey, but sometimes it’s a little challenging. Like when for all intents and purposes there is no AC, in 90-degree-plus weather, which is most of the time. Or when the bus just breaks down en route, as it did on this occasion. Eventually a new bus came along and we were back on the road.

Antalya itself is an interesting city, and a major international tourist destination. In fact, a market research firm called Euromonitor International claims it is the 10th largest international tourist destination in the world, ahead of even Istanbul; I find that hard to believe, but there are a lot of tourists in the city. You might hear about it a bit in November, when the G-20 meets here.

At any rate, when we were headed out to the bus station to go to Çirali I was struck by how little of the city we actually saw. It’s a city of a little over 1 million people, but we pretty much just stayed in Kaleiçi, the small, historic old city. Entering the old town is the fabulous Gate of Hadrian, constructed in the first century AD to honor his visit. (As an aside, I’m intrigued by how many places we’ve been he got to first….) That and of course the beach, right next to the old Roman port. And the food, and lots of cats.

Çirali was a lot more low key. It’s a quiet, tiny little village next to a long beach. I started to say that there’s really not a lot to do there, but then I realized I should say that except for the beach we didn’t do much. In fact, there are some intriguing tourist sites there – ruins from the ancient city of Olympos and Mt. Chimaera, where escaping natural gas burns and is thought to be the source of the myth of the monster Chimera – but we were really bad tourists and didn’t go go to them. We enjoyed the beach, though. Our hotel, Villa Lukka, was a little Garden of Eden, delightfully quiet, beautiful grounds, nice little cabins to sleep in. The only downside was that breakfast was in their restaurant down on the beach and while the food was good – really good – the flies were enough to drive us crazy. Dinner was fine, but breakfast and lunch ended up being torturous.

One Turkish peculiarity worth mentioning. I’ve had two haircuts here now and Mark’s had one. Good haircuts, accompanied by a nice massage – shoulders, arms, hands, head … pretty nice. The weird part, though, is when they light a piece of cotton or something and apply the burning substance to your ears, presumably to burn off the little hairs that grow there. Very strange. And not at all pleasant. Oh yeah, and when they wash your hair? They have you bend over forwards into the sink so the water is running over your face and you feel like your drowning. Someday some Turkish barber is going to travel in the U.S., have his hair washed there, and say “Hey, if we have them lean backwards over the sink we can wash their hair without water-boarding them!”

Thus we discover cultural differences. From here we’re leaving the coast to go north to a big lake, as we work our way to Cappadocia.

Every so often a friend or some world traveler we meet will mention the Turquoise Coast of Turkey as one of the great places in the world for beach lovers. I remember the first time, maybe 15 years ago, a friend said he was renting a house in southwestern Turkey and I thought that was just strange. “What’s there?” I asked.

Finally we’re getting a chance to find out for ourselves and so far, with one stop under our belts, it’s pretty fabulous. To be specific, this Turkish Riviera, as it’s also called, is generally considered to run from Fethiye, in the southwest corner of Turkey, to Antalya, a little under 200 miles to the east if you follow the coastal road. The classic way to travel in the area is on a week-long gullet tour, a two- or three-masted wooden Turkish boat, but for now at least we’re staying more or less on land.

Leaving Pamukkale it would have made sense for us to head straight to Fethiye and then work our way east along the coast, but we made plans to meet a friend in Antalya, so instead we picked a town partway along the route so we could get to Antalya after a brief stop. We found what we thought would be a nice hotel in Kalkan, so that’s where we ended up.

Here’s what we learned: Kalkan is very pretty and the coast itself is gorgeous. And the town is almost entirely British tourists. It was weird to be someplace that felt as though they’d just airlifted Bristol or Leeds or something into Turkey. I mean everybody was British. In fact, when some Kalkan news agency surveyed 490 tourists in 2012, they found that 96 percent – 462 of them – were from Britain.

Except for that demographic oddity and feeling like we were surrounded by 50-something Brits (because we were), it was a beautiful little stop. We spent one day on a boat with maybe 30 other people sailing up and down the coast around Kekova, a bit east of Kalkan, and then one day at the beach in town. Both were great, largely because the coast here is really spectacular. Maybe not quite as perfect as the Sardinian Emerald Coast, but really, really good.

One other reason we’re enjoying Turkey: so far, at least, it’s really cheap. Hotels are cheap, restaurants are cheap, buses are cheap, even the day-long boat trip was cheap. Wine is usually somewhat expensive in comparison to other prices, presumably because they tax the hell out of if, but otherwise this part of our adventure is being very gentle on our budget. Great food, great beaches, great history, and great prices; that’s a pretty good package. From here it’s off to Antalya to meet up with our Albanian friend Rezart for a few days.