Turkey
Princes' Islands
Summer 2011 • Teaching hours fell sharply because Turks seem to lose their enthusiasm for English when the weather is 35°C and they're fasting for Ramazan. Lack of income meant no partying on the Aegean or Mediterranean coast; instead spent several weekends having a poor-man's holiday on the Princes' Islands, located in the Marmara Sea only a 45-minute ferry ride from Istanbul. The four biggest islands are developed and inhabited—the saving grace being a ban on private automobiles, so it's possible to walk along the roads without getting mowed down. Everyone seems to have a favorite island; mine is Kinaliada, a Turkish Sausalito minus the boutiques, bistros, and galleries. Winter must be a drag on these windswept rocks, but the summers are a bargain hunter's paradise.
