Day Two:
Never eaten so much cheese for breakfast in my life. The sunlit room where it is served has six tables with spreads of cheeses, olives, apricots, sweet breads, plain breads, apricots, yogurts, jams and marmalades, honeycomb that you carve out with a knife and fork, watermelon, cherries, walnuts, eggs with peppers, pan fried sausages, and more cheeses.
I didn't eat it all.
My breakfast was composed of spicy olives, something called "hair cheese that might be my new favorite cheese ever, something called "Skin bag cheese" which, while sounding unappetizing, is quite delicious, Tahinli Pide or bread with "multed" sesame (a misspelling or a baking term I'm unfamiliar with) that was small and buttery, like a less flaky croissant, a grilled tomato stuffed with chicken and peppers and a tiny saucer of yogurt purely used as a shuttle for the honeycomb.
I STILL didn't eat it all, but I'm walking around as if I did, tottering here and there and making little groans while I hold my belly.
Tomorrow might have to be a cheese free breakfast.
(Much...much...later)
It is 0:17
I have spent all day in Cesme with the Hotel Duchess. I have visited more hotels than I can remember, viewed more gorgeous rooms than I've stayed in for the last five years, met more interesting people including two former mayors, one current airline manager, and one windsurfing champion, ate more cheese, and did it all as clean as I've ever been after a visit to the hamam. I was so dirty that black streaks were coming up while a little Turkish fairy scrubbed me down with something that felt like sandpaper. She also used this magical pillocase that she would shake and squeeze so it emitted a spray of bubbles. She would do it six times so that I would disappear underneath them.
I'm not doing any of these stories justice though by writing them blind with sleepiness and so I will tack it onto my list.
In the meantime, you must view with your own eyes the hamam I visited in Cesme.
http://www.photowebusa.com/radisson-blu/cesme/ (click on "Turkish Hamman)
