Kelly's Visit: Bozcaada

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Since we were planning on being at a wine festival all weekend, we had no idea what to do when we found out the festival didn't exist. Bozcaada is a cute island, but it's mainly vineyards and wineries, which apparently aren't allowed to do tastings.

There was a lighthouse which had good reviews on TripAdvisor, so we decided to go check it out.  In order to get there, we had to drive around the back half of the island, which was really pretty. We followed the signs down a little dirt road to the lighthouse.  As it turns out, the lighthouse was pretty small and probably about a mile walk.  We decided to enjoy it from a distance and move on.

Somehow a filter got put on my camera for these pictures, but I kind of like it.

#nofilter

After we had a little photo shoot, we decided to venture back into town.  The word on  TripAdvisor was that there was a wine shop that did tastings.

Sure enough, the rumors were true!!

We walked into the shop, which was on a side street and asked to do a tasting.  The guy showed us around the corner to what was clearly their wine tasting shop.  There were tables and a bar set up and we quickly took a seat.  We were able to taste ten wines for 10TL ($3 USD)!!  Super cheap!!  The wines were pretty good and we were just happy to somehow have managed to do a tasting, even if they are banned. 

By this point, we were pretty hungry and ready for lunch.  We settled in at a restaurant and tried some more wine with lunch (I told you, we were determined to try the wine from this island, even if it meant we were going to do it on our own).

The big winery on the island is Corvus and, even though they had already turned us down for wine tasting, we thought that maybe if we ventured out of the downtown area to their vineyards, we'd have more luck with wine tasting.  We were wrong.  They don't do tastings. Period.  Instead, we had to order by the glass.  So, we did.  We each ordered a glass and were glad to finally try it.  

After failing at wine tasting, we headed back to the Air BnB to nap before dinner.  After a long nap, we headed back into town for dinner.  We were determined to try this one restaurant that was owned by a winery.  We had tried to go the night before, but it was completely full, so we were set on getting a table.

When we got to the restaurant, we sat down at a table next to a table of 4-6 women.   They were leaving as we were sitting down and we quickly noticed that they had done what looked eerily similar to a wine tasting.  When our waiter came over, Mike pointed to the table and goes "Can we do that?!"  The waiter took one look at the table and goes "No." very matter-of-factly before walking away. 

Looks like a wine tasting to me!  Also, how dare they leave so much wine!! If I was allowed to do a tasting, I can almost guarantee there wouldn't be a drop in any glass. 

Not only were we unable to do a wine tasting, I found out that they didn't have any of the items on the menu that I was hoping to order. It was like the restaurant and the waiter really just didn't want us there. I finally settled on a pasta dish and we sat outside and enjoyed our dinner.

Mike had a friend join him for dinner

We ended the night with a little desert on the water. By the time we grabbed a taxi home, we were all tired and feeling pretty gross (maybe all of that wine wasn't a good idea). I wish I could say we fell asleep right away, but the lack of air circulation and fans kept us all up until the wee hours of the night. 

Needless to say,  after all of the bad luck, we were all pretty excited to know that we were leaving the island the next day.....

This sign is in one of the wine shops.  We think it means that all of these very important people have bought/drank their wine, but one can never be sure because....Turkey.