Today was a terrific day. The weather was beautiful and Sinop is a wonderful little town just made for walking around. The ship was docked right in the heart of town, so all we had to do was stroll ashore. In our direct view were some old (ca. 1300) city walls and watchtowers.
The first thing we saw was numerous stores selling colorful hand-carved boats in all shapes and sizes. Apparently Sinop is well known for these. We went on and climbed a little way into the main commercial district of town. We found lots of the little stores where Adele likes to shop. The town was immaculate and the people were very friendly. Anyone who spoke English at all tried it out on us. We were trying to find a crafts factory and asked a guy in a store. He hopped on his motorbike and guided us there. Unfortunately, the HAL map was wrong, so the place he took us was not the right one, but he was very nice to guide us.
We finally found the factory by looking for the HAL tour busses. There was a tour stopped at the place and our fellow passengers were having a snack of Turkish food. Since there was entirely too much food, we snatched a few morsels for ourselves. The crafts on display were very nice, especially some hand-woven linens. The looms were right in the stores, and one lady proudly pointed to the items on display and told us she made them herself. Unfortunately, Adele felt the prices were too high, so she settled for a non-linen scarf.
We strolled back down the hill to the ship – we didn’t want to be late for lunch!