Fredricksburg, a wonderful town, in the Gillespie County, Texas, San Antonio

Monday saw us catch the greyhound bus to Fredricksburg from San Antonio, this in itself was an experience, some very interesting characters seen, whilst waiting at the bus depot. The travel time was  approximately 2 hours and on arrival we were dropped at a service station on the edge of town, not sure what to do from here as no visible cabs were seen, we entered the service station and chatted to two lovely ladies who were very helpful and called us a cab. The cab driver was quite delightful and apparently multi- talented as we found out over the next few days. He gave us his business card and we used him to ferry us around town, the cab ride was a fixed rate of $6 anywhere within the town limits. We booked into our guest house Hoffman Haus, this gorgeous accomadation is spread over a few acres and has lovely cottages sprawled all over the grounds, the reception area is quite lavish and we were greeted warmly by the friendly staff.

After we booked in, we took a walk downtown which was only a few blocks away and visited the shops. Of course I headed to one that said "quilts", this shop only sold quilts, no supplies.

One of the cottages in Hoffman Haus complex.

DH outside our cottage.

Our room, kitchen and ensuite to both sides, own verandah as well.

The reception area

Leads to a library 

Sadly this shop only sold quilts, over 600 on display.

Streets of Fredricksburg.

The shops closed at 5.30 pm, upon walking down some back streets, to have dinner at "Otto's, we saw a quilt and pie shop, opening hours were Thursday to Sunday, not open Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday. This shop looked very interesting and there were lights on so I knocked, said I was from Sydney, Australia and this wonderful lady let me into have a browse. I was delighted to find out that she was the sister of Jodie  Barrows, who was at quilt festival in Houston and designs civil war quilts, as well as a square in a squre ruler, also has her own fabric range, I bought some great red fabric.

Just love the metal Turkey displayed in front yard.

Otto's for dinner

Foie Gras! yummy

Tuesday, was a bit cloudy and a whole lot of rain has been forecasted for the next few days, so after our breakfast was delivered, we called our top dog cab and went to visit a quilt shop just on the edge of town.

Our breakfast basket with a hot meal inside.

One quilt place, has just been open for 1 year, quite a large cottage filled with great fabrics.

After some retail therapy we walked from one end of town to the other and saw some great shops, if only we had them at home and what great prices as well.

These 5 amigos would look great in my garden!

We visited the Amish market, who had a great number of quilts for sale.

Browsing in a number of antique shops I was finally rewarded,  look what I found and bought, a 1920-30's queen size appliqué quilt in very good condition, all hand quilted as well, it now has a new home in Sydney. This is my second quilt purchase, my first being a 1920's red work quilt from the Houston quilt show.

The building below is a museum of the Pacific war and depicting Admiral Nimitz who is from Fredricksburg, well worth a visit.

I also visited "Haberdashery" who features "Magnolia Pearl fashion range, a must look store.

Magnolia Pearl fashion!

That concludes our few days in Fredricksburg, back to San Antonio, and our greyhound adventure on entry into San Antonio, police dogs were on guard to check for drugs!

Rain greeted us as well, but we braved it, visited the mission conception and The Alamo!

Mission Concepcion

Inside the church at Mission Concepcion

The Alamo

Davy Crocketts hair, rifle and General Sam Houston shaving mug, a well presented museum which is looked after by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas

The Menger hotel, where all the troops assembled in the Spanish war.

I also got to visit an amazing quilt shop called Los Colchas, this shop is in an old Sears house bought from a catalogue, a number of years ago, there are 6 filled rooms full of fabric, books, patterns ,projects and wool to delight every creative mind.

Inside the store, staff were friendly and very helpful.

DH, sat and read a book whist I shopped.

Rooms packed with goodies.

That concludes my visit with San Antonio, off to Dallas.

Onto Ankara and some cultural education.

After leaving   Instanbul and a visit to the Grand. Bazaar,  we had a 5 hour drive to Ankara, with a few stops on the way. Tour group slowly getting to know each other.

The Grand Bazzar has over 4,000 shops and employs 30,000 people, you can easily get lost, so if you see something, buy it because the shop would be difficult to find again. DH and I did get lost, all part of the adventure. On our drive to Ankara we stopped at a salt lake and walked on it, an absolute amazing sight. We arrived into Ankara late evening. The next morning saw us going to The Ancient Civilisation museum. This is a beautiful museum and wonderfully presented, It was  refreshing to be educated in another ancient civilisation, Antolian.

Look closely at this marriage vase, pictured below, featured in the museum.

DH and I in front of the fyrigians wall,  Anatolian museum.

We also visited the sycophogus of Ataturk, we had to wait to enter the museum due to a visiting dignitary from Austria. Below the Turkish flag in a garden display.

Entry to the museum.

We departed for Cappodocia, everyone was amazed at the rock formation, of this place, welcome to Bedrock. 

on our fist morning in Cappodocia we woke to a wonderful sight of over 70 hot air balloons in the sky.

Some of the amazing rock formations in Cappadocia.

Rock formations. After a wonderful 3 days in Cappodocia we set of to Guneysenir for a home stay. 

On arrival to Guneysenir, we were ushered to where the local Turkish women were having handicrafts lesson and wanted to show the tour group their creations, as you could imagine I was excited to see some of the local ladies handiwork. this was also an opportunity for me to show them some of my English paper piecing techniques. I also left with the ladies some pattern pieces and some instructions on how to paper piece. Although language can be a barrier, quilting has no boundaries for enthusiastic learners.

Our home stay was a success and we sampled local Turkish cooking and hospitality, Guneysenir is a small village, with little tourism, just another addition to our adventure in Turkey.