BLACK SEA TRIP CONTINUED 2
Western black Sea Part II Pinarbasi
A full stomach and the use of the facilities after a few compulsory/complementary cups of tea, prepared us for the short drive towards Pinarbasi, where we had reserved by phone, after discovering a quaint village mansion on the net for 30TL each B&B.
Ulus small town was a nice surprise. I guess all the places we visit are nice surprises, but this time we hit the market day. We took photos of women walking one way with empty bags, but forgot to photograph others coming back with full ones. Trying to park the car, we discovered a very nice modern building and found out that it was the public library. Went in, introduced ourselves to the director and his wife, both with degrees in librarianship, chatted for half hour or so, met the kindergarten and elementary school kids using the reading rooms, and were disappointed that there were no youth or adults.
The roads so far and from Ulus to Pinarbasi were fine. Eser’s carpal tunnel and tennis elbow which she has nurtured since we started driving in the countryside from clutching the armrests and door handles of the car with fear did not get a boost. Neither was she given a chance to fall asleep because of the curves.
We knew we were either in or skirting the Kure National Park. She wanted to take some side roads towards a few hills which I refused to call mountains. I argued that the hills were too insignificant to belong in a Nature Park. And, I was the driver at the time.
Came to Pinarbasi, another nice small town, parked in the town square to find a spare charger for my mobile phone which Eser had forgotten to pack J. And we met the Mayor’s cousin who sort of half ran, half rolled towards us, asking if he could help and telling us that he had a barbers shop if we needed a hair cut. He took us to a shop which he said would have the charger for sure. Fortunately the shopkeeper could give us directions for the only other shop of the type at the other end of the square.
However, the mayor’s cousin was good for a topic of conversation on later days, when we wanted to get away from stronger feelings between husband and wife. He also gave us the correct directions to Pasa Konagi, our B&B, “Straight down that road for 300 meters).
This is where I paste my Pasa Konagi Review:
Pasa Konagi is a quaint 100-200 year old wooden village mansion renovated to operate as an eight room hotel, in the small town of Pinarbasi, in Kastamonu province. The rooms are upstairs, around a large central space which can be used for meetings. Downstairs, there is again a large central room and also large kitchen and dining room. As in traditional Anatolian homes, you have to remove your shoes before you can go up to the second floor. (And as in traditional Anatolian living, we left our shoes there and always found them as they were, in the morning, possibly because ours were the worst looking ones.)
There is a nice garden on the back with a small waterfall on its borders, and picnic seating and children’s playground.. I believe that they serve the breakfast outside when weather permits. When we were there in April, we had to keep the wood-burning stove going in our bedroom all night long. It was fun in a way, but either because of inexperience, or because it’s the way of these stoves, every time I added logs, it would get very hot, I would take most of my clothes off, my wife would look at me suspiciously, and after an hour, I would wake up feeling cold and put some clothes on. At that stage, my wife would also wake up, look at me in a different way and curl up under double blankets, with another sigh. A further hour down, the freeze would start setting, and I would have to get up to rekindle the stove and put more logs in, and my wife would wake up again and seeing me with the logs, start eyeing the door. (She never told me what went on in her mind that night. I think we will go back again just so that I can find out.)
The price was 30TL per person including a sumptuous breakfast. Ahmet Bey, the manager, was also the cook, and would give us dinner alternatives and prepare what was requested.
The salad, the rice, and the Turkish pot dishes would be in bowls and pots and you would go and get as much as you liked, and he would toast bread and barbecue sucuk (Turkish pepperoni like spicy sausages), etc.
The major sights of Ilica waterfalls/Horla Canyon, the Valla Canyon and the three caves are not very close. So it is possible that he would prepare a picnic lunch for those who requested it.
Another quaint feature of the rooms is that the bathroom and tiny showers are in closets. (Maybe that is why the acronym WC was coined.). As if that was not enough, in some of the rooms, the only way you can access the facilities is by climbing a divan and stepping down again after opening the small door. Unfortunately the shower has no curtain and is in a tight space together with the toilet or the sink.
In spite of the stove and the bathroom facilities we enjoyed ourselves tremendously. We made friends with the large extended family (who almost thought that this was the family long house) and a young couple.
. The young husband was a psychiatrist and tried to prescribe certain medicines to me and to my wife, after I mistakenly mentioned the troubled sleep of the previous night.
