Sile is a suburb of Istanbul on the coast of the Black Sea. It's a beautiful city with a recorded history that dates back to 700 BC. 
The drive to Sile would be our longest one yet. It would take us about 8 hours to drive from Assos to Sile. The trip started out with a little bit of a rough spot because I had hard feelings towards the hotel that we stayed at in Assos. But I quickly got over it and enjoyed the long drive.
There are plenty of mosques in Turkey, and they still seemed new to me. I had grown up in a Christian country and had mostly toured in Christian countries, so mosques were still an exotic sight for me.
We had lunch at a rest stop that had a big cafeteria seating area and a counter for choosing your food. Here we had the worst doner kebabs of our trip, but also the best Aryan.
The most common gas station brand in Turkey is this PO/gaz gas company. The logo for the brand struck me as odd for being in a Muslim country. I was under the impression that both dogs and bacon were forbidden in Islam, but the logo looks like a dog eating bacon.
As we got closer to Sile, we turned down a quiet road and saw this. There were about 40 dogs in this one area. My guess is that the dog catchers in Istanbul catch the dogs and then bring them out here and release them away from the city. It does seem more humane than euthanizing them, but God help anyone who's car breaks down in this area. It did not look like a safe place to go for a walk.
Eventually we arrived in Sile and found a nice hotel for a great price. We parked the car and dropped off our bags, then we went out for a walk and photos.
Our hotel sat precariously on a cliff overlooking the Black Sea.
The city of Sile was lovely. They architectural style was pretty and like Istanbul itself, a nice blend of Asia and Europe. The city was also calm and slower paced than the hustle and bustle of Istanbul itself.
The pretty homes on top of dramatic cliffs overlooking an ominous sea made for a lovely sight and great photos.
Sile also has a lighthouse that was built in the Ottoman era.
The neighborhoods in Sile had many beautiful homes that looked like they had been standing there for centuries.
There was also a building being constructed that had colored markings under the concrete slabs. Something about it just looked cool to me.
After walking around for a while, we headed down to the city center of Sile. We found a street with a lot of doner kebab places and picked one that looked good. Dinner was great and we talked with restaurant owner a little bit.
After dinner, we walked back towards the hotel and explored the parks along the cliffs.
On the sidewalks, tons of these giant bugs were walking around. Where
Eventually we returned to our room and went to sleep. The next day we had our last and shortest drive in Turkey. We crossed the bridge from Asia back into Europe and spent some time in Istanbul where we would catch flights to different destinations.
Keep an eye out for tomorrow's post about our time in Istanbul!
