Encouraged by the travel lecturer on board, we got up at 5:50 a.m. to look at the skyline of Istanbul as the ship made her way up the Bosporus to the Golden Horn. It was hazy out, but strengthened by reasonably good coffee and pastry we stared over the railing until the sun came up and the buildings became more visible.

It became quite beautiful — although while dawn on the Bosporus sounded like it would be high on my romantic index, there is something about standing among some two or three hundred red-eyed tourists that doesn’t exactly create an intimate moment. I did see a few couples holding hands — and one couple where a young woman watched the scenery go by in her partner’s arms — so there were romantic possibilities for people who were able to shut out the rest of the world and only see each other.

After breakfast and a serious amount of additional coffee, I left the boat to meet Turkish friends of my friend Lana. Lana’s husband Lyn had met Selim and Nadire at a medical meeting (all three are doctors) and convinced them to write books on treatments for disabled children for a global charitable project. It is a special kind of person who will write a medical text without receiving money for it — and Selim and Nadire are certainly exceptional people. Selim - tall, thin and a bit bookish — and Nadire — small, fit and sexy with big and frequent smiles — looked younger than people who had three children over the age of sixteen. They were sailors and athletes as well as coauthors and parents and described themselves as centrist Moslems. They whisked me away to the Grand Bazaar.

I love the Grand Bazaar. I love the high vaulted ceilings and the branches off the main aisles that beckon with the promise of thousands of new booths. Everywhere you look there are colorful wares competing for your eyes and senses. I am happy just browsing and looking around.

But of course I did more than look around. I bought a small turquoise bracelet for my daughter, an old sword for my son (he collects them) and a jade bracelet and antique Persian book illustration for myself. I ogled carpets and dishes and scarves and silver — but managed to fend off the impulse to buy it all.

It’s an overwhelming place — and yet, not impersonal. I had a great conversation with the man who sold me the Persian illustration (he had amazing drawings and paintings in his pint-sized booth) and we ended up taking pictures together. I had to be dragged out of there.

I was anxious and pleased, however, to be invited to Selim’s ancestral home, a traditional wooden building in a changing neighborhood. There I met his brother and sister-in-law who offered me tea and a mini introduction to Sufi theology about sexuality. His brother, having been told I was a sex and relationship expert, explained to me that his Sufi religion had little-known teachings about sexuality and its deeper connection to spirituality and transformation. He invited me to return some day and meet some of the masters of the religion who could tell me more. He was gracious and I was rapt and intrigued.

After that we went to see the gorgeous mosaics at the Chora Museum. The former Byzantine church is as it should be, said Selim. Modest on the outside, artistic within. I took about fifty photos of the intricate religious mosaics, and then we left the divine to concentrate on feeding our mortal bodies.

Selim and Nadire went to the modern street they like best — Istiklal Caddesi — a cross between the broad shopping streets of Paris and the Ginza in Japan. We went to an excellent restaurant, Haji Abdullah, which was on a side street off Istiklal. It was composed of three large rooms decorated with Turkish art and big jars of stored fruits and vegetables.

The custom in Turkish restaurants is to go up to a counter filled with all the appetizers and some of the main dishes and pick out selections that look good to you. Salim, Nadire and I were famished by the time we looked over the choices and they ordered just about everything on the display counter. There were artichokes in olive oil, glorious string beans, mashed eggplant and lamb, stuffed grape leaves, lamb shank, grilled eggplant, chopped tomatoes, steamed fish and some sweet red goop with strawberries in it that looked and tasted like liquid Jello. Selim said that foreigners often found it too sweet and I was no exception. After this feast we went to Selim’s favorite chocolate shop where he bought a creation that resembled profiteroles smothered with chocolate sauce. It was not wonderful and Selim agreed that it was not its usual quality.

My hosts had a wedding to go to that night and invited me to relax at their place while they were gone and stay over night. But it was the last couple of nights of the trip and I thought I should rejoin my group.

They dropped me off at the ship and I rejoined Janet and her family. We had dinner and discussed the last and final day in Istanbul. Janet’s brother had hired a guide and tomorrow we would do all the usual tourist spots — the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Cistern. They had toured Topkapi museum while I was with Selim and Nadire and loved it (I had been there twice before and while I enjoyed seeing the Harem quarters and the baseball size emeralds and diamonds, I had no desire to go a third time). A couple of the group, against advice, had gone to the more modern Dolmabahce Palace and regretted it. The tour is boring, the rooms are garish and there really is absolutely no reason to see it.

So the next day we did the tourist sights and they are popular because they deserve to be. The Blue Mosque is huge with some beautiful tiled walls, but once I am in hoards of tourists I find it I hard to connect with a place. This was also true for Hagia Sophia — although Selim’ s brother had urged me to connect with the female spirit of the space. I tried — but the people distracted me. Hagia Sophia has a rich background, however, of being both church and mosque, and though now a museum there is a feeling in this place of the hundreds of years of religious history that have enlivened it’s interior.

The next stop, the Cistern was new for me. It was constructed long ago using scavenged Roman pillars to create a holding tank for city water. Dark and lit at the base of the pillars, it is a mixture of creepy and romantic — more the former than the latter — but definitely worth seeing.

So that was it. We had disembarked the ship that morning — really quite sad to say goodbye to the Azamara’s excellent staff and pampering. I thanked Philip Herbert, the hotel manager again for his kindness and for the wonderful room he had given us — and had several embraces with waiters and other people who had taken exceptionally good care of me.

We transferred for our last night to the Intercontinental Hotel, a chain frequented by Janet’s brother. It was big, glitzy (crystal struts for the winding stairway in the middle of the lobby that went from the first to the second floor) and our room was quite lovely with a nice view of the city and the hotel pool.

It was international style however, and except for European plugs for appliances we could have been anywhere. Some people love the predictability and elegance of such hotels and I like them in the United States. In Europe however, if I can, I prefer something more local. Still, it was a beautiful hotel and well run.

So, how do I rate the trip on the romantic meter? The Azamara was an excellent ship and an easy place to be lovers, tour the islands and watch the sunset. The food, service and spa services were first rate. Our room, the next upgrade from a balcony room, was terrific. It had a big enough balcony for a small table and chairs and a lounge chair. Some of the nicest moments on the trip were spent on that balcony, drinking good coffee and watching one island after another go by. The other balcony rooms were nicely appointed and came with a personal valet, but suffered from modest bathrooms and downright awkward and small showers.

My favorite romantic place on the trip was Santorini, hands down. The views from the town of Oai were breathtakingly beautiful. For monuments, Ephesus of course, but in particular, the relatively new reconstruction of elegant Roman homes. And finally, Istanbul. A city of life, diversity, political contradictions and endless shopping, restaurants, neighborhoods and monuments to explore. This was not my first trip to Istanbul, and it won’t be my last. Next time I want to see much more of Turkey, a land of beauty, art, and mysteries of history.

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Pepper Schwartz serves as the AARP love and relationship ambassador and is the chief relationships expert at Perfectmatch.com.

We didn’t stay long. With a quite lovely and articulate guide to help us understand Ephesus we drove for about a half an hour to join the hordes at the ruins. Note to self: remember last time you were here? It was unbearably hot. New note to self: it was unbearably hot this time too. Pick new season next time.

Well, you might reasonably ask, if it was so ridiculously hot, and you’ve been there twice, why would you go again? The answer, oddly enough, is that even though we are talking about a city created by the ancient Romans, the place keeps changing.

Last time I was here I marveled at the white marble entrance and Arcadian Way, the two story library façade, the toilets (built with running water underneath them), and what is thought to have been a bordello. This time there was an entirely new excavation to bowl me over.

It was the restoration in 2000 of the house of an important religious and political official and it was the most impressive ancient Roman living space I have seen - or perhaps the world has seen. A whole house of multiple rooms with their original mosaic floors is in the process of being totally rehabilitated. You walk on modern stairs above the rooms with canvas shading the whole project and the view is remarkable. The home has almost modern touches - an indoor kitchen and bathroom, pictures on the wall, granite finishes, well designed air flow. I would have loved to have been a house guest of this family’s.

By the time, however, we reached the justly famed amphitheater (built to seat about one fifth of the population, or in this case, 24,000 people) we had sweated a river and gotten to that hot and prickly stage where only food and air conditioning are interesting. We got both at an inexpensive and unpretentious (but delicious) local place and after about an hour we had cooled down enough to feel human again. Still, the majority of our party dumped the rest of the tour (mostly revered church sites) and headed back to the boat.

My friend Janet and I decided to follow our guide’s suggestion and go see a rug factory and workshop demonstration of silk and wool rug making. We knew these demonstrations are designed to turn us into clients but we didn’t mind. We both enjoyed the manager’s explanation of how silk is gathered from the silkworm and we liked watching young women’s deft fingers create silk or wool patterns. Did we look at rugs? Maybe 50. Did I buy one? No! (I bought two…)

After that there were hugs all around with our guide — and we returned to the boat barely able to consider dinner — but rallying for the usual feast, this time in Aquafina, the other upscale restaurant on the boat. It was an excellent finish to a memorable day — but I would have to say that I’d put this excursion more on a must do list for intellectual growth than relationship romance. It was so hot that people’s personalities started to fray and I could imagine a couple with conflicting agendas (”time to go” versus” “we have to see it all”) could get into some nasty exchanges.

Better idea: regular evening concerts and performances are held in the amphitheater and some of the great talents of the world have performed by torchlight there. Now that would be romantic.

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Pepper Schwartz serves as the AARP love and relationship ambassador and is the chief relationships expert at Perfectmatch.com.

The port is about a seven euro (or 16 lira) ride from the center of the city. The road into town goes by what looks like a lovely hotel with a smashing view (Diamond of Bodrum), good looking apartments and condos, and settles down into a bustling, clean commercial center that is a short walk from the historic castle in the harbor.

The shops on the way are pretty enticing. I saw some lovely bedspread-sized embroidered textiles from Uzbekistan and told myself to stop there after my visit to the castle and the underwater museum inside it. I had been warned that the underwater museum was not underwater, but apparently a lot of tourists don’t know that so several signs were posted to disabuse people of the idea that they were entering some sort of aquarium. But truly, even if you were disappointed to find everything high and dry, you would likely feel compensated by the quality of the artifacts that have been rescued from the sea and the very good explanations (in both English and Turkish) about the significance of the artifacts.

The castle itself was handsome with several levels of gardens and some awesome views. One caveat here: the path can be steep and uneven and if you are at all unsteady on your feet, it could be daunting. However, it’s worth seeing even if you have to take the incline at a slow pace and if you skip the dungeon — as I did — it is a very romantic excursion. Inside the castle, shaded gardens provided places to stop and rest. Outside, down at the port, a walk along the quay revealed the most amazing row of teak yachts I have ever seen. Called gulets, they were all polished and perfect — waiting for a lucky owner — or a charter to sail them into some of the luscious coves of the Turquoise Coast. (Seduced by the idea of swimming off a secluded beach, two of our party, Ed and PJ, went off to Camel beach, however, it turned out to be quite urban and not appropriate for snorkeling. Still, it was refreshing — the heat by this time was in the nineties.)

As for me, after exploring the castle and exhibits for a couple of hours, I went back to see the shop I had noticed earlier. Galeri Anatolia had beautiful oriental carpets and kilims — but I was still stuck on the embroidered textiles and ended up buying two.

After a very civilized bargaining session, the owner, Ercan Actkel, invited me to have tea with her — quite a common occurrence in carpet shops. She, however, was an uncommon person, a fascinating and independent lady who had many famous clients and extensive knowledge of the United States and the rest of the world. We knew people in common from Seattle (!) and she was so knowledgeable and personable that an hour spent chatting about her life, her business and her clients just whizzed by.

She had come to Bodrum in the 1970s (for love, of course) when the town was only about four thousand people, and made a great success out of her shop and real estate investing. She had (and has) an adventurous life — I will enjoy remembering her stories as much as looking at the beautiful things I bought from her.

That night was a night for romantics. We ate dinner at C Prime, one of the particularly good restaurants on the Azamara Quest and then went back to our room. The port was lit up, and Bodrum twinkled brightly not too far away from the boat. We opened up the doors to our balcony and let the sounds of the water and shore waft in. Every now and then a party boat full of dancing (and probably drunken) revelers would pass by and the music would stay in the air and then, as the boat veered away, grow quieter little by little until it disappeared entirely.

If my guy had been with me, I can imagine we would have held hands or cuddled and felt lucky to be together. My friend Janet and I enjoyed the moment — but it definitely held different romantic possibilities for couples. It made me think how different some trips are for couples versus singles. I think the Greek Islands and the Turkish coast are totally enjoyable for people who are not in a couple — but there are definitely moments when you could reasonably wish to be with someone you loved.

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Pepper Schwartz serves as the AARP love and relationship ambassador and is the chief relationships expert at Perfectmatch.com.

I took a deep breath, gazed at the horizon, looked down once more, then dove toward that memory. Down, down, arms reaching, chin tucked, feet pointed, down to the sea, slicing without impact into that lapis pool, cool silk caressing my skin. Down, down, into that radiant mystical sapphire that dazzles like a sunrise, like a shooting star, like a full moon glimpsed through autumn trees. Down into that blue that is so blue it feels like it’s reaching into the cosmos.

My favorite moments on the seven-day gulet trip were diving off the bow, swimming in that jewel-colored water, floating on my back looking into the blue sky, then rolling over and gazing into the depths that threw back an even bluer reflection. I never tired of it no matter how much the salt stung my eyes, and I gladly returned every day.

Paddling a kayak also provided a way to immerse myself in the seascape, feeling the paddle pulling the water as I propelled forward, exploring the shoreline out to the ends of the harbors and beyond. My moments of deepest tranquility—except for one moment of lying on deck looking up the main mast as the sails captured the wind—took place in the kayak.

These were the two activities I was loath to leave behind, so on our last day at sea I made sure to do both, swimming early and late in the day, diving off the bowsprit each time, then paddling slowly along the shore as the sun began to settle, giving up only when I knew it was time to move on, back to Bodrum, back to Istanbul and San Francisco and my life off the boat.

With the final paddle strokes I took solace in the knowledge that I would be back, as certain as the dolphins leap in the sea, the bathing beauties come to Cleopatra’s Island to show off their stuff, and the Turkish people welcome visitors with open arms.

But I’d never seen or tasted “yellow tea,” served to us in a café seldom visited by tourists in the village of Bozalan. The men of the town had congregated there, as they no doubt do every day, and welcomed us to their fraternity.

At our captain’s recommendation we ordered the local brew, and when it came the pale yellow tea had a grassy, earthy smell and flavor that was hard to identify. Eventually someone recognized it: sage. It tasted of the dry earth and local fields, an herb tea I plan to try to recreate at home. But without the hourglass-shaped glass, demi-spoon, and our Turkish hosts watching over us it probably won’t be the same. I’ll try nonetheless, and I can call that village scene to mind whenever I do.

Carpet merchants from the cities know that the women of Bozalan make some of Turkey’s finest carpets, and they come regularly to buy finished carpets or place orders. The labor and skill involved in weaving these carpets staggers the imagination.

The women are so skilled at a young age, having been weaving since their teens, that they produce the intricate designs the carpets are known for without using a pattern: they create them from memory. All the wool is hand-dyed, the looms hand-operated. The tasks to weave a large carpet require the labor of four people ten hours a day for a month, with the final product selling for about 2,000 Turkish lire, or roughly $1,667.

At that rate I found myself appropriately concerned about spilling food when we were invited to sit on cushions on these exquisite carpets to feast on gözleme (traditional Turkish flatbread stuffed with cheese or greens or potatoes), olives, eggplant, ayran (a traditional Turkish yogurt drink), salad of greens, tomatoes and cucumbers, and a focaccia-like moist bread that was so delicious I can still taste it. Our plates were covered in sauces and oils, the serving dishes unavoidably showing drips down their sides as we ate. How could we keep stains off these exquisite carpets? But only we seemed to be concerned. Adnan Görgün and his wife Gülnaz and daughters paid no heed to such matters, extending hospitality without a second thought. And somehow we avoided making a mess as we relaxed in their open-air living room beneath an arbor covered with leafy vines overlooking the village and the hills that tumbled to the sapphire sea sparkling in the distance.

Sated, we thanked them, paid them for our lunch, and made our way down the mountain. There was never a thought of buying or selling carpets, just a desire to show us what their lives were like, how carpets were made, how hospitality is granted.

It was a charming story and I thought little more of it until about an hour later when we were cruising toward our next anchorage. Suddenly Jennifer shrieked “Dolphin!” and Captain Mustafa dashed to starboard and up to the bow howling with joy. He grabbed a steel rod and began banging it against the anchor pulley and calling to them. One after the other they leapt out of the sea alongside us, a dozen or more sleek gray creatures arcing above the surface like dancers. We leaned over the rail, too awed to do more than shriek and wail.

Then suddenly they were gone.

“They were feeding,” Mustafa said, “that’s why some came, then turned back. They were busy. But they were playing with us.”

“What a sight,” I said. “There were so many.”

“About thirty,” Mustafa said, boyish excitement in his voice.

His whole life has been of the sea, yet no matter how many years he’s spent on the water, it’s clear he’s still enchanted by it. For me it was impossible not to be enchanted as well.

Business was brisk but the pace unhurried, as if everyone knew that the point of the market was to socialize and enjoy themselves even if the motivation was to convert goods to cash. Most women wore traditional dress: loose headscarves in striking colors, long patterned skirts. Ages ranged from young to ancient. Their faces projected a deep calmness, as if settled like the sea on a windless day. Same with the men: their lined faces with bristly mustaches formed quiet portraits of time, but their sudden smiles burst like sunrises revealing a mischievous appreciation of the moment.

We strolled among the stalls, made our purchases to contribute to the commonweal, then returned to the beach with its straw umbrellas in many colors that fellow sailor Judy said looked like parasols in fancy cocktails. The sea reflected the tranquility of the village, its calm surface disturbed only by the dingy coming to collect us and return us to the ship.

Dozens of bathers filled the shallow turquoise waters lapping a short crescent beach that was roped off to prevent damage from all of us. Behind the beach an army of chaise longues shaded by umbrellas marched in rows to accommodate the crowds. It was as if I’d wandered from an isolated, essentially deserted beach scene into a parallel universe where hedonism was the law of the land. In the water, women of all ages, sizes, and shapes posed in all their glory for “Cleopatra” photo-ops that made me appreciate their obvious comfort with their bodies. I learned later that they were Russians, and they inspired the women in our group to channel their inner Cleopatras and pose for similar campy photos.

Signs abounded warning us not to remove any sand or face the full weight of the Turkish state bearing down on us. We could reach through the ropes or stick in a toe to feel it, and I must confess it did have a fine texture, though I don’t think I’d be able to identify it in a blind test.

I made my way around the island visiting the amphitheater that once held 2500 people, the Apollo Sanctuary, the Byzantine Basilica, watchtowers and cisterns, even walking the short perimeter of the island where broken lines on the map suggested half a trail existed, but that turned out to be an exaggeration and I led two of my sailing compatriots seriously astray. One, Carrie, feared she’d have to throw away her skirt because it became so covered in burrs; the other, Judy, would have throttled me if she could have caught up with me without spraining an ankle on the rubble. I have to admit I felt a little embarrassed to be scrambling through the underbrush tramping over the remains of such a prominent ancient site. But that’s also part of the appeal of Turkey: you can walk in, on, and around ancient historical sites and feel them with your feet and hands.

The best part of the walk was simply sitting on the remains of a wall and gazing out to sea, letting the eons wash over me with the breeze and the lapping waves. And then I had my second surreal experience of the day. When I returned to Cleopatra Beach I saw absolutely no one. It was as if that parallel universe had snapped back and I was left with that deserted beach scene I’d started with. The beach chairs, the beach, the bay, everything was deserted as if no one had ever come. And sure enough, the roped off beach with the famous sand showed nary a footprint.

We sailed the same lapis sea, dove into the same blue, blue water, but visited other places such as English Harbor, where the British hid their submarines during World War II, Bachelor Harbor, where before the age of engines sailors waited for the winter winds to blow them back to their homes after stocking up on firewood, Cleopatra’s Island, with its famous government-protected sand found only there and in Egypt, the quiet seaside village of Oren with its engaging Wednesday market, the hill town of Bozalan, known for its carpet weaving but now known to our group as a place of special hospitality.

We may have been biased but our boat, the gulet Kaptan Sevket (a gulet is a traditional Turkish wooden yacht), was the most beautiful on the high seas with its blue and woodgrain mahogany hull and blue masts. For seven days it was our home, seven days of relaxing on deck, swimming in the sea, paddling kayaks in hidden coves, hiking in the forest, and exploring Hellenic ruins, all the while eating like Ottoman royalty. We also had our own special interest, building a writers’ group and pursuing the writer’s craft, which we did for several hours each day. But such special interest is no requirement: gulets can be booked with no agenda beyond enjoying yourself. There’s just one thing to keep in mind: once you’ve sailed here you may be compelled to come back again and again. The exquisite waters of the Aegean Sea quickly get into your blood.