Author: Jane and Jeff

We have been so incredibly lucky with the weather during our trip.  Rain is not uncommon this time of year, and we haven’t seen a drop…and it has been HOT! Hot, hot, hot!

Our sightseeing today was to Pamukkale and Hierapolis. Though these are technically two different sites they are in exactly the same area.

First we explored Pamukkale, home to famous and beautiful travertine terraces.  it is easy to see how Pamukkale, which means “cotton castle” got its name.

These terraces form when water from the hot springs loses carbon dioxide as it flows down the slopes leaving limestone deposits…beautiful layers of white calcium carbonate (limestone) build up.
Within the terraces (which are off limits to viewers) are these beautiful pools.
 

There are a couple of large pools at the top of the terraces open to wading. Here is a wonderful photo of me wading and of the injury I sustained walking around the rocks. 
  

Luckily for me, these hot springs are good for what ails you! This sign lets me know that my stubbed toe will probably heal without a problem (though I did put a band aid on it). After all, if the water can heal rickets, what can it do for a minor cut?

Part of Pamukkale is open to swimming.This area is the hot springs – why anyone wants to get into hot springs on such a blistering day is beyond me, but some of our group did enjoy the water.  Oh, and YES, those are real Roman ruins at the bottom of this pool. Unbelievable.   

Those of us who wanted to walk with Ender through Hierapolis got together. The choice was to stay around the pools and take a shuttle back to the bus, or to walk with him in a guided experience through the site. Seven of us hearty (fool hardy is more like it) souls decided to walk – did I mention it was really HOT??
 
Because we were such a small group, Ender took us on a path that he doesn’t usually follow with larger groups. I felt like we were bushwhacking a couple of times which was awesome.  

First, a little background about Hierapolis. Called “Thermopolis” in the Bible it is a larger site than Ephesus which we’ll explore tomorrow. ‘Hierapolis’ means “Holy City” and in the Book of Revelations is referred to as receiving one of the “7 letters of Asia Minor.” I can’t remember what that means, so if you know, drop me a line and I’ll add the information.
  
The size of Hierapolis is because it is home to the largest surviving Roman necropolis. The whole of the city is surrounded by cemeteries, In fact the number of tombs is greater than its population because people came here to be buried. They believed there was easier access to the Underworld because of the grotto (“Plutonium”) dedicated to Pluto. This grotto for the God of the Underworld emitted sulfur gas. People would see these gasses rising, most of those who got into the gas would die or become ill; hence it was a gateway to the underworld.

As with any good town, you entered through the main thoroughfare, a wide street called the Plateia. Here in Hierapolis you come in through the Arch of Domitian. 

What we explored today was the Northern Necropolis (remember, I told you there were at least 3 large graveyards surrounding the town). The Northern Necropolis is the largest ancient graveyard in Anatolia with over 1200 tombs! There are graves from the Hellenistic, Roman and Christian eras. 

The tomb types ranged from circle tombs (right), shown here, that encased families (kind of a mausoleum) all buried in the same structure) 
to sarcophagi (below).  and simple tucked away tombs like this one (lower right). 
There was a large Jewish population in this area, and the graveyard was not segregated in any way. Notice the menorah type symbol carved into the stone on this tomb.

 
Some of the tombs were for a specific purpose. I put together this very short descriptive video of the Tomb of the Gladiators. I hope you enjoy it. Click on the black box, then click on the left (go) arrow. 

 I know it was completely inappropriate, but as I was walking amidst all the tombs, I wanted to sing  “Bring out your dead.” AKA Monty Python.  I chalked it up to the heat making me goofy.

Here is Mary plugging away hiking among the dead. She said if she’d gotten much hotter she would have joined them.    
Happily, she made it and here she and Stan are sharing her fan.  

 All kidding (and whining) aside, this was a great visit!  I haven’t even talked about the ruins of the theater or the Martyrium of St Philip. Amazing sites, amazing history, amazing country.

Back on the bus…heading to Izmir (Smyrna), the home of Homer and Turkey’s 3rd largest city with a population of 3+ million residents. Until tomorrow…

Even though our hotel is situated nicely on Turkey’s Turquoise Coast on the Mediterranean, I, and eleven other adventurous folks gave up our free day to travel with Ender to see the sites. And I’m so happy I did! 

We began today by visiting Aspendos which has a beautifully preserved amphitheater
 

The amphitheater was built around 162AD and is remarkable today, in fact until very recently (like this year or last) it hosted the annual Aspendos Opera and Ballet Festival.
Aspendos, the town, was an important trading city but it is the amphitheater that draws us.

Here is the entrance to the amphitheater
  

Within the amphitheater, you have the wall or stage area that the audience faces. 

 
This door is the stage door and leads behind the staging area.

   

 
And the backstage passage way.   

 There was an arched gallery went around the top of the theater that protected patrons from the elements..and when we visited it was closed off. But, if you look at this view of the outside of the building (you are looking UP) you’ll see supports for a roof that covered at least part of the seating. Remember,these would have been daytime performances and sheltering from the sun important.
 

The amphitheater seated  about 12,000. Here is a period costume.
 

 And here’s Eve deciding that all the world, might just be a stage… .

 

After Aspendos, we went on to Perge (pronounced “per gay”), What an incredible ruin! Like many of these sites, I’d never heard of Perge and I’m thrilled to have been there.My guidebook doesn’t say a lot about Perge and I’m so happy that Ender was our guide.
 
 I certainly won’t do it justice here, but let me show you a few of the highlights…

Inside the city walls there was a theater and you can see from this photo that there were at one time statues on the plinths on this wall.     

 Many of these statues are now in the Antalya Archaeological Museum. Imagine this statue and many many others lining the walls above you.

What I found most interesting in Perge was the fact that the main street had a canal running right down the middle of it.  
There was a fountain at the top of the street that funneled water right into town. Kind of a ground level aqueduct.

The main street was lined with columns with the canal in the center. The agora (marketplace shops) were off to the sides. See the squares defined by the stones? 
 

 As I walked around the ruins of this ancient market place I thought I could hear the sound of the water splashing in the canal, of children running and of the vendors calling: “Figs, come see my fresh figs”  “This fish – my son caught this fish this morning. Best fish in the market” “Olives, olives, olives, buy my olives”
 
Then I realized it was just the birds and the wind.
  
Leaving Perge we traveled to the Antalya Archaeological Museum.  If only we had had DAYS to visit instead of a couple of hours. I won’t even attempt to describe this incredible museum and it’s treasures, but I do want to show you a piece of pottery that caught my eye. Isn’t it beautiful?
 
  

It was time to go back to our wonderful hotel.  Eve, Leroy, Elaine, Mary and I decided to have a picnic in our room.

 

YUM!

Then Mary and I went down to the water and here are a couple of photos of me enjoying the Mediterrean.

 

What a wonderful day      

Traveling, done right, is a great adventure and I had my very own adventure last night. Let me preface this story with a little background. Somehow I have become the one in our group to whom stuff happens. For example, in Cappadocia I missed a step going to dinner and fell down a small set of marble stairs. Ouch! The next day while exploring Goreme’s Open Air Museum of rock churches, I slipped and ended up on my butt; of course, I was up pretty high and in full view of folks when I made my ungainly descent. Golly, I need to learn to fall gracefully. So, it didn’t seem to shock anyone when I got locked in the bathroom of our hotel  room. But it wasn’t my fault…

I was leaving the bathroom and the door handle, the whole plate of the door handle, came off in my hand. I shouted for Mary who was getting ready for bed. “What are you doing in there?” She asked me, which, when you think about it, is not something you generally ask someone who is in the toilet. “I’m stuck in here; push on the door!” Mary shoved and I yanked on the towel rack which promptly broke off in my hand. Okay, now I’ve got a door handle, two screws, two hexagonal bolty things and a broken towel rack.

We decided our next best course of action was to go get Leroy – he’s strong and could probably put his shoulder against it. Leroy got out of bed, dressed and he and Eve came down to our room. While waiting I decided to brush my teeth again and to ponder that  if I had to sleep in the bathtub would I have enough towels for a comfy pillow?

Leroy peered through the hole and saw that the door was latched, not just pushed tight. We were going to need tools and my Swiss Army knife  was not going to be enough.

Do you have any bolts in there?” Leroy shouted through the door. I gave him a litany of the hardware littering the bathroom floor. “Put one of those bolts into one of the holes.” Okay, 2 bolts, 2 holes = 4 combinations. Leroy was able to turn the bolt (who in heaven’s name travels with pliers but Leroy??) and I was freed.

Now though we have a bathroom that looks like Aerosmith partied in it.  Eve called the front desk – thank goodness their English is better than our Turkish. Soon we had 3 Turkish men in our bathroom, drilling and hammering . I’m sure our neighbors were not at all pleased with us as it was nearing midnight. I looked at Mary and burst out laughing because she was in her pjs, but had run to put on a scarf when the maintenance men arrived. We laughed until we cried. 
 

Today we travel from Cappadocia over the plateau to Konya, which you may remember as the birth and death place of Rumi, over the Taurus Mountains to Antalya.

It was a long day on the bus. We left Cappadocia at 8am and arrived here in Antalya about 6pm. We did stop, of course, but only for food and rest areas. This is the only day of our trip that is solely travel.  I was thrilled though because today was my day to sit in the front seat of the bus.

SmarTours  (http://SmarTours.com) (that’s the group we’re travelling with) usually has groups of 38-40 people on their tours, but ours is only 27 (and I think we are fortunate that SmarTours went ahead with the trip given the small number of participants).  

 Anyway, because there are so few of us we all get seats to ourselves on the bus, and two days ago, Ender instituted a seating chart. Each day, we move up or back 2 seats ensuring that everyone gets the front seat sometime during the trip.  The first day he posted the seating chart chaos ruled.  We couldn’t decide if the numbers were the seat numbers or the row numbers; honestly, it was like a bunch of third graders trying to do long division.  All good humored, of course, though I do think Ender must think we are a bunch of lunatics. It’s a very nice group of folks; various ages and nationalities which I enjoy a lot.

Ender is an amazing guide. His professionalism and knowledge simply cannot be adequately described. 

 Several times during our travels he has shown us Turkish newspapers and demonstrated how the news is reported in different ways. Just like in the United States, where you know which newspapers have which political biases.  Ender is presenting the information in a non-judgemental and non-biased way – he reads the headlines from each and we draw our own conclusions. It is wonderful to see this aspect of ‘real’ life.

So today we rode the bus…I had fellow travelers asking what I could possibly write about today and here’s what I’ve some up with.

Did you know that Turkey’s 2 top industries are automotive and textile? They do not have a car brand of their own, but make parts, etc., for all of the major car companies (including Ferrari). Textiles didn’t surprise me as we all know about Turkish towels and rugs, that sort of thing.  Part of the area we drove through today had a few cotton fields, but that industry has dried up because of competition from China.

Here’s another tidbit. The Turkish language is not an Arabic language but is more a combination of Hungarian and Finnish. Isn’t that interesting?? Also, the Turkish language has no exceptions to it’s rules, so no “I before E except after C or when sounded as “a” as in neighbor or way. Once you know the rules, you’re good.

 We passed through Urgup, the ancient name of which is Assiana. Up until WWI, 25% of the population was not Muslim, but Greek speaking Christian. After WWI, due to political strife particularly in this area because of the war, the Greek and Turkish governments decided to swap minority populations. The citizenry had no say in this process. About 1 million Christian Turks were moved to Greece and approximately 500,000 Muslim Greeks were sent to live in Urgup. Some of these families, most of these families probably, had centuries deep ties and were uprooted to help restore peace to this area.

Though this is a traveling day, one of our rest stops this morning involved a little sightseeing. We stopped at the Sultan Han, a spot in the middle of nowhere on the ancient Silk Road. This was used as a caravanserai (caravan-sir-rye) in the Seljuk period. Trade was flourishing in this area and the Silk Road was the main corridor. Caravans, walking and with camels, could travel maybe 25 miles a day and the caravanserai  were the equivalent of today’s rest areas. There was room to bring in your camels, your goods and there were inns or rooms for the travelers. There was also, naturally, a mosque.

Imagine the excitement when the camel caravan lumbered through this gate.  The crowds looking to buy or sell…goods going back and forth and perhaps greeting friends that you had not seen since the caravan passed through maybe 6 months ago.

Here are a few of the things used in Sultan Hai. 

 
 
And here’s a modern day caravan!

 
  
We drove on through the Taurus Mountains. Those of you who are Christians will remember St. Paul of Taurus and his walk to the end of the world. The belief back then was that the earth was flat. On the other side of the Taurus Mountains is the Mediterranean – no land to be seen, so the end of world. 

It was a gorgeous mountain drive and Ender told us a funny, apropos story. God decided that the bus driver would go to heaven, but the priest wouldn’t. The priest protested. “WHY was this lowly bus driver who has done nothing important going to Heaven, when I, who have dedicated my life to God, am not?”
The angel answered, “When you preach, people sleep. When the bus driver drives, people pray.”
And that about sums up our ride down the mountain.

We have arrived in Antalya, a beautiful city on the Mediterranean. Our hotel, the Marmara is GORGEOUS and the decor is so up my alley!! Here’s what door numbers looked like. Pretty cool.

 A shot of our room (with a lovely working door handle in the toilet).
 

 Downstairs there is an area to freely use computers, a 50 foot tall 4-sided book shelf, and outside a double Olympic length pool. Ahhh…

Dinner outside was very good and the Mediterranean weather with its warm breeze is wonderful. There was live music, a man and a woman singing, and they sang two of my favorite songs back to back: ABBA’s “I have a dream” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”. The Cohen song just seems especially significant in this setting.

Tomorrow is a full day at our leisure and I have been planning to spend it by the pool or in the sea but  Ender described an optional tour we could do in the morning and it sounds too good to miss. We’ll get back to the hotel around 1:30 so there will still be plenty of time for the sun and water. It was, though, the only day to sleep in!

The Mediterrannean Sea…

Today was a full and wonderful day of sightseeing!

This morning in Cappadocia several folks got up at the crack of dawn to take a balloon ride over the landscape. This area is known for it’s incredible landscape for good reason.  Mary and I didn’t go for the balloon ride but we were able to see them from the window of our room.   

After breakfast we boarded our bus and headed for the Open Air Museum in the Goreme Valley. This area has amazing early Christian rock cut churches and monasteries. There were 30 churches, I think, cut out of the tuff (soft volcanic rock). You couldn’t take photos inside so you’ll have to take my word for it that there were frescoes and paintings in most of them. These ‘buildings’ are dated from the 9th century (800 AD) and UNESCO has declared the Goreme Valley a World Heritage Site.

This is a photo of the Kizlar Monastery. There were rooms for monks, a kitchen, all the necessities of life. Also, this wasn’t an enclave of men, but there were widowed women and children here as well. ‘It takes a village’.
 

We went into many of the rock buildings (think caves) that did not have frescos so you could take photos. and here are some of the interior photos.  Pretty amazing!

 The scenery around this site was spectacular as well.  Here is Mary in a decidedly other worldly landscape.

 It was difficult to decide what would make a good picture. Here Leroy, Mary and Eve are discussing the best composition of a photo. 

 Speaking of other worldly, maybe some of this looks familiar?  Well, the first Star Wars movie was shot in this area because of the landscape.
 

After Goreme we visited the Kaymakli Underground City. This was incredible!  This city, and it really was the size of a large city, was hollowed out of the volcanic rock and it went 7 to 9 floors beneath the earth!!  We went down three floors.

 The tunnel we took down and out was very very narrow and even I had to bend almost all the way over to get through. But once you got down there, the rooms were large. In fact, one room had a huge tub like basin carved into it. That’s where they stomped grapes to make wine.  The rock was even stained with grape juice.

 It was a maze of hallways, chambers, storehouses, kitchens and even churches. I took some photos but when I looked at them they were pretty much all black. There is very little light three stories underground.  Not for the claustrophobic or faint of heart!

Finally today, see I told you it was a long day, we went to a landscape spot to see the”fairy chimneys”.    
 
Aren’t they cool looking? 

I thought you might be interested in seeing some Turkish wildlife. I swear that I just came across this while walking around the fairy chimneys.  I laughed out loud.
  

What a great day of sites. Tomorrow we will be riding along the Silk Road through Konya to Antalya.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Saturday, September 7, 2013

As we are riding to Ankara and the drive is several hours, I thought it a good time to talk about the political or social climate currently inTurkey. Many of my friends expressed concern about my coming to Turkey given the large protests and unrest in Istanbul three months ago and the current saber rattling going on between Syria and the rest of the world – most notably the U.S. And since I’m thinking some of you might have seen the U.S State Department’s warning to non-essential personnel and tourists traveling in Turkey that came out yesterday, figured this would be a good time to address some of those concerns.

First, the warning from the State Department is for an area of Turkey that we will not be visiting. It is, as you may have guessed, for an area around the Syrian border. Think of it this way, it would be like a warning for NYC and you live in Wyoming. You would be concerned for friends and family in the affected area and for the potential trauma to your national psyche, but you wouldn’t freak out in Worland, WY.

Regarding the large protests in Taksim Square in Istanbul a couple of months ago…we in the US support our right to protest and that is a right Turks also enjoy. Yet, overreactions, some with tragic results, do occur regardless of geographic locale. Any tourist with an ounce of common sense steers clear of even ‘peaceful’ demonstrations and any gatherings of large groups simply because of the potential for unpredictable group mentality/activity.

Last night there was a VERY large police presence in Taksim Square and when we asked  about it, learned that there have been some growing protests in Ankara (to where we’re driving right now) by Middle Eastern Technical University students. There  is concern of more protests in support of those students occurring in other cities. In the case of Istanbul, that would naturally occur in Taksim Square. The power of social media!

What are the students protesting? The local government decided  to cut a road through campus – a project that involved cutting down a lot of trees. And they  decided to remove the trees while the students were away for the summer. The university is  just starting its new semester and students are returning to campus to find the trees gone. They are angry that this perceived power play had taken place in their absence.  (In my opinion, the protests are symbolic of deeper concerns.)

So, yes, you might hear on the news or online about “growing protests or unrest” in Turkey and when you do remember that it is a large country and innocuous events can be spun into great headlines in the current climate of ‘terro-journalism.’

Also, I (and probably Eve, Leroy, Mary and Elaine as well) am registered with the US Consulate/Embassy so they know we’re traveling here and I am on the State Department’s email list for any updates or warnings regarding Turkey.

We have our eyes open, our brains switched on and have had/will continue to have an awesome trip! Later today look for my post about today’s fun – lets see if I can make an almost all day bus ride remotely interesting…

 

Friday, September 6, 2013

I swear that eating is not all I’ve done since arriving in Istanbul. I would swear that but it would be a total and utter lie.  Yesterday afternoon, Eve and Leroy were standing on the curb outside the hotel as Mary and I arrived from the airport. With quick hugs all around (well, we didn’t hug Eve because she has a terrible cold) we drop our bags in our room and headed out for a walk. It was a lovely night and relaxing to walk in the fresh air amid all of the city hustle and bustle. We ended up in a coffee cafe. What was my first Turkish meal?? Chai and a grilled cheese sandwich! Pathetic choice but it wasn’t overwhelming and I did finish it all.  🙂

This morning we headed for our “Istanbul Eats: Exploring the Culinary Backstreets” adventure.
Oh, adventure doesn’t begin to cover it.  We arrived at the meeting place 20 minutes early so had a chance to walk through the nearby open market.  Mary had never been to an open market and it was fun to see her reaction as we  walked by some of the displays – legs of lamb hanging in the open air, freshly gutted fish, a myriad of olives, spices, fruit, tomatoes the size of grapefruits, grapes the size of lemons (well, that might be an exaggeration), strings of dried eggplant. There was a lot to see and smell. 

Our tour began at 9:30 and we did, indeed explore the back streets.  I could easily write pages and pages and pages of descriptions of the foods, tastes and post way more pictures than anyone would be interested in, but in the interest of highlights, I’ve picked few things that stood out for me.

We started first with a simple breakfast of Turkish coffee, simik (sesame seed encrusted bread), fresh figs, cheese and kaymak.  
  Kaymak is a wonderful mix of clotted cream and honey and on the simik it was heavenly.

 Our next stop was a local street food vendor. This wrap is cooked rotisserie style for quite a long time.  

 Making it is an art…and there are not many places in Istanbul that still take the time to do it. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of the dish, but I do remember the ingredients: sweet breads (sheep kidneys/brains) wrapped in sheep intestines basted with sheep tail fat. We were brave, chewed, swallowed and lived to tell the tale. 

 Walking on a bit further on, we stopped in the courtyard of what used to be a caravan stop. The ground floor used to have room for wares and the camels carrying them; the upper level was rooming for the vendors. The building has been redone slightly and now there are only two metal workers with shops and the main courtyard is being used for poetry readings and cultural gatherings.  Here is our little group enjoying tea and tahini helva (a sesame seed paste dessert) in the courtyard.
 

Of course no culinary trip would miss a chance to show off the famous Turkish Delight candy or Baklava.  Hooray for these stops.  The Turkish Delight and almost all of the candy in Altan Sekerleme is handcrafted…four generations (since 1865) have created these confections.  

Here’s something that I learned today that I wonder if you know? Proper baklava is not made with honey. No, no, no! Proper baklava is made with a sugar syrup.  Who knew?  We had samples of three different varieties of this sweet…this shop (which I can’t remember the name of) makes their own phyllo dough. And their baklava has 60-85 layers depending on the type. But, you don’t have to know any of this to enjoy the pistachio rich, wafer thin layers that truly melt in your mouth.  

I did warn you earlier that I could go on and on about today’s walk!  I won’t. I’ll close by mentioning one other yummy experience.  We went to a shop, “Vefa Boracisi,” and had glasses of boza. Wonderful! Boza,is a fermented beverage, kind of like a milkshake, but without the milk. It is made of fermented millet and the sugar that is created in fermentation process. It’s served with a spoon, with cinnamon sprinkled on top and then topped with roasted chickpeas. Sounds weird but the contrast between the chickpeas and the boza was striking and very good. I said the drink is fermented, but the alcohol content is watched closely and it is only about 1%.
Vefa Boracisi is run by the great-grandson of the founder who opened this shop in 1876.
  

Some Turks believe that boza is a winter drink, like we drink hot chocolate, and to drink it in the summer is just ‘not right’. Well, they are wrong! I think you can drink boza anytime you want, and I would if I could.

Finally, here’s something we did NOT have today!
 HAHA!
 
 That’s our culinary trek for today in a nutshell (have I mentioned the HUGE walnuts?). I hope you enjoyed the descriptions and photos in today’s post. 

Here’s another contest (if you’ve already won, you can’t win again…): Send me the name of the novel and the author to which the title of this post can be attributed. First one to post to my Facebook wins.

  Tomorrow begins our first real day of our Turkey tour…we will be 5 of a group of 27. Should be fun! Hope you stay tuned…