This Woman Was Herejwrobitaille, Author at This Woman Was Here

Trip preparation for Turkey and how to start a travel blog

My friend, Gainesville aritst Ellie Blair, and I head off for a two week trip to Turkey with Gate 1 Travel on Tuesday, and I have begun to check off the list of the many things I need to do before we depart. All U.S. citizens must apply for an e-Visa at least 24 hours prior to departure at https://www.evisa.gov.tr/en/. It’s a simple online process and costs $20, but you want to make sure that the information you enter matches your passport for name, place of birth, etc.

I looked up weather in Istanbul for our visit window, the last week in February and the first in March, and it looks like it will be cold and rainy, so I went out and bought myself a couple of pairs of comfortable walking shoes (one suede and one leather) that I can spray with a non CFC waterproofing agent. I’m packing lots of warm socks (nothing is worse than cold, wet feet) and layers of thin thermal undergarments, sweaters, a vest, scarf, gloves, wool beret, and an all purpose black leather jacket. I’ll also bring along a small umbrella and a rain poncho, both of which will fit easily in the bag I can carry with me (and can be whipped out if the skies open up). Many of the hotels we will be staying in have pools, so I’m packing a bathing suit in the hopes that the pools are heated and/or have a hot tub.

Another thing to remember before you travel is to notify the banks whose credit/debit cards you will be using. Apparently, Turkey is a ‘blocked’ country, so we will need pin numbers for every transaction on both debit and credit cards. I like to check what sort of fee the cards levy per transaction (as low as 0 for Discover, 1% for my credit union card, and 3% for most large banks). I’ll take several because one never knows which cards will be accepted.

Also, it’s a good idea to check what sort of adapter you will need to plug in your electronics. This info is easily available by entering the question in your search bar. Large hotels may provide adapters for guests (I’ll let you know).

As Ellie and I are both artists, one of the hard packing decisions is what art supplies to bring. She and I have traveled to Ireland, Alaska, Spain, Brussels, and France on painting trips in the past, and we tend to paint, generally in oils, whenever we have the chance. Because this is a bus trip, and we will be in a different city every night, I’m opting for a small watercolor set as the lightest and most portable media I can bring. Some pastels may sneak in at the last minute, but I don’t want to hassle with the difficulty level of packing wet oils in my suitcase every night.

For this trip, I have decided to begin a travel blog to record my adventures for a number of reasons. First, I find it enormously useful to hear about other travelers’ experiences because there is so much to learn from their experiences. Also, this will be my way of recording a verbal and photographic record of each trip. I always come home with lots of photos, but I don’t do anything with them, so when friends ask, ‘Tell me what you did on your trip to _ or where you ate, I don’t have any way to access that info because I haven’t recorded it. This blog is an attempt to rectify that problem. How did I accomplish this with only two days to go before we leave?

First, I queried friends who are bloggers and kept hearing that WordPress is the is the latest website creation and blogging software. The Internet is a marvelous tool. I came across this website http://websitesetupguide.com/basic/start.htm that walks you through the steps needed to set up a website and/or blog. It recommends hosting through FatCow, but I went to GoDaddy.com, because I already had a domain name that I had purchased earlier (with the intention to create a website but not the follow through to do it). I signed up for a WordPress/hosting package for $3.99/month. Lots of different offers are advertized (domain and hosting for $1/month, but apparently that doesn’t include the WordPress suite, which is the one I wanted.

I wish I could say it was completely intuitive interface, but several hours later and with the help of my 17 year old son (Thanks, honey!), I managed to come up with something that will allow me to start the process of archiving both photographs and descriptions of the places I visit. It’s enough to get started.

One of the

Flight and arrival in Istanbul

Our trip here went close to flawlessly, considering the havoc weather could have played if a storm had hit New York as we passed through. The only hitch was that Delta does not have a reciprocal agreement with Turkish Airlines so we could not check our bags straight through but had to collect them in NY, deposit them with Turkish Airlines and then go through security again, with the usual long NY lines.

Flying Turkish Airlines felt like flying first class (except for the size of the seats). We were provided with pillows and blankets and once we were in the air, stewardesses distributed slippers, socks, and ditty filled bags with everything one might need—eye coverings, lip balm, ear plugs, tooth paste and tooth brush. That was followed by the distribution of Turkish delights, a lovely powdered sugar covered gel embedded with pistachios, and then hot wash cloths, beverage service, and dinner (which at past midnight, I wasn’t interested in).

When we landed, we were told it was 40, but it was closer to the high 50s when we deplaned. I never once put on my jacket. After passing through passport control in Istanbul (I was glad we had visas and didn’t have to stand in another line), we were met by a Gate 1 representative and ushered outside to the smell of cigarette smoke (everyone here smokes) and the sounds of late afternoon traffic. As the six of us who arrived on the flight we were driven across town, we passed the old city walls that have protected Istanbul for centuries.

Old city walls

We were greeted by the evening call to prayers from this lovely mosque.

Evening call to prayers

We drove by the Blue Mosque illuminated against an azure sky.

The city is bustling with traffic and strollers along the waterfront and vendors selling roses to stalled traffic. We arrived at the Legacy Ottoman, a gorgeous century old hotel with a lobby of marble, four foot chandeliers, the most amazing collection of carved chairs and sofas I’ve ever laid eyes on, and walls covered with paintings depicting scenes from the Ottoman Empire, located in the bustling heart of old town.

Legacy Ottoman lobby

Lobby or ornate chairs

We opened the windows to our room overlooking an ancient many domed building that seems to function as a shopping mall, a mosque to the left, and a view of the Blue Mosque in the distance.

View to the left of our window

Building directly in front of our windows

The wailing call to prayers that fills the evening air sends chills down my spine. We are in another country.

Our group is small, 19, from all over the world—Australia, South Korea, Canada, and US, and they are quite the world travelers. During dinner on the 6^th floor overlooking the bridges crossing the Bosphorous, we listened to tales of trips to Miranmar, Abu Dabi, India, Thailand, Jordan, South America. This is a group of people who like to travel. About ¾ have done Gate 1 tours before and the rest of us are newbies. Interestingly, they often travel independently, but choose to do tours in areas where independent travel would be difficult (the very reason we chose this tour).

Istanbul

I woke to the 5:30 am call to prayers from a mosque just down the street, the voice a deep, sonorous ululation picked up and echoed from the top of minarets across the city. I lay in bed listening to the ancient cry, imagining a time when a man rather than a loud speaker called from each minaret. The call lasted only four or five minutes, but even as the closet voice fell silent, the calls continued from distant minarets, dying out one by one, leaving only the cries, barks, and laughs of the ubiquitous seagulls that fly over this city of fifteen million. They fly by outside the window like white ghosts, their bodies lit from the light of the streets below, white against the blue black sky.

Breakfast this morning was fit for an Ottoman sultan: a half a dozen different kinds of olives, cheeses, meats, nuts, fresh and dried fruits, yogurt, oatmeal, delicious Turkish coffee, juices, pastries and an entire buffet of hot options, eggs (scrambled, soft and hard boiled) spicy stewed vegetables, a spicy cheese and tomato dish, and numerous Turkish sausage selections all served with a view of the ferries busily plying the Bosphorous below.

Our bus dropped us at Taksim Square, and our guide, Serder, walked us through the hippodrome, which sat 100 thousand people and was used for chariot races in Roman times, (apparently, racing chariots was more dangerous than being a gladiator).

Hipodrome

The Romans decorated the hippodrome with monuments from their far-flung empire—an obelisk from Karnak in Egypt dating from 1489 BC was shipped and unfortunately broken, so it is 1/3 shorter than it was originally.

Karnak obelisk

A second monument, the column of three snakes, was built from the melted down armor of the Persians defeated by Alexander the Great’s father.

Column of 3 snakes

When Ottomans took over in 1153, they had no use for chariot racing , removed the seats, and made the hippodrome into a horse trading market. The third monument, the Column of Constantine was originally covered in bronze, but was stripped by the retreating Crusaders who occupied the city from 1313 to 1364 and used the bronze to make coins. The Crusaders looted the city when they left, taking among other things the 3 bronze horses that sit atop St Marks Cathedral in Venice.

Blue Mosque

Blue Mosque

Outside the Blue Mosque there are rows of ablution faucets.

Blue mosque ablution fountains

In the past, Muslims were required to wash their legs from the knees down, their hands, and their faces because few homes had running water. Before entering women must cover their heads with scarves (available outside if you don’t have one) and everyone must remove his/her shoes (plastic bags provided to carry your shoes).

Ellie Blair

The name Blue Mosque comes from the color of the interior tiles, twenty-five thousand of them, depicting floral motifs

Blue Mosque tiled dome

symbolic of heaven.

Blue Mosque tiled interior

The stained glass in the windows was imported from Venice.

Venetian stained glass

The Blue Mosque is the only mosque in Turkey with six minarets, which make it seem larger to compete with Hagia Sophia. The six minarets put it in competition with Mecca, an issue resolved only when Mecca added a seventh minaret.

Hagia Sophia, which means holy wisdom in Greek, was built in a remarkably short five years (for what today would be 2.5 billion dollars) under Emperor Justinian. It is the first domed church and the 3^rd largest Christian church in the world.

Hagia Sophia ablution fountain

When the Turks took over, it was converted into a mosque, and the mosaics depicting figures were plastered over (because Islam forbids the depiction of people as competition with the creator).

The Turks also added the immense oil lamps (now electrified) and huge round icons painted with holy sayings. They are made of camel skin over wooden frames.

back of circular Islamic decorations in Hagia Sophia

In 1923, when Turkey became a republic, Hagia Sophia was turned into a museum and the mosaics are slowly being uncovered and restored.

In the afternoon, we left our group and ventured off the Grand Bazaar, where we wandered through Byzantine maze of stalls and shops and shopped til we dropped, purchasing some gorgeous Turkish ceramic bowls and silver jewelry.

Grand Bazaar

By the time we made it back to the hotel, we had walked over 7.5 miles. Ellie painted a pastel of the rooftop scene from our window while I went down to the hamam in the basement of the hotel, complete with sauna and marble hamam (octagonal heated marble platform surrounded by spigots and basins for rinsing off when you have soaped yourself down).

I emerged relaxed but still weary. We ventured out for a bite to eat in a gyro dive overlooking the street, the perfect meal for two exhausted, still jet-lagged travelers. It’s an early night tonight and a 7:45 departure for Anzac Cemetery and the Dardanelles in the morning.

Gallipoli

Travel is always full of images that stick in your mind but that you don’t think to take photographs of—the crowded waterfront by the ferry terminals with everyone enjoying the unseasonably warm weather, the vendors selling chestnuts cooked on brasseries, men carrying trays of tea in the Bazaar and on the street, dogs curled up and sleeping on the street (Ellie heard that pets are considered dirty but also good luck, so the dogs are feral but tolerated), and above all, the women in their head scarves of every imaginable color and style.

Here is the map of the towns we will visit.

As we drove out of town, which took over 45 minutes as we drove through a sea of high rises, Serdar gave us a history of Turkey from the paleolithic period to the present and an overview of Turkish economy (17^th largest in world), all of which I’ll spare you.

Our destination today is Gallipoli.

Serdar explained that the significance of the battle of Gallipoli, aside from its being the costliest single battle of WW1, 130,000 dead, is that it is the birth of the Turkish independence movement and the Australian and New Zealand independence movements as well. As a result of the battle, Mustafa Kemal, the leader of the Turkish troops realized that the Ottoman Empire was moribund and needed to be replaced, and he led the independence movement and founded the Turkish Republic in 1923. He became known as the Ataturk, the father of Turkey.

But back to Gallipoli. In WW 1, the Ottoman Empire was neutral but on friendly economic/trading terms with Germany when Germany asked to bring a battleship through the straights of Dardanelle. Turkey agreed, telling them to hoist the Turkish flag. Turkey tried to appease the Allies by telling them that they had bought the ship. The German battle ship sailed through Bosporours Straight into Black Sea and attacked Russia. As a result, Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire. The Allies planned to sail through Dardanelles and take Istanbul, but Germans spread nets of mines across straights, and many ships were lost. Churchill decided the Allies needed to take the hills overlooking Dardanelles in order to allow ships to sail through. The plan was for each group to land and join forces on the beach and take the hill occupied by Turkish forces. The buoys that were supposed to show troops where to land must have been blown off course by strong winds, which on the basis of our day here, I can say are clearly common. The British landed on the north end of the peninsula, but were too far away to aid the other troops; the Australians landed at Anzac Cove and gained the hill but were stopped and dug trenches 8-9 ft from Turkish troops. New Zealanders were sent as reinforcements but they too landed in the wrong spot and were surrounded by Turkish troops, so everyone was pinned down.

map of battle

I didn’t expect today to be so moving, but when we stopped at Anzac Cove, and I saw the plain markers to the boys who died and read the words of Ataturk on a nearby monument, I was moved to tears.

Monument at Anzac Cove

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives . . .

You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.

Therefore, rest in peace.

There is no difference between the Johnnies

And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side

Here in this country of ours.

You the mothers. . .

Who sent their sons from far away countries

Wipe away your tears.

Your sons are now living in our bosom

And rest in peace.

After having lost their lives on this land,

They have become our sons as well.

Ataturk 1934

The battle dragged on for eight months. The troops were so close that they would call a truce to do laundry or to trade food, or on Christmas day, to play soccer.

One monument is of a Turkish soldier carrying Australian soldier back to his line.

Turkish soldier carrying Australian soldier

No one won the battle. The Allies eventually withdrew.

What is so amazing about this site is that all sides mourn the pointless loss of life and recognize the heroism of the troops on both sides. Both sides will join in the commemoration of the 100 anniversary of the battle on April 25^th of this year. Preparations are underway for a huge celebration of the event.

Lone Pine– Monument to Australian soldiers with bleachers set up for 100th anniversary of battle

Dardanelle Straight from top of hill with monuments

All one can hope is that we learn lessons from such pointless loss of life.

After Germany lost the war, Turkey was divided up –the Greeks were given the land on the Aegean, the French and Italians were given the south coast. Kemal later known as Ataturk gathered support to fight against occupation. French and Italians withdrew but Greeks

Troy and Pergamon

Our first stop today was Troy, one of most important Bronze age cities dating to 3000 BC. There were nine different cities built on top of each other. Every 250 years or so, the city expanded and new city walls were built atop or outside of the old ones.

Walls of Troy 6

The foundation of the city walls and buildings were of stone, but everything above the foundations was built of dried mud brick, so not much remains today.

Brick upper walls of Troy 2

Troy is famous because of Homer’s Iliad, written 600 years after war that it describes. It is the Iliad that inspired Heinrich Shliemann, an amateur German archeologist, to discover and excavate Troy. Unfortunately, the jewelry and objects that he excavated were removed to Germany (as were entire buildings from Pergamon).

View over what would have been ocean

The ocean that Troy once backed onto has silted in and is now rich farmland.

Excavations reveal nine different cities of Troy.

Entrance to Gates of Troy

From Troy, we drove through miles of olive groves, over Mount Ida, and down towards Pergamon.

Aegean from Mt Ida

The old and the very old–Pergamon in background

Unfortunately, we did not visit the hilltop site of Pergamon because buses are not allowed up the hill. Visitors are now taken up in a sky tram that creates liability issues for the company.

We did, however, visit the Asklepion of Pergamon, a hospital complex built below Pergamon and dedicated to hydrotherapy. As early as the 2^nd Century AD, the Romans believed that many behavior problems were caused by subconscious and could be rectified by having people face their buried memories (according to our guide, Sedar).

We entered the site through a grand columned Via Tecta or Sacred Way, with a paved road for chariots lined on both sides by a covered walkway supported by columns.

Entrance to Asklepion

Inside the sacred courtyard are the ruins of a library, theater, numerous temples and structures surrounded on all four sides by a columned covered walkway.

Asklepion theater and sanctuary

One form of hydrotherapy practiced involved a tunnel with spring water running through it where patients would lie with the soothing sound of water around them. Openings in the roof allowed ‘doctors’ to talk to them from above.

Spring water flowing into treatment tunnel.

Our guide, Sedar, in treatment tunnel.

The hospital is a round building with beautiful arches separating rooms.

round plan of hospital

Ellie in the hospital

A covered outdoor recreation area.

Theater

Ellie doing a pastel of columns

As we drove from Pergamon to Kusadasi, we passed numerous hilltop forts built by Crusaders, yet another reminder of how this area has been at the center of five thousand years of history. We were once again blessed by the weather gods as it rained when we were on the bus but not when we were wandering the sites.

Ephesus

The KoruMar hotel where we are staying in Kusadasi is quite the luxury resort.

Korumar pool

sea below hotel

Both dinner and breakfast were extravagant affairs with more selections than anyone could try.

breakfast bar

The entire town seems to be under construction. Ellie tells me that when she visited in 2000, Kusadasi was a small fishing village. Today, it is a booming tourist resort with new complexes going up everywhere one looks. Some resorts appeal to Russians who like waterparks (we passed one huge onion dome decorated waterpark). Kusadasi gets 1500 cruise ships a year, compared to Istanbul’s 1200, and they are all here to see Ephesus.

Ephesus is worth seeing, no doubt about it. Since Ellie and I have both toured Ephesus in the past, we decide to go on our own rather than with the Gate 1 add on tour, primarily so that we would have more time in Ephesus so that Ellie could paint. We intended to take a taxi to the bus station and then catch a minibus to Selchuk/Ephesus (they run every 20 min for 5TL), but when we got in the taxi, he talked us into having him take us to the north entrance and wait for us at the south entrance, which was much more convenient than having to walk the 1.5K from the bus stop to Ephesus (south entrance) and having to return the same way. His price was 100 TL, about $40, and when we added taxi fares and bus fares, wait times, and inconvenience, we decided it was worth it. He wanted to wait for 2 hours for us, but we negotiated 4 hours for an extra 10 TL. He would wait until we came out he said.

State Agora

One enters Ephesus through the state agora, a place where government business was transacted but also where people visited and played games. I bought a book with overlays of past and present (the child in me loves those things) so I can visualize what was.

State Agora then

Across from the Agora is the Odeon, used for musical performances and government meetings.

Odeon

Just beyond the Odeon is the Prytaneon, also called the Temple of Artemis because the famous statue of Artemis was found here. In this temple housed a fire that was not allowed to go out. The statue, clearly associated with fertility, is now housed in the Ephesus Museum.

Artemis

The road narrows at the Hercules gate and becomes pedestrian only (chariots and commercial vehicles had to veer around the city center to reach the harbor).

The sheer number of buildings and roads in Ephesus is daunting. In its heyday in the first century AD, it had a population of 250,000, the second largest city in the Roman Empire after Rome. The sophistication of the water system is impressive (aqueducts supplied water and clay pipes carried it through out the city. Public fountains such as the Fountain of Trajan supplied water for common people (the rich had indoor plumbing).

Fountain of Trajan

The Skolasitkia Bath complex housed exercise rooms, steam rooms, cool rooms, pedicure rooms, fast food, even brothels, everything an Ephesian might need, and was likely visited daily by most Ephesians. The public toilets are just a bit further. They accommodated 40 people at a time, and had a fountain in the center.

Public Toilets

Fountain in public latrines

Just across from the public toilets is the entrance to the newly excavated Hillside Houses, six private houses or Ephesian condos, opened in 2009. You must pay another 15TL to enter, but it is well worth it.

Hillside houses

The fragments of marble found in this grand room are being pieced together like giant jigsaw puzzles.

Piecing together jigsaw puzzle

These houses had grand entrances with central courtyards open to the sky, hot and cold running water, fountains in many rooms, frescod walls, and intricate mosaic floors.

Frescos

Mosaic floors

Walking through these houses gives you the feel of what it must have been like to be an aristocratic Ephesian.

The hillside houses were accessed by a narrow stepped street. Although only six of the houses have been excavated (at enormous expense), they believe the hillsides surrounding Ephesus were lined with such houses. Just outside the hillside houses is the Library of Celsus, the 3rd larges library in the ancient world after Rome and Alexandria.

Library of Celsus

The Library of Celsus is conveniently connected to a brothel via an underground tunnel.

When Ellie pulled out her pastels to paint the library, she drew more fascinated spectators than I drew cats when I pulled out my lunch.

She did a second pastel of on of the hundreds of cats that roam Ephesus.

Gate of Mazeus and Mithridates

The Gate of Mazeus and Mithridates, two slaves freed by Emperor Augustus who later became wealthy, connects the library to the commercial agora or marketplace. The agora is a huge square flanked on all sides by covered walkways supported by monumental columns.

Commercial Agora

Merchants sold goods from all over the world to a population that spoke many languages so pictured carved in marble indicate what each shop sold.

Olive oil merchant

Today, the agora blooms with p.oppies

Poppies in Agora

Behind the agora is the theater, which seated 25,000 people and which had a three story backdrop and perfect acoustics.

Grand Theater now

Theater then

Ellie did a final pastel from the theater looking out over what was once the harbor.

From the theater, a long colonnaded street leads down to the then harbor. It was lit by streetlights, lined with vendors, and is said to have been the Las Vegas of the ancient world.

Harbor Street now

Harbor Street then

Ephesus is so well preserved because the harbor silted in and the marshes bred mosquitoes that brought malaria, so the city was abandoned. Although many of the building were looted for building materials, nothing was built over it, so much of the city remained in tact for excavation.

We had a perfect day–balmy weather in the 60s, no rain (although it was predicted), and time to wander as we pleased without having to keep up with a group.

Pamukkkale Hot Springs, Hieropolis, Necropolis

Today we drive to Pamukkale hot springs. As we drive through small towns, we pass cafes with men gathered around small tables, most wearing gray or blue jackets and many with hats or caps. No women in sight.

We drive through a long valley of farmland, olive groves, orange trees, and tobacco greenhouses.

tobacco covered for warmth

oranges and tobacco

The small towns we pass through have shops filled with crates of oranges and huge jars of olives. I also notice that the olives are trimmed back each year, leaving massive trunks, I imagine so that the fruit will be easy to reach.

One thing that has surprised me is the amount of trash everywhere. Coming down Mt Ida yesterday, the creek beds were lined with bottles and plastic bags, as are most roads. It is a land of such natural beauty but there seems to be no environmental consciousness. They keep their cars spotless but the land is a trashcan, which must say something about lack of garbage collection services.

On the long bus rides between our destinations (today we have a 3hr drive), I have been glad to have audiobooks downloaded from the library onto my Ipad. It allows me to keep my eyes on the scenery but also makes the time pass more quickly. Each seat in the bus is equipped with a USB port, so we can charge cell phones, cameras, etc, and although we were told there was wireless, it has yet to work. The hotels all offer free wireless, which is all I have needed. I was glad I brought electricity adaptors, however, because the rooms do not provide them. I would strongly recommend both the adaptors and the audio books.

The central ancient city beside the thermal springs was Laodicea (of Book of Revelations). Pamukkale means cotton castle in Turkish for the white hillside formed by mineral-rich water cascading over the mountain for centuries and leaving behind deposits of calcium.

Hieropolis was supposedly settled by people fleeing Troy after the Trojan war. There are several explanations for the name Hieropolis: one is from Hera (city of Hera). Hera was queen of the Amazon who came to aid the Trojans during the war. Another explanation is that it comes from hydra (water). Certainly this area has always been known for its thermal springs.

Byzentine south gate

Map of hieropolis

In the fifth century BC, the Frygians carved courses in the rock to channel the water where they wanted it. The Persians followed, but nothing remains from that period.

Frygian watercourses

The sad thing about the Pamukkale hot springs is that there is no longer water falling over the pools, so rather than being thermal pools, they are largely dry pools.

Pamukkale as it once was

me in what is left of pools

dry pools

The culprit is apparently the many hotels that have been built to accommodate the tourists who flock to this Unesco World Heritage Site. They drain the water, which no longer flows over what were thermal pools.

the culprit

Enjoying lunch overlooking now dry pools

The Romans made Hieropolis into a spa center. At its height, Hieropolis probably held 25,000 people, but because it was a spa town, many were visitors. The area is prone to earthquakes so many of the buildings have been damaged or fallen. The ancient pools, still open, hold Roman columns that must have once supported a roof.

Ancient pools

The theater above the Roman baths held 8,000.

Theater seen from below

Theater

After the Roman period came the Byzantine (Christian) period. St Phillip is said to have died in Hieropolis.

road to St. Phillip’s grave

The Byzentine north gate is well inside the Roman gate, indicating that the city shrunk in size or perhaps the necropolis (graveyard) expanded.

Roman gate with twin guard towers

Just inside the Roman gate is the public latrine. Like in Ephesus, a fountain graced this latrine (seats missing) that accommodated several dozen Romans.

Roman latrine

Roman road

The Roman road between the two gates was a two way street with chariots driving on the left so that they would have their right arm free to wield their swords. You can see the ruts carved in the stone from the chariot wheels. As with all Roman roads, the water supply ran directly under the center of the road, which was paved with larger stones that could be removed if repairs needed to be made.

There has been a necropolis outside the city walls since people lived here. In the earliest times, bodies were left outdoors to be stripped of flesh by buzzards; then the bones were buried under the house (with person’s wealth—jewelry, pots, cups). In the Bronze age, they started making coffins out of terracotta pots that could hold bones of 5-6 people. Romans realized marble made body rot more quickly. Sarco and fagus mean flesh eater. Because many wealthy Romans died here, it became the second largest cemetery in the Roman Empire and Asia Minor.

Several different burial styles exist in the necropolis. Romans believed in life after death and they buried their dead with their possessions, which they might need in the afterlife. Some tombs were simply columns on which the sarcophagus was placed.

Pedestal tomb

sarcophagus on door pedestal

Others were made to look like houses with a door to interior.

House tomb

Road through necropolis

There were benches placed along the road through the necropolis, supposedly to rest and commune with the dead.

Another Roman bench

Frygians copied pyramids, building mound tombs, called tumulus. Some Romans imitated this style in their tombs.

tumulus tomb

Many sarcophagus were reused. This one shows a Roman lion below and a Jewish menorah above.

Reused sarcophagus

Twelve hundred sarcophagus have been identified, but thousands are still buried beneath the soil that comes down the mountain with heavy rains.

This tomb was for gladiators. The designs above the door are a shield, a trident, and an amphora.

gladiator tomb

Once again, we lucked out with weather. It rained while we were on our way to Pamakkule, but once we arrived, it was sunny, warm, and beautiful walking weather. Ellie’s fit bit tells us we walked almost six miles today and climbed 28 flights of stairs.

At our hotel, the Spa Hotel Colossae Thermal, Ellie and I took advantage of the thermal spa, soaking in a thermal pool for twenty minutes before dinner. Unfortunately, that makes us part of the problem that is draining the water from the mountain. The dinning room was filled with tourists from all over the world, and six tour buses were lined up in front of the hotel as we went to breakfast the next morning.

Driving to Konya

Our first stop is at the artificial lake at the bottom of the hill so that we can take pictures of Pamukkale the cotton castle.

Although the lake has been there for centuries receiving the water that falls off the hill, the swan boats are on the chintzy side. There are vendors everywhere, and I bought a malachite necklace for 25 Tl or $10. Hard to resist such local treasures

Today we drive 5 hrs across Central Anatolian plain, a flat land growing potatoes, onions sugar beets, cherries, and wheat. The Silk Route came through here beginning 200 BC from China and reaching 4 thousand miles towards west.

As we drive out of Pamukkale, with snow capped mountains on both sides, we pass marble quarries with huge slabs of marble stacked like building blocks on the side of the road.

Denizle is the main city of the area (300,000), known for its textile industry that makes use of the cotton grown in the area.

As we drive, Serder tells us the history of the Seljuk empire that later became the Ottoman Empire, and I jot down as much as I can, but this history comes with no guarantee of accuracy.

The Turks are descended from the Mongols. The 5 tribes ending in istan (Turkish for land of) Usbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kasakstan, etc. are mostly under Russian control today. There are 200 million Turkish speaking people in world (75 million in Turkey). It is same language group (Ural-Altaic) as Hungarian, Korean, Finish. There are 25,000 Turkish speaking people in northern China (the ones causing problems now). Great Wall of China built to keep our raids from northern tribes.

Early society was structured around family groups that lived in yurts or tents housing 8 family members who allied themselves with other families to form clans. When the leader of a clan died, his children fought to see who would control the clan. When Ghengis Khan died, his children fought, and the youngest took his tribe to India. His descendant built Taj Mahal to honor his wife.

In 600 AD ancestors of Turks moved west, mixing with people along way in Afghanistan, Syria, and Iran. The Seljuk Empire (an alliance of Persian, Arabs, and Turks) controlled all of Asia Minor and Middle East. They moved west, and in 1120 AD Seljuk took Konya and made it their capital. They expanded west into 14^th century, all of Asia Minor controlled by Seljuk, except Constantinople, which they also eventually took under leadership of Otto who rejoined the warring tribes. The Seljuk and Ottoman are the same group, renamed for ruler who unified tribes.

The Seljuk built hotels for caravans (Caravanserai) every 30 miles along silk route along Central Anatolian Plane. It took 6 months to transfer goods from one end of Silk Road to the other.

The name Konya comes from a picture of a warrior on city gate, an icon, thus it became Konya, the city of the icon.

We pass a six foot deep lake of sodium sulfate (called the bitter lake), that is harvested and used in detergents and fertilizer.

We stop in Dinar, which was a large settlement in Hittite and Frygian period, so there are many rock tombs. Like much of the region, it is earthquake prone; in 2000 an earthquake destroyed half the town, but it was quickly rebuilt by the government because everyone in Turkey must pay earthquake tax as part of sales tax and everyone must carry compulsory earthquake insurance. They also grow poppies in this area, and they sell very think honey and very think yogurt mixed together with poppy seeds on top.

Where ever we stop (every 1.5 hrs), the bus is washed by the establishment, which is very grateful for the bus business because we always spend money. At this stop, I try the yogurt with honey (absolutely delicious), buy olive oil with rosewater soap, silk scarves, more sets of spices for Christmas presents, and a pair of hand knitted gloves Grand total 130 TL or $48.

Today we stopped for lunch at a restaurant offering your choice of prepared foods. Sedar will describe what each is, lots of eggplant and vegetable dishes, always a rice, and usually one of two meat dishes, lamb and beef or chicken. They also made gozleme, a crepe like pancake with cheese and or meat in it. I opted for lentil soup (5tl or $2.50). The lentil soup is dependably delicious, thick, and spicy. They bring bread to the table, so it is a filing meal.

The weather has turned cold and windy up here at 3000 feet, so we finally use the gloves and scarves we brought or bought.

Konya is the center of Sufi philosophy. Whirling Dervishes are considered a philosophic order. In 1207, Rumi was born in Afghanistan; he studied religion and traveled with father from Syria, to Iran, and settled in Konya. He came up with a philosophy of religion. All religions tell us different ways to get to god, but we don’t have to follow man made rules if our goal is love of god. His poetry uses two central metaphors. First, we all come from god, and like the planets that exploded away from sun, we are trying to get back to the sun (pretty sophisticated for 1200’s). The second metaphor is that a soul without love of god is meaningless, like a wind without purpose is nothing. A wind with purpose is like a flute. Rumi introduced music and whirling as central to meditation.

We visited the Rumi Museum in Konya, which houses his tomb and those of many of his followers as well as displays of many of the Sufi beliefs and customs. Both Ellie and I purchased CD’s of Sufi meditation music, which played throughout our visit to the museum and gardens, a haunting ethereal flute music.

Ellie at Rumi’s tomb

mosque at Rumi tomb

Rumi tomb is green roof

In the Sufi costume, the hat represents the tombstone, the black coat represents the grave, and the white garments represents the shroud. They take the coat off, whirling to get back to god. One hand is up, and one hand is down, symbolically taking from god and giving to others. There are ten thousand dervishes in Turkey.

Sufi kitchen

Sufi meal

Sufi dance

Apparently, the earliest settlements in Konya were in the neolithic period, and houses filled with painted walls were discovered and taken to the museum in Ankara, which we will see later in the trip.

Protected bit of original mound city founded on with tomb of Sultan Aladin in background.

Protected bit of original mound city of Konya was founded on with tomb and mosque of Sultan Aladdin in background.

After we checked into our hotel,

in our room

Ellie and I ventured across the street to a shopping center to buy school supplies to take to a school we will visit tomorrow.

me in front of our hotel with Turkish flag

Drive to Cappadocia

The Turkish breakfasts have been a lavish affair at every hotel we have stayed in. It generally includes a salad bar,

breakfast salad

a yogurt bar with fresh and dried fruits, honey and jams,

yogurt and fruit

Meats and cheeses,

meat and cheeses

a hot buffet with potatoes, several vegetable choices, soup, sausage (that looks like Vienna sausage) sometimes gozleme (village bread), quiche, or scrambled eggs.

hot buffet

This morning, also an egg station.

egg station

And of course a bread bar with sweet as well as savory choices.

bread and sweets

Today we drive 3.5 hours heading east through main industrial area where sugar beets are grown and processed into sugar in huge factories.

Serder explains how different Slavic languages are from English. The English sentence structure of ‘I am going to school’ would be ‘school going to I am.’ The negative goes at end: ‘school going to I am not.’ For a restaurant, instead of saying closed it would say ‘open not.’

Our first stop is a Caravanserai (caravan hotel) built in 1278 AD. It is typical Seljuk architecture, with the entrance heavily decorated and the rest of the walls plain.

Caravanserai entrance

plain walls

The Seljuk government built these caravan hotels every 30 miles, one day’s journey apart, and guaranteed the safety of traders along the route, so if your cargo was stolen, you were reimbursed. It was the first travel insurance. Traders were allowed to stay up to three days for free. Caravans arrived before dusk, the gates were closed, and guards patrolled the walls.

Summer quarters (this area is very hot in summer, 100 degrees) were open air. Platforms separated a bottom floor for animals and a top floor for people.

Summer quarters

Winter quarters were inside, with the same platforms. The vaulted ceilings are black from the smoke of coal fires used to keep warm. Openings in the ceiling provided some natural light.

winter quarters

Ellie in Caravvanserai

Service areas line one side of the Caravanserai. There would be restaurants, carpenters, metal workers, doctors, everything one might need while on caravan.

service room

A square pavilion in the middle of the courtyard provided a place for prayer.

prayer building

The walls were built of limestone but the inlaid decorations on the entrance are of dark and light marble.

marble inlay

The shop outside the Caravanserai did a booming business in tea (always served in and short glasses) and Turkish goods.

shop

the dealer

I fell in love with cushions made from old kilims (asking 30Tl each or $10), and being the sucker for a bargain that I am, I fell for the buy ten and get four free. I looked desperately for Ellie, but not finding her, I decided to go for it anyway. The kilims are all between 40 and 50 years old and are gorgeous. After I had picked out my fourteen pillows, I had to think how I was going to get them home. No way they were going into my bag, not with everything else I have bought, so I bought a carry on bag for another 60Tl (down from 90Tl), or close to $25. I like the bag anyway, so I get to bring home a new bag and old kilims.

kilim pillows

carry-on bag

Next, we visited a primary school.

primary school

Gate 1 built a lunchroom and bathrooms for this school, and they supports a different school each year. The kids were very friendly, taking us by the hand and leading us into the classrooms, wanting to show off their English, basically, “What is your name?” My name is..” and the name of colors.

3rd grade

teachers

girls

I was given a snowman. They wanted us to take their pictures and then show them the pictures. One little girl, who had no trouble working my iphone, took my phone and scrolled back quickly through the photos to see where we had been. She took several pictures.

handing over iphone

friends

boys

Ellie sat down and drew a portrait of one young girl, and drew a fascinated crowd. When she finished, everyone applauded.

Ellie doing a portrait

The portrait went up on the bulletin board as we were leaving.

portrait on lower left of bulletin board

We pass three more Caravanserai on our way to Cappadocia.

caravenserai

I’m fascinated by the walled courtyards attached to many houses, many with outbuildings with wattle roofs.

old and new house

brick walls

wattle outbuildings

The They grow apricots, almonds, and grapes in this region, but the grapes are grown close to the ground.

grape vines growing close to ground

Seder tells us that 60 degree temperature swing is not unusual, and as we arrive in Nevishir, it starts to snow.

first view of Nevishir

We begin to see the tufa rock formations that were carved into rooms by early Christians to escape persecution. Tufa is limestone with pumice and obsidian. It is a well-insulated stone, cool in summer and warm in winter. We begin to see layers of color in the exposed rock faces. The white color is tufa, the yellow is from sulfur, the red is iron oxide, and the black is from obsidian. The Red Valley that runs through this area is the Turkish Grand Canyon.

Red Valley

Our next stop is the state carpet weaving factory.

carpet factory

According to our host, they have the largest collection of carpets in the world, over 1700. We are ushered into the weaving room where five girls are working on carpets.

weavers

Our guide shows us a picture of the oldest known carpet, discovered in a frozen Siberian tomb from 5^th century BC. Carpets were traditionally woven out of wool, but silk came to Anatolia in 15^th century.

They ushered us into another room to demonstrate how silk is harvested from the silk worm cocoons. First the cocoons must be soaked in boiling water to soften them,

soaking cocoons

and then a brush is used to catch the fibers and gather them together. There is over a mile of silk thread in a cocoon.

winding silk

After that we are ushered into the carpet showing room where we take seats on benches and are offered anything from apple tea, Turkish coffee, wine, beer, or ouzo.

Ellie with tea

Then the rolling out of the carpets begins. We are shown wool carpets, cotton carpets (very like silk) and silk carpets.

bargaining starts

Then anyone interested in a carpet can talk to one of the many representatives willing to punch numbers into his calculator to tell you how much money he can save you. Boy, was I glad I bought my kilims earlier. I got away cheap. On our way out, we spotted this collection of old hope chests.

old hope chests

hope chests

Our hotel is a few miles down the road from the carpet factory in Urgup.

We are barely in the hotel for an hour when it is time to go see the whirling dervishes. It is held in a Caravenserai from 1239.

Caravenserai at night

inside

For the dervishes, whirling is a form of meditation and communing with god. It was a remarkablle thing to watch. There were four musicians, playing double drum, flute, an instrument like a lyre, and a flat many stringed instrument. One man sang a lilting chant very much like a call to prayer and then five dervishes and one leader performed a ceremony in which they bowed to one another and to god before they began to whirl. We were not allowed to take pictures during the ceremony but after they finished, they came out and whirled for a few minutes so that we could take pictures.

Dervishes

Afterwards we were served a warm clove, cinnamon, cherry drink in the courtyard beneath a full moon.

Dinner was underway when we got back to the hotel. There are more exotic tastes than I can begin to try.

salad buffet

dessert buffet

Cappadocia

I woke to clear skies and went out to see if I could see any balloons in the sky (several of our group had gotten up early

to go ballooning). No balloons and very cold. As I went down to breakfast, I spotted this brazier used as a decoration in the stairway, and it made me think of what might have been used to heat the Caravanserai in winter.

Our options at breakfast this morning included egg rolls and spaghetti (something to please everyone).

breakfast

The cheese bar was beautifully presented as always.

cheese and olives

The sun caught the side of the mountain just as two balloons came into view.

ballooners to left of mts

professional photo of balloons

We don’t leave until 9:30 this morning, so I had time to do two small watercolors of the Aegean as we descended Mt. Ida.

Aegean from Mt Ida

sunset on Aegean

This area has been inhabited since the Hittite period from 1800-1500BC. The Hittite raised horses, and Cappadocia means land of beautiful horses. Our first stop is the ‘Three Beauties,” a formation of three chimneys with rocks balanced at the top. The strong winds erode away the soft tufa, leaving these mushroom shaped chimneys. Both Ellie and I did quick watercolors of the Three Beauties.

Three Beauties

valley from 3 beauties

Tourism here began in the 60s with a French Club Med, and tourism has exploded in last 20 yrs, growing by 10% per year.

Our second stop is a viewpoint over the Valley of Pigeons that gets its name from the many pigeon rooms carved into the rock face of the valley. Because the soil is weak, villagers carved out large caves for pigeons and fed them so they could collect the droppings.

Valley of Pigeons

We saw our first of several blue eyed trees decorated with the Turkish symbol to ward off he evil eye.

Blue eyed tree overlooking valley of pigeons

a second blue eyed tree

Cappadocia is best known for its churches and dwellings carved out of the soft tufa rock by the early Christians, who came here to practice secretly after Domitian declared the death penalty for Christians. Many of the apostles traveled through here, as did the Silk Road merchants and the Crusaders. Many of these caves are still occupied today or have been turned into restaurants or boutique hotels.

The Churches of Goreme were carved in the 1^st century AD.

Churches of Goreme

In the Iconoclastic period, from 750 AD, images of people were destroyed and symbolism became very important. We visited the Church of St, Barbara, the Church of the Serpent, and the Church of the Buckle. No one is allowed to take pictures inside the churches because the frescoes can be damaged by flash, but I bought several postcards showing the interiors and we could photograph the exterior of the structures.

Goreme

The churches and rooms were very small, holding no more than 10-20 people.

door to another room

This table and benches carved out of tufa in the dinning room sat 40 people.

table for 40

Interior decoration

doorway

In 330, when Consantine made Christianity legal, this area became a teaching center.

These structures were occupied until 1928 when the Turkish and Greek government agreed upon exchanging populations that had been cut off by the new boundaries drawn up after WW1 (previously, it had been the Ottoman Empire). Ethnic Greeks and Turks could register their holdings, emigrate to the country of their ethnic origin and be reimbursed by the government for what they left behind. At that time, the Greek Orthodox community of Cappadocia emigrated to Greece. Unfortunately, the local people defaced the frescoes because Islam does not allow the representation of the human form.

A few hundred feet down the mountain is the Church of the Buckle, the oldest and largest of the churches of Goreme and one filled with frescoes with brilliant blue backgrounds.

Across from the church of the buckle

As we drove away from Goreme, we saw some of the beautiful horses the region is named for.

beautiful horses

The Valley of Selve has some of the tallest fairy chimneys and also a 1^st century church. Ellie and I did more art in our 20 min stop.

church in Valley of Selve

Valley of Selve

We stopped for lunch at a modern recreation of a caravanserai, meticulously recreated.

New Carvanserai

collection of carpet shears

kilim bench

inside of kilim doors

In the village of Ozkonak, we explored an underground city discovered in 1972 by a local farmer who lost his sheep but could hear it underground. This hideaway could accommodate several hundred villagers who needed to hide from successive raiders beginning in the 7^th century with Arabs raiders through the 13^th century when the Crusaders came through. Nothing shows on the surface, but underground, there are storage rooms and tunnels connecting to other rooms and still more tunnels where wheels could be rolled across the opening of the tunnel.

underground chamber

We explored tunnels with three separate wheels that provided many levels of defense.

tunnel

stone wheel

second wheel

The villagers also used the underground city for storage of root crops and as a winery.

storage jar

winery

Grapes would be crushed in the compartment to the right and the juice would run out through the hole to the left.

Our last stop was at the Gurey Ceramics Museum, a ceramics factory that has been owned by the same family for six generations and that houses a remarkable collection of early pottery.