Topkapi & Out

July 17, Friday: Istanbul: Time to let things wind down. Yesterday was a really busy day. We spent some excellent hours at Topkapi, and the later afternoon was mostly about getting ready to leave. This trip was a nice length -and the pause in Cirali in the middle of it all made it really work nicely. I am ready to not have to think too much about planning where to go each day; it will be nice to get home. Unfortunately, there is a long travel day in front of us. I think we pretty much stay at 4:30 PM (by the sun) for seven or eight hours.

That visit to Topkapi was really nice. We followed the plan from last year and were at the outer gate of the park (Babuhumaniye?) fifteen or twenty minutes before it all opened. If you play things just right, you can feel you have the place nearly to yourself for about one hour before the crowds really begin to flow into the palace. Also, we honed right in on the Harem (a seperate tour inside the palace), and that worked out perfectly. We effectively had the best rooms there to ourselves. Also, the basic layout of the palace made a lot more sense to me this time. You could see the hierarchical zones of eunuchs, concubines, Favorites, Valide Sultan (mother), Crowned Princes, Sultan with successively nicer hallways, courtyards and baths for each. My favorite place was the reading room off the chambers of Murad III (room designed by our hero, Sinan) – a beautifully ornamented, smaller sunny place overlooking all the waterways of Istanbul.
Topkapi is all about successive zones of beauty and privacy; it's not a European palace designed to overwhelm you with enormous galleries ornamented to impress. The rooms, although elaborately and beautifully decorated, are fairly small. The quantity of space that even a Sultan occupies is not that great. Meanwhile, in classic Ottoman style the inside flows onto the outside in many different gradations. It takes some imagination to recreate what the place would have been like when the many pools and water fountains were operating, and everything was draped with carpets and cushions.

We even had the time and endurance to make it through some of the museum galleries, seeing the clothing and jewels of the Sultans and the the vast collection of relics. I understand the clothing of the royals was considered nearly sacred. For generations (200 years, in fact) after he died, Suleyman's tomb was draped with his kaftans and turbans. The jewels were remarkable, although I must admit this stuff is not something I find particularly amazing. The “Spoon diamond” (one of the largest) was so called because it was found in a garbage pile and sold to a dealer for a few wooden spoons before being brought to the palace. Then there was the Topkapi dagger – and so it goes as you file past little case after little case.

The relics were much the same sort of experience. Was it the arm bones of John, the sauce pan of Abraham – or was that Abrahams arm and skull and John's staff – or Moses'. There also was also a run of gutterpipe from the Kabbaa – and a magnificent case you could view from two rooms away that contains the cloak of the Prophet.

Religion is incompatible with material reality. The world is truly composed merely of concepts. Sensation only particularlizes the abstract – nothing more.

An expensive but pleasant lunch just off the Hippodrome -then a nap and a scramble to pick up some turista stuff, and a goodbye at the carpet store where we had a pleasant talk about the Carpet biz with our guy, now that all the buying was (almost) done. Dinner at Buhara(?) 93, just down the street, another superlative salad and plate of roast meats.

This completes the 2009 edition of The Golden Horn. We will see what 2010 brings. My faithful assistant is already lobbying for a return. He feels he has invested too much work and practice into his Turkish language skills to simply leave things rest here. I am open to this, but my feeling is we need new travel companions. Now, having figured out the central mysteries of practical life here, we need to start our career as tourguides.

Most Remarable Thing: Well, when we were on the Sultan's pavilion, just outstide the Circumcision Kiosk, one of the tourists hauled off and kicked another in the pants. Delicacy forbids that I dwell on this or the ensuing brawl and arrests, but honesty demands that it was quite remarkable. It also reminded me of the aggravations of tourism. At that moment I decided that my travel experience had reached some sort of completion (depletion?).

Photo: Topkapi. This is the back of the Throne Room that is located just inside the Gate of Felicity where the Sultan received Ambassadors and other state visitors. The design and decoration shows the general ornamentation and feel of the palace.

Galata

July 15, Wednesday / Istanbul: Oddly enough, getting back to 'stam boul feels a bit like getting home.

The flight was only about an hour and presented some nice views of the country below, especially the bit where we came in over the Marmaris Sea.

Today we were intent on getting to Topkapi palace - but even within forty minutes of the opening the place was filled with tour busses. I noticed it is closed on Monday and Tuesday, so I think (hope) that Wednesday might be an especially crazy day. Anyway – we hit the eject button and decided to take advantage of a nice day to take a walk through Galata.

This involved the metro rail across the Galata bridge and the funicular up to Taksim Square. Galata is located on the steep incline of a hill between the north coast of the Golden Horn and Taksim square.

It's an interesting place. Essentially, it is this traditional Italian (Genovese) town that has always been the seamy world of trade and commerce balancing the serenity and pieties of the palaces, mosques, and churches across the water. This is the place the Ottoman Sultans came to take on so much debt and such high interest that it effectively broke the Empire.

Again – not learning my lesson from our guided stroll through Balat and Fener – we attempted
another one of the guided walks from the book. It is no more possible to know where you are on a map in Galata than in Balat. That's a kind of interesting fact about Istanbul. Even the taxi drivers need to ask directions and look at their gps systems. But the idea was “go downhill” and that worked for us. We did manage to catch a few of the listed sites from the book along the way. One of these was the Dervish lodge, an interesting old Catholic Church, a synagogue (with an exterior, I must observe, like a Brinks armored truck, apparently enough of that kind of religious tension exists to keep the Jewish congregation concerned). Of course, the Galata tower was the big item halfway down the hill. It is set in a kind of convergence of roads winding down the hill, surrounded by cafes, sleeping street dogs, and old Ottoman fountain. Below that you get into the banking section, and finally a market area down by the water.

I like these walks through the city – and this really is a city of neighborhoods. I think if I were to live here for some time, Galata would be a nice choice. It has a quieter feel – mostly due its narrow streets - and is close to the water and the big sights of the Sultanahmet across the estuary, yet it remains its own small place. The hill would keep you healthy. It might also be a nice place to stay even for a shorter visit – there was a nice looking hotel right there at the foot of Galata Tower.

Galata has always been a kind of counterpoint to Istanbul. It is a city of Italians and Catholics and Jews in a traditionally Islamic and Ottoman city. It even predates the fall of Constantinople and was recognizably its own concern back in Byzantine times. People like to say that Constantinople is where Europe meets Asia -but I think that specifically and practically really took place in Galata. That is where all the big Italian trading firms, banks and finance really brought the European world to the Sublime Porte.

Lunch at the old Kofteicisi – I've been there three or four times this year and last. This is an old fixture dating from the 1920's(?) where white coated waiters bring out plates of salad and kofte (lamb/beef grilled meatballs) with a special red pepper sauce. It's a wood panelling, brass fixtures, marble table top kind off place with lots of old pictures and letters from all the Turkish notables across the walls.

After that – back to the hotel for the usual afternoon down time, and then off, once again, to the Arasta Bazaar to kill some time with the carpet merchants.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Turkey. We really need to get to Topkapi and Aya Sofia.




Most Remarkable Thing: The city really is a city of neighborhoods and interestingly enough even the markets throughout the city specialize. For example, the top of Galata is filled with music stores – if you want a guitar or drums, that's where you find it. Lower down, this is the mechanical and electrical parts place for all of Istanbul. Clothing is purchased on the other side of the Golden Horn on the streets that fall down from the Grand Bazaar (which sells exclusively tourist trinkets) to Eminonu. Pet food is in the blocks outside the Spice Bazaar where you can also find plants. Pots, pans and metal work is near the Suleymaniye Mosque. Whatever product you care to name – eyeglasses, lawn mowers, air fresheners ,garden hoses, bicycle tubes – I am sure it has a specific address here.




Photo: Galata Tower.

Olympos

July 13, Monday / Cirali: Finishing three perfect beach days. Days one and two were exclusively devoted to the kind of beaching stuff that really needs no description. Today we did find the motivation to walk down to the end of the beach in order to look around the ruins of Olympos.

Olympos was founded – nobody really knows when – perhaps the second or third century BCE. They knew it had some prominence back when Lycia was Lycia (when?). Absorbed by the Romans, the Byzantines, the Genoans, and ultimately the Ottomans. I gather the place effectively died out as a city around the 15th century. An odd sort of history – it picks up in the middle of things and ends in the in-between as well. Just goes to show reality does not always follow the chapters of the history books.

What was neat about Olympos was that this was a city largely unexcavated. Unlike a place like Caunos (last year) where all the old foundation stones were pretty well layed bare and you could see the outlines and the streets of everything- this place had the feel of the ruins among the vines and weeds as they might have looked back in the nineteenth century before most people bothered to care about these things. Here were all these walls and pillars in the forest – make of them what you will....

The hike was also nice. It involves a long walk down the beach and then up along a trail following a little fresh water stream. My impression is that a lot of people access the beach this way, so there is an odd mix of relaxed Turks dragging their coolers and kids to the beach and earnest tourists clambering around looking at the stones.

This break in Cirali has been really nice. Most days we've gotten to the beach for an hour or so in the later morning and again in the late afternoon or early evening. Each day we've had dinner at a restaurant somehow associated with the hotel – but a nice place, and my assistants efforts at Turkish have endeared him to the waiters, so we are nicely treated there. We finished things out tonight by splitting one half of a large fresh fish (a grouper pulled from the sea – we are assured – earlier today).

Not much to say about beach life. I think perhaps the beach is an unsung cultural constant – a refutation of relativism. Every place, every culture and religious or ethnic group no matter how distinct in other ways seem to relate to the beach in exactly the same fashion. There is something about the waves and the sun and the semi-nudity that simply undercuts concepts and ideologies of all sorts. It is the triumph of percepts over concepts.

Tomorrow, however, we fly back to Concept Land – we should be in Constantine's City in the later afternoon provided we find our plane on Antalya set and ready to go. Our time here is dwindling. I have two or three more “must sees” in Istanbul (Topkapi, Hagia Sophia, Galata) – some shopping. We will be back in Boston on Friday evening.

Most Remarkable Thing: When you dive under the water here, there is this high grinding sound from the zillions of little round stones rolling over on each other in the surf. It's sort of like a really soothing dentists drill – if that sort of sound is conceivable.

Photo: The signs say this is part of a Roman temple, but my own eyes and my guidebook say that is a mistake. This is a gate to the Roman city of Olympos.

Idyll

July 11, Saturday / Cirali: Our first fully leisured day here at the beach. It's pretty sweet. We arrived yesterday after an hour transfer out of Antalya and a winding descent down to the sea.

Cirali really is not a town; it's a beach. The only town part is a few shoebox size stores in among the little hotels, pansiyons and campgrounds bellying up to the beach. Most of the hotels also have restaurants right behind the beach – so life here is designed to be lived in your swim suit (maybe).

And that is pretty much all you need to know about today. The scenery is great. Our hotel is situated in this garden about a five minute stroll down a stone and dirt path to the beach. The gardens (see photo) are spectacular. The beach itself is mostly rounded pebbles at the shoreline but it drops off to eight or ten feet deep within about a yard or two of the shore. The water is wonderfully clear.

So, these days are pretty much devoted to rest, reading, naps and ocean swimming. The room at the hotel provides some nice air conditioning when the heat of the day is really roaring. There is some humidity but its broken by a nice ocean breeze. We have breakfast in the garden up here – perhaps tomorrow I will try making some of that tea from some local herb (maybe sage) that grows up on the mountain. The water is warm – nothing like the Puritanical challenge of the New England swimming I am used to – but very pleasant. The long chairs and umbrellas are free (from the hotel) and there is always a cold beer at one of the cafes behind the beach.

The only challenge, really, is not getting sunburnt – but my eight or ten tubes of spf 70 seem to be holding up well- as is my Orhan Pamuk novel, My Name is Red, a intrigue of love, murder and the philosophy of art, set in 17th c. Istanbul. I tend to like fiction with philosophical/theological undercurrents. It takes place in the world of the Sultan's miniaturists, illustrators and book guilders.. Islamic tradition forbids the creation of idols, which broadly interpreted means the very existence of image making is broadly suspect. This is why the Ottoman aesthetic runs to calligraphy and geometrical design. You should see some of the wood carving patterns you see in all the old palaces and mosques; it's really eyecatching – this seemingly chaotic variation of shapes and lines that spring up out of the simplest principles overlayed on each other.

So, that's about all I have to say about that. Maybe I'll include an extra photo this time as this is definitely a more visual and less conceptual sort of place.

Most Remarkable Thing: OK – it's time to praise salad. What the Turks do with vegetables is wonderful – it really eclipses the parade of grilled meats here. This evening we had this mix of green beans, carrots, beans, in a light oil based tomato dressing. They like to always add a little bit of heat to their salads and vegetables, so they do a lot with peppers. Then there is that roasted eggplant with a little oil and garlic slices – and the always perfect parade of tomatoes and cucumber (my shaman vegetable) that is always on the side of everything. I wonder if US customs is ok with olive oil? At times it seems as if the entire Anatolian peninsula (except for those mountains I described yesterday)is one big vegetable garden. This would be an easy place to get meat out of your life. I had a vegetable pide (think a long eye shaped pizza ) for dinner- covered only with roast vegetables.

Photos: Above is a nice shot of the garden outside our bungalo. Below see Cirali beach, looking north.

Meanders

July 10/Friday, Antalya: Greetings from the Mediterranean!

I think I last left things off in Cappadocia. Yesterday was mostly consumed by a very long bus trip that was surprisingly easy to take. I wasn't looking forward to a bus trip that takes up the entire day (nine hours), but I figured catching the night bus (Turks generally like to do the long hauls at night) would be even worse. One way you lose the day, but the other you lose both a good sleep AND the next day.

Anyway – all the connections were easy and the scenery was magnificent for most of it. What I particularly remember was the haul up up up into the Taurus (Toros) mountains. That is a very high and very steep range of mountains running along the southern coast of Turkey. I think these are the mountains that have kept Lycia more or less cut off from the rest of the world -at least by land.

The mountains were made of something like granite with soft rock eaten away by erosion so what is left looks like an enormous pile of granite bolders with pines and cypress clinging to it. Rocks and scrub trees- nothing else. The road is mile after mile of hairpin turns both up and down.

We got into Antalya in the evening. It was ghastly hot and humid, really life sapping. The hotel we stayed in was gorgeous; a renewed Ottoman mansion. I like the architecture. Its very open and breezy and designed for shade with big overhanging eaves on the roof. There is lots of stone work and big patios and terraces. The hallways are open to courtyards and the construction is a post and beam style up top with stone work nearer the ground. Windows open everywhere, and there is often a pool or fountain in the front court.

The hotel itself was oddly aggravating Maybe it was the heat but I felt like I was on a bad cruise ship. It was crowded and the meals were big banquet affairs and they seemed to have lots of rules and procedures. Also, Antalya has limited any car traffic into the the old city (Kaleici) in the very center of the sprawling and enormous new city. This means it feels like you are in this little cobble stoned, winding street, Ottoman/Roman city with a beautiful harbor below. Another result is that it turns it into a tourist compound with the attendant street touts hawking all the same kind of trinkets. So, I was happy to get out of there this afternoon although we did have a nice walk about and a very nice lunch under an olive tree at a cafe overlooking the old harbor.
We shelled out the big bucks for private transfer down to Cirali from Antalya (80 Euros!) but that price makes sense after seeing the hour long drive out of that city and then up and down these hairpin turns following the coastal road south past Kemer to Cirali. The litle road to Cirali itself was a winding drop down to this little beach village.

But what a place! Gorgeous beach with crystal clear water rolling in over rounded pebbles. The mountains roar up just behind. Our hotel looks great. A two room place with a little porch in the back. You follow a stone path through these gardens of flowers and fruit trees, about five minutes walk to the beach.

It's pretty nice – but more on that later.

Most Remarkable Thing: I could write about Turkish driving, but those mountain and city roads and the fact that Turkey has an accident rate 14 times higher that Europe says it all. Rather, I will doff my hat to the great bus system. The travel didn't even feel like half the time. Stewards come up and down the corridor offering tea, twinkies, mints, towelettes. The busses are clean and they wash them at every stop. The service is constant ; frequent busses run off in all directions all the time. Most amazing of all – the fare for our nine hour air conditioned (sort of) ride was 40 YTL (about $30).

Photo: Here is a shot of Hadrian's Gate in Antalya from our walk yesterday. This was a Greek/Roman city -and ultimately the port which launched many of the Crusades to the Levant. The gate was built for a visit by Hadrian.

Arts,Crafts,God & Village Life

July 8, Wednesday - Cappadocia: Once again, we made the right choice and handed over our decision making to a tour provider. Mustaffa did well enough yesterday that we decided to go with him again. Some of the sights were repeats (for me) from last year, and I was skeptical of my assistant's willingness to look at more caves and churches, but we decided that we did not come here to rest ourselves but to drink in things Turkish – so off we went.

Good thing! It was a really nice day, and even the repeat stuff was better than before. A lot of it involved scenery and terrain – which really is remarkable here – but we also visited a few craft places (pottery and rug weaving) – and it was all good.

The major sight in the morning was the outdoor museum at Goreme. This was a hidden monastery originally but gradually came into publicity and importance before fading away to become a merely local oddity (all these Christian drawings in the old caves). It got a bit more of the backstory this time through. Supposedly the area – simple dwellings and four of five cave churches - were founded by Saints Theodore and Gregory(?) in the second or third century. They were from the Levant (Jerusalem) and were early proseletyzers of the new Christianity. At that time, of course, Christianity was persecuted so maintaining a hidden monastery in a distant and unlikely place worked nicely as an education program. Generations of Christian missionaries were educated and trained here and sent out across the Roman Empire.

When Constantine converted, places like this came out into the sunlight (only figuratively). So there is a layer of crude wall paintings covered by a layer of much more elaborate frescoes (after the place received money from the Emperor). Unlike the cave paintings yesterday, these ones were well preserved. My assistant earned his keep by bringing a better camera that was capable of getting good interior shots without a flash in dimmer light. We'll see – if he disappoints on this I am gong to cut back his Raku ration.

I had seen this museum last year, but it was nice to see it again. Also, it was better explained and a lot less crowded. When I was in those places last year it was like being in a subway. This time through we had those Byzantine churches all to ourselves.

OK – I am hearing, again through back channels, that my readers find the historical/cultural reflections tedious. It is said they simply want more food and carpets. Well .... more on that later.

One more thing: In the afternoon we went to see Zelve – a cave city that was an inhabited village until quite recently. Our guide knew the place – and the original village – quite well and did a really good job bringing out exactly what the routines of such a life were like. The landscape, not only here but all over Cappadocia, is quite amazing. The life of living off these little gardens in hidden valleys among these caves made sense - and that is what you hope from a good tour, the ability to see how human life goes on in these very strange circumstances.
Later on we went to the pottery town, Avanos – and saw the (once again, in a cave) workshop of a pottery manufacturing studio there. They showed us the various grades of clay they used – a quartz clay being of very highest quality which was used in the tile work of the finest imperial Mosques in Turkey (e.g. The Blue Mosque). My #2 got some good shots of the store there – the pottery was quite expensive and the top quality stuff was fantastically costly (e.g. $900 for a square foot tile). We thought our money might be more effectively spent on other crafts. The charm of the pottery really is in the very very exceedingly amazingly detailed decoration. You'll have to wait for the pictures.

Then we got to go the the carpet factory – which was really neat. After seeing the girls learning to weave on the looms we went into the store area. The weaving school/factory was neat. Their finest work is a silk on silk weaving that is done at such a high knot count that it takes the girls months and years to complete even a small piece – but even a BluRay DVD cannot match the results. After that we got to see them extracting the silk from the cocoons - and thence on into the show rooms. This was a very large room with a bench around the edges. The owner/manager narrates the carpet show as his trained assistants unroll and display carpet after carpet. Again, my assistant was at it with the camera – this time using mine as his own had run out of batteries in the last church cave at Goreme.

I purchased another kilim – and my assistant was unsuccessful when his bid was not accepted. But, as he said later, you know you are negotiating correctly when you leave without a carpet, at least you know you are not bidding too high. As for me, I am happy once again. You get a nice come down in the price and figure it looks great and in any case costs a lot less than what you can get at Macy's.

The carpet factory was great. You got to see some really stunning carpets – stuff that makes sense of it's $30,000 price tag – and the haunting worry that most of what I have bought is simply crap from China.

Dinner: the usual four courses on the terrace looking at the illuminated caves across the valley.
Tomorrow: long long long bus ride to Antalya. Bloggin might be interrupted for a day.
Without a professional tour guide telling us where to go, what to eat, how to think, when to leave, what to photograph... I am not sure how we will make out tomorrow, but we'll try.

One might suspect that this is a leisured and fattening life. Yet clambering up and down these mountain paths in the sun - ducking inito the shade for relief - squeezing ourselves through cave passages and crawling up and down stairways while crouched over -it's all part of a healthy Cappadocian lifestyle.

Most Remarkable Thing: In a day of remarkable things, I'd have to say those two prize winning silk carpets they rolled out were stunning. One was mostly colored a deep rich purple and the other had a kind of sky blue interior. The design involved lots of traditional elements and a kind of off balance swirling design. My vision of the carpet arts has been extended. The silk extraction process was also amaziing – seeing this little cocoon unroll into a mile of fine silk.

Photo: A shallow serving dish in the Avanos pottery studio - one of the high quality quartz clay stuff. If you need to ask how much.....

Old Greeks

July 7, Tuesday: Cappadocia: Today my photo documentarian and I did our tourist duty and climbed in the bus just after breakfast so that our lives could be run by competent professionals for the next eight hour or so.

The Hotel here arranges a three day cycle of tours. One day it is the old Greek cities and sites around here, and the next is the open air museum at Goreme and the pottery city (Avonos), then there is a nature day with a walk down by some lake. We went on the Greek sites trip – and I think we got the best of the three.

I think there were about five or six stops during the day. The first two were the best. We first saw one of the underground cities. These are these amazing descending tunnels and chambers sinking straight down into the ground. I think we got about a hundred feet down (which was plenty) but one could go a lot further. They really are uncertain about who used these when. They might go way back to Assyrian and Hittite times (1800 BCE?) or may be more recent Byzantine things. Essentially, they were a way that entire towns could simply go underground and hide when the war armies over ran the place. Quite a bit of work squeezing down those tunnels and up back out of them.

The next stop was an old Greek city – Soigner(?). The Greek city was lived in up until the big population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1924. Then Turks lived there until erosion and stone falls seemed to pose problems. So, the old city was abandoned. Our tour involved walking on a path around a high mesa/mountain climbing up to look at some of the old churches or communal kitchens, descending down into valleys where people still grow crops. The place was a combination of cave dwellings with stone construction as well.

The remarkable thing is how the landscape shifts between sandy, sunbaked dust and scrub then down into these beautiful green valleys and canyons. In about fifty steps you can be either in Vermont or Arizona, as you please. During the afternoon there was also a visit to an archaeological dig where they found a small Byzantine town buried in a farmers field. The a visit to a cave monastery – again, cave construction – and too an above ground (finally!) town that used to be the center of Greek wealth and religion in the area.

In the middle of it all, lunch was a simple four course event, starting with a kind of hot tomato salsa, olives and bread, then salad, and a main course of beef in a sizzling dish with peppers and tomatoes. Desert was a simple plate of apricots, just off the tree. Ads I wrote last night, the dinner at the hotel is also very nice – we'll probably do that again tonight.

The tour was nice. You get to meet a few other people from around the hotel, and with only seven of us in the van, it was a nicely paced affair. I don't know if we'll do it again tomorrow. The sites (the open air museum at Goreme and the pottery places at Avanos) are ones I have seen last year, and I suspect my assistant gets the basic idea of the old Greek stuff and cave construction. I also doubt he would particularly enjoy the pottery places – but we shall see. A day of relaxation, reading, walking might be just the thing about now.

Most Remarkable Thing: I think I need to give up gardening. The old abandoned Greek cave monastery we visited this afternoon rises up out of this Turkish families extended garden. Imagine these paths winding through these old lava stone outcroppings with caves cut into them (religious images painted on the walls) – and all around this they have planted vines, flowers, fruit trees and vegetable gardens – watered off the spring that was the center of the old monastery. Today they sit under canopies and pergolas in their gardens and collect the admission fare from the tourists who happen to roll by.

Photo: Carpets! These ones being sold out of a shop by the underground city we visited.

Troglodytes!

July 6, Monday: Today we liberated ourselves by figuring out the Turkish national transit system: the busses. My impression is that reservations are either optional or unavailble. You just go the “ottogar” and a bus is pretty much leaving for every possible place within the hour.

So, after our wonderful Dedeman breakfast and a leisurely packing we arrived at the Ankara ottogar just in time to catch the 11 to Urgrup. In Turkish fashion the place is frenzied and confusing. There is bank after bank of desks where various bus companies sell their tickets – mostly helped by an army of touts that fall on you as you get out of your cab. So, we did find the route to Urgrup on the Nevshehir buslines.

Amazing fact: that four hour bus trip costs only 25YTL (= $17). So, getting around Turkey is not an expensive proposition. The busses are very comfortable too. There are tv shows, and every ten minutes the steward goes up and down the aisles offering water, coffee or tea or cupcakes. They also make a rest stop every ninety minutes. We availed ourselves of one of those to get one of those amazing Alglida popsicles (reason enough to come to Turkey).

The bus arrived around 3:30 and we took a 15 minute taxi ride outside Urgrup to Ayvalu – a little village nested in a valley. The hotel is a cave hotel – and as I write this I am lying on my bed in the back of our cave, a sweet little room and bath dug into the volcanic ash rock that makes the region what it is. We arrived in the late afternoon but had time for a nice walk around the village here before a shower and dinner.

Things are definitely quiet and out of the way here – and that's ok after the Istanbul/Ankara experience. Throught the village – which is all made of stone and winding roads. You see women in traditional dress chatting and watching the chickens. Judging from the number of roosters here, it might be an early morning. There was a donkey, a cow – and pretty much everyone is growing vegetables in tubs in their courtyards or the patios outside the house. Then, behind it all, in a little valley surrounded by high rising cliffs sits this rather high end cave hotel catering the tourists here. The place is hard to describe – the stone building sort of fade in the cliff wall with lots of different levels and terraces – and someone has done a nice job planting roses and shade trees all over the place. I'll try to provide some pictures.

I understand (through various back channels) that many of my readers want to hear more about the food. Well – today was one of the better days, and not just because of that amazing popsicle at the bus rest area. Turkish food is – as far as I can tell – mostly about good and fresh ingredients. They don't do all that much with them. Mostly the question is whether you want your lamb in chops, ground and served as meatballs or as sort of squashed sausages, or broiled on skewers. Chicken and even fish are also proffered in the same way. This is accompanied by grilled or fresh tomatoes and cucumber. They put some lettuce in the salad, but it is not the main event. I like getting the C(h)oban Salati – which is a chopped salad of cucumber and tomato and maybe some herbs or even a bit of hot green pepper in it. It is served only with a bit of olive oil and – if you want – a lemon wedge to squeeze over it. They have excellent fish which is served whole – so eating it without bones takes some technique and care. Even that rather large meal we had in Istanbul – which my assistant wrote about so luridly- was really just that. A mere surf and turn with about three pounds of shredded lettuce and grated carrrot spread over a large tray. The meal consisted of a fish – either sea bream or trout – and a few extra bites of lamb – the rest was just salad and potato.

Tonights dinner was better. It started with a kind of tomato based barley soup that was nicely seasoned. Then a course of salad – good old cucumbers and tomato with some parsley and corn kernals – this time dressed with a little olive oil and pomegranite juice (really good!). There was also a plate of chicken salad to finish the salad course. The main plate was – of course – groud lamb kofte (meatballs) and rice and (this was a surprise) brussel sprouts. Desert was a kind of honeyed bread topped with some ground spices (cardamom?) and what I think was an unsweetened cream whipped almost to butter. This was served up course by course on the rooftop terrance of one of the buildings facing the opposite bank of old caves as the moon rose over the valley.

So – I hope this proves interesting to my readers. The Golden Horn has not usually been driven to chase after ratings, but I understand my assistant has been spinning little shards of truth into whole cloths of deceptions, so I figure it is important to keep up good relations with you, my cherished readers.

Most Remarkable Thing: Those popsicles really are good.

Photograph: These are the caves on cliff face just opposite our cave. Of course, ours is nicely finished much like the Baggins place at Underhill but the basic idea is the same.

Ataturkalore

July 5th, Sunday: A day of rest and reinvigoration. We both managed to get some decent sleep on that train last night, and enjoyed breakfast rolling through the wheatfields and undulating hills of Anatolia as the train approached Ankara.

And – I am back at the Dedeman Hotel. Nothing spectacular, but it did have a few essential selling points I recollected from my stay here last year: (1) the sauna and (2)the breakfast. I had also hoped to recreate the remarkable dinner narrated in my blog entry “Sea Bream” from last June – but sadly the place is closed on Sunday.

Beyond the routine sort of stuff – find the hotel, get settled, nap, find lunch - the only remarkable things was our trip to the Anitkabir (the burial shrine and museum devoted to Kemal Ataturk and the Turkish revolution). Many photographs of the pavilions and courtyard of the mausoleum. The museum withstood a second look nicely. I've been wanting to learn about that shift – at exactly what point does the Ottoman Empire die and the Republic emerge.

I gather the quick answer is May 19, 1919. At least that is the summer/spring when what used to be the Ottoman army more or less moved over to the leadership of Ataturk – who resigned his commision and said that his allegiance to the Sultan was getting in the way of his duties to the Turkish people. Peace treaties and concordats followed – but this is when the Turks and Ataturk decided they were their own nation and that the Ottoman rulers (at least the current ones) were a major disappointment and they had to act in their own interests.

Returning to the hotel I was reacquainted with the sauna and the pool, then dinner. As mentioned, the nice fish place was unavailable so we ate at some tapas bar. I liked it well enough – my assistant seemed less impressed.

Not much more to report from today. Between the nap, the comfortable shower and great sauna, it really was more a day for rest and restoration rather than insight. So, I'll leave it at that.

Most Remarkable Thing: We are sitting in this tapas bar - eating a nice little arrangement of grilled vegetables, fish and roast potatoes with a nice tarragon sauce - and two big plasma screens over the bar are playing footage of car accidents. Most of the footage was from various security cameras. So we eat our grilled eggplant and admire the mayhem. My photodocumentarian and assistant found this immensely engaging – he hardly could speak a word all dinner for his fascination and amusement. I am beginning to think that he is, in fact, a Turk.

Photo: My photodocumentarian bravely taking on the combined military forces of the Turkish Republic in order to practice his craft.

Anadolu Ekspressi

July 4th : Train from Haydarpasa to Ankara. First blog from a train! This little computer is rather convenient.

Nice day today – if a little mixed up. In the morning we were pretty busy with packing and getting out of the hotel, although the inn keeper did offer up a late check-out after placing a little flag on our table for the 4th of July. So we had to get back to the hotel around two to check out and then nothing until six o'clock to leave for ferry boats to get us to the train station at Haydarpasa. Also, without a shower or refuge available after three, we knew we did not want to take on another big adventure on the far side of town.

So, the low key business was to wander over and browse the carpets and stuff at the state store in Topkapi (there is a government sponsored store that offers guaranteed good merchandise at an expensive but fixed price – so you don't have to bargain, can know you are getting the authentic item, but no bargains). After that we wandered back to the Arasta bazaar thinking we would just look a bit more and then get to lunch. Saw some nice items there at the store where I shopped last year (Harem 49) – and like good merchants they recognized me and could even tell what I had bought the year before and wanted to know if I was interested in any similar.
After checking out of the hotel – and settling up on my assistant's outrageous Raku bills – he decided he would like to go back to the store.

And so it goes – got a nice little kilim/carpet (kind of a mix) that will really look sweet. The bargaining was fun as always although I wasn't that hard nosed (actually I kind of liked the idea of carrying a bit less cash around with me and this seemed as good a ways as any....). My photo documentarian had also saved up his nickels and tips to buy something, but I'll leave it to him to communicate those details. On the whole it was a nice way to spend an afternoon. I do enjoy looking at the carpets and they seem happy to keep talking, giving you water or tea and praising your good tastes.

After that, back to the real world. Took a taxi over to the ferry boats on the north side of the Golden Horn. I think this was a bit of a taxi scam as I am quite confident the Eminonu boats would have been fine if a bit closer to the hotel. Who knows – if I was scammed, it wasn't a very good one as it involvedjust a quick ride over the bridge. The ferry ride across the Bosphorus is simply about the most fun thing you can do for 1.5 YTL. Then we more or less just had dinner and hung out at the train station. Sounds pretty tedious but it was really very nice. The food was typical but good and about half the price on the other side of the strait. Having an hour to sit on the steps and watch the sun go down over the city while the various ferry boats roared past was a nice way to end the day.

And now we are underway – rolling off into Asia.

Most Remarkable Thing: Of course my new carpet is the most amazing piece of textile art since the tapestries of Chartres, but with slightly less jaded eyes I need to remark on that neat little train station restaurant. It looked like it had not changed that much since World War I (when a munitions “sabotage” mostly destroyed the train station), Beautiful blue Turkish style tiles on the wall – nice white and red table cloths, china that looked like it barely made it through the explosion. It felt like being in an Agatha Christy novel.

Photo: The Sultanahmet (Istanbul) from Haydarpasa Train statin (across the Bosphorus). You can see the minarets of the Blue Mosque (left) and Hagia Sophia (right).

Walk on the Wild Side

July 3 – Friday: Today came off perfectly. A rich and full night's sleep. I prudently set an alarm to wake us early in the morning. This annoyed my assistant – and indolent and pleasure-loving sort of person – but it got things going at the right hour. The usual breakfast, tended to some practical details like sending out some laundry. Facing facts, the wash it in the sink approach is ok in a pinch but it can easily become a kind of night-job on these trips. Called a taxi and we were off.

Today's theme was pre-Islamic Istanbul and this means a trip to see the mosaics at Sacra Chora (Karriye Camii), then examining the walls of Theodosius (whose failure meant the failure of pre-Islamic Istanbul) and then a winding walk sort of along the lines of one described in my Frommer's guide down through Balat to Fener (districts in the western part of the city) winding up at the Church of the Ecumenical Patriarch.

Sacra Chora was easily worth the trip. Its located in a quiet village like part of town – winding cobblestone streets, shady pavilions for tea, etc. When built (around 4th or 5th c. CE) it was a monastery in the country (chora). The church itself was constructed in the 10th c. The guide book claims the last bit of money in the Byzantine treasury were poured into this. It's a fairly small church – nothing like the scale of the imperial mosques, but its known for the excellence and the preservation of its mosaics. Enough were still there to give you the feel of a completely and expensively decorated Byzantine church. The mosaics were stunning, as were the painted walls in the outer galleries. My photo-documentarian had his fine camera and this might have been able to get a few shots from inside – we'll see (it might redeem him after his caterwauling about the alarm).

After that we climbed up to the Edirne Gate in the Theoodosian Walls. The walls are impressive and the cut straight across the entire peninsula. The city has made some effort to reconstruct them in places – but they clearly have served (or failed to serve) their purpose. Climbing up on the wall (no small effort in the morning sun here) you get a nice view of the Golden Horn and the city. As normal here, they are completely open and available – no hand railings, etc. and no warning when a step might be crumbling or entirely absent. We made it down ok – and I think about quarter mile after that completely lost our way.

Following the instructions for a walking tour out of a book in Istanbul is probably not a realistic expectation. I think we followed at least large chunks of it – but who knows. Things were actually nicer when I put the stupid book down and began to enjoy things around and about. Balat is one of the poorer neighborhoods (says our guide) but it was nice in its own way (which makes me think it really is not one of the truly poorer neighborhoods. A city of 16 million largely migrant people and families should be able to deliver a much more impressive levels of poverty than Balat. It was a Friday (the holy day of the week) so families were out and about going to the mosque and enjoying the street life.

It was also a part of town that was not accustomed to tourism – and you see a lot more of that open and friendly feeling. Kids want you to take their picture, adults are friendly and greet you if you pause in one spot for awhile, people come out of the shops to help when they see you trying to figure out the stupid tour book map. Actually it was the best part of the day – nice to see some of the city life off the standard trail. It was good to do this sort of wandering with company- and my assistant is definitely not a whiner ( a cardinal virtue in travel companions).
So, it was all good. Actually,we could see we were simply wandering through the neighborhoods alongthe Golden Horn – and after we got to the Ecumenical Patriarchate (a bit of a splash down back in tourist land), we walked down a park along the river/estuary and eventually hailed a cab to get back to the Hippodrome (fun ride!).

The Patriarchate was also interesting. I don't recollect being in a Greek Orthodox church before and this was one of the nicer ones. I'll have to look into the history of the Greek and Russian Orthodox church. I believe that after tha fall of Constantinople there was argument between the Greek and Russian Orthodox over which patricarch is authoritative – starting a fairly nasty schism. The double headed eagle sign over the door was the sign of the Byzantine/Roman emperors. After this schism and the fall of the city, the claim to Roman rule moved up to Russia and the double eagle sign became the crest of the Russian Tsars (Ceaesars). So, the Patriarch in Istanbul was no longer as central – this church was constructed in 1600 and became the center of Christianity in Istanbul. It makes sense why the things is surrounded by high stone walls and iron gates. I gather one Patriarch was hung in the gate there when there was a rebellion against the Ottomans in Greece. The gate has since been welded shut "in grief". Fortunately, there were two other gates on either side.

Back to the familiar Sultanahmet for a nice lunch in a breezy cafe and to stop by another carpet shop. I fear we are getting recognized in the Arasta bazaar. Right now I am writing while watching the container ships pull out of the Bosphorus. My assistant is downstairs catching up on his sleep.

Most Remarkable Thing: Sacra Chora was really impressive, but I've not seen an Orthodox church before - or at least not one like the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It involves this screen of thick gilded material like a golden treacle with the icons set on this. It really was the kind of world historic ornate that I haven't seen since that baroque church in Munich.

Photo: JWK pondering the fate of empires atop the Theodosian walls near the Edirne Gate.

Sinan

Today did not have quite the wonderful start you might hope for. Massive Jet Lag last night – went to bed tired yet unable to sleep.

Here in the Sultanahmet they accentuate the point by staging a late night and pre-dawn call to prayer that echoes across the Bosphorus from a zillion different mosques to clarify exactly how long sleep eludes.

Alas. I gave up early. Did a bit of reading about Sinan up on the roof terrace and was the first down to breakfast. By then – around 8 or 9 – when my assistant was beginning to stir then I was beginning to feel sleepy again and finally caught some shut eye in the later morning. So – half a day down...

But at least the night time reading got me prepared for the afternoon. We started with the Sokollu Mehmet Pasa Mosque- designed by the immortal Sinan (actually endowed for Sokollu's wife, the sister of Suleyman.

My night time reading explained the challenges of figuring out how to get all the necessary components of a proper mosque into the appointed space with maximal aesthetic value and minimal expense. This as actually a smaller mosque – located just behind our hotel (a quick walk for the sleep deprived). But I thought it one of the more beautiful I've seen.

This particular mosque presented the challenge of getting the necessary courtyard and medrasses in on a site that falls steeply down a hill towards the coast. So most excellent Sinan contrived to bring the entrance up from the street level below the medrasse into the courtyard so you rise up through the terracce and not a jot of the impact of the facade is lost. The picture above might clarify things.

Feeling somewhat restored and architecturally invigorated we pushed along across the Sultanahmet and wandered down the Divan Yolu (Main Street) trying to avoid the attention of everyone selling everything to everyone. That seemed rather fun and exotic last year, but it is getting old. The only problem is that my assistant enjoys engaging people in their native language and in these circumstances that is rather like looking to strike up a chat with telemarketers.

Made it to the Sulemaniye – of course the GREATEST acheivement of our hero, Sinan. I guess I'll skip the details as I covered that last year (?). Sad to say the interior of the mosque was every bit as much closed today as it was then. At least its all getting a nice rehab. After a modest lunch of bean soup and salad at my favorite place from yesteryear – we took in the cemetary behind the mosque and the mausoleum of Suleyman the Magnificent and his faithrul Hurrem.
So- a good day built on weak foundations. This evening we pestered some carpet salesmen in the Arasta bazaar and had an immoderate dinner beneath the rising dome structures of the Blue Mosque.

Most RemarkableThing: I'll stick with the entry to Sokollu Pasa Cami (pictured above). Good work, Sinan!

Photo: From the entrance of Sokollu Pasa Cami looking up the stairs under the medrasse towards the fountain in the court with the mosque entrance and dome looming behind.

Antiquities

Back to the "refuge of the world"....

I won't bore you with travel details – all connections were easy – Switzerland looks very nice from the sky, Swissair seats are too hard, Europeans don't like air conditioning – that sort of thing. It all came off ok and here we are.

We arrived yesterday and decided to soldier on with no catch up nap in order to put ourselves right into the local schedule. My assistant practiced his Turkish on the poor shuttle driver and managed to exchange some pleasantries about history and sports teams.

So – yesterday we mostly went out for a big dinner at the Rumeli Cafe. They have a nice roof top terrace. A few plates of Turkish food and some raku on the terrace at the hotel pretty much finished us off.

Hotel Ayasofia is nice. From the roof top terrace you can see the Marmaris and (I believe) the Sokollu Mehmet Pasa mosque. These are not the sweeping views of the Dersaadet or the Nomade where I stayed last year, but for $50 a night off the bill it's on ok compromise. The cash will be better spent later on.

It really does feel good to be back here especially with a bit of knowledge about where things are and what to do (and not do). We took a nice stroll on the way to dinner around Aya Sophia and Topkapi.

This morning it was down to business. After breakfast we figured it made sense to do some of the get-reacquainted to the city museum visiting. Actually, we ended up spending most of the day (until 2) at the Istanbul Archaeology museum. I'm glad we started in the galleries devoted to the tombs of the Sidonian kings. This was a BIG archaeology find in the late 1800s down in Side consisting of a series of underground chambers filled with tombs and sarcophagi. I gather this find was really the motivating factor behind building the Archaeology museum in the first place.

There was a particular sarcophagi – the Alexander tomb – so named NOT because Alexander had anything to do with it but because people thought he was depicted on some of the friezes on the sides. Most of these tombs were shaped like Greek temples, even down to the level of having cornices and carved roof tiles. The Alexander tomb had amazing relief work on the sides depicting battles and hunts. The lion hunt was particularly nice – definitely communicating the spirit of that kind of sport.

I also liked the galleries of classical funeral markers – door styled steele and other types -and also the personal epitaphs written by people from the non-Princely classes. There was one very sweet one someone put on a tomb he made for his dog. I asked my photo-documentarian to get an image of that for my animal sentimentalist readers, so we will see how reliable he is when he downloads his pictures from today.

There was too much to see. The remaining part was mostly "gallery-romping" (my photo-documentarian's expression's for an overly hasty rush through past precious and beautiful things). I must admit that the tile palace – which actually once was a palace joined to the Topkapi complex. It was built in a tiled Seljuk style and is, I gather, the only Ottoman building thus constructed in Istanbul. I believe it was built by the Conqueror himself. Anyway, the layout of the domed rooms – and they way light and air moved through the entire place - was especially nice, and the amazing stained glass work. Actually, it is not stained glass as much as fragments of colored glass set deeply in stone carved fret work so the design with the light through it is amazingly finely designed.

The very last galleries were in the Ancient Oriental history museum (its own building in the complex). I think I like the Hittite aesthetic most – none of that pretty Greek refinery, just solid down to business stuff like bulls, lions and warriors. We also saw the very oldest peace-treaty – drawn up between a Hittite King and Pharoah Ramses II. From the translation I gather they both agree that God demands peace and thus it will ever be between their kingdoms. More likely, I suspect it really took a long and bloody war of attrition to get those two to give it up – either way, there it was. The tiled friezes from the Gates to the temple of Ishtar in ancient Babylon were also remarkable.

And then there was those galleries of Greek and Roman statuary...

Really fine stuff. I've taken it in and been enriched and was then ready to think about some meatballs for lunch,. In the end we turned up on the terrace at the Doy Doy to enjoy their amazing views, shady terrace and gentle breezes on a hot day. Then a nap – and now I see my assistant has gotten up from his nap and crawled up to join me here on the terrace, no doubt thinking about an Efes.....

Later on: Took a walk through the Arasta bazaar and did a quick pied a deux with one of the carpet merchants just outside the bazaar. After that, an evening walk down along the shore line and some dinner at a place nearby.

Most Remarkable Thing:
No, not the peace treaty of Kadesh – although that is likely the most important. I'd have to say those Sidonian tombs- and that Alexander tomb in particular. Anatolia is an in between place and here is all this art that simply combines all the Greek and Egyptian elements. So, you see this enormous Egyptian sarcophagus with the head of Greek on it. On the Alexander tomb everything came together best. I'll see if my photo-documentarian got it adequately, otherwise I'll have to find a picture from the net.

Photo: View of the Archaeology museum from the front terrace of the tile palace. Over the top of things you can see the Tower of Justice.