Turkey

I have been wondering how I can convey all the wonders of Turkey to you in short, quick snippets, but that would be virtually impossible. So, grab a cup of coffee and settle down for a long read!

Day 1 – Istanbul

Three of our party of four (Cathy, Isabelle, and I) arrived in Istanbul bright and early after flying through the night from Doha. We took our bags to the hotel and, since it was too early to check in, stored our bags and started to explore the area. We are staying in the Sultanahmet district which is the historic old city of Istanbul – very tourist-driven and reminds me a bit of the French Quarter in New Orleans.

An early spring morning in Istanbul

We wandered over to a main street where we found a lovely place to grab some breakfast and then we found our way to the Grand Bazaar. It is huge and goes for blocks and blocks with small shops selling rugs, pottery, jewelry, etc. etc. The merchants are charming and friendly, but we restrained ourselves.

Early morning in the Grand Bazaar - it's not usually this quiet & empty

We wandered around until noon when we headed back to the hotel to check in, take a bit of a nap and wait for Jackie (the 4^th in our group) to arrive. The Lady Diana Hotel is a lovely small hotel located about 500 meters from the Blue Mosque – couldn’t be a better location. We can easily walk to all the major attractions, and there are many, many restaurants and shops nearby as well.

After Jackie arrived we headed back out to do some more exploring, then headed back to the hotel for dinner and an early to bed since we had a full day planned for Saturday. I was already in love with Istanbul after only one day. It is a very European city with many outdoor cafes and the people are so warm and friendly.

Day 2 – Istanbul

After breakfast on the rooftop of the hotel, we headed to the Blue Mosque. The tourist crowds were huge, but it is all very well-managed. We queued up and at the entrance you take a plastic bag to put your shoes in to carry with you rather than leaving them outside and having to come back and pick them up. Although signage says women must cover their heads, and we had our scarves with us, no one enforced it and most women did not cover. The mosque is huge and has a long history. The main area has beautiful painting and mosaic work on the domes and walls. By comparison to this the women's area is incredibly small.

We then walked down to Aya Sophia which was originally a Byzantine church. Its beautiful paintings were covered when it was converted into a mosque. It is now being restored – a painstaking task to uncover the Christian paintings without destroying them. I found this to be much more impressive and interesting than the Blue Mosque. The building is enormous and I loved to try to imagine worshippers filling the building.

After a midday beer we visited the Basicila Cistern which was very interesting. It is the largest of about 150 subterranean structures and is about 150,000 square feet with 336 columns. The water came from about 12 miles away via a system of aqueducts. The lighting in the cistern is very effective and added to our amazement and awe of it.

Inside the Basilica Cistern

That evening we walked around and shopped a bit and then stopped for dinner. At the end of our meal, the waiters started dancing and it was great fun to watch. It was an impromptu thing in honour of the owner’s birthday. All the customers got into it and were clapping and yelling encouragement. It was one of those serendipitous things that happens that is so much fun and so memorable!

Day 3 – Istanbul

Today we got a later start after a relaxing breakfast. We wandered around – mostly people-watching. It was Sunday, the weather was incredibly warm and sunny – a perfect spring day, and it seems the entire population was out and about. We decided to try taking the tram and made our way over to the Asian side of Istanbul. Not much happening there, so we headed back over the bridge. The bridge was teeming with fishers – I never saw so many fishing poles hung over the side of a bridge! There is a row of about 10-12 restaurants under the bridge.

Restaurants under the bridge and fishers on the bridge

We decided to grab some lunch there – according to the tour books it’s apparently an experience you have to have to eat under the bridge. We had a red snapper baked in salt. It took a long time to cook and we enjoyed watching the ships coming in and out of the port while we waited. The fish arrived and was flaming. When the flames subsided, the waiter cut through the hard crust of salt to expose and serve the fish. It was sooooo delicious.

Our flaming fish!

After lunch we decided to add to the decadence of the day by having a Turkish bath. What an experience that was! We were each given a towel and pair of panties to wear after we put all our clothes into a locker. Then we entered the large marble room with a huge – I mean huge, there were about 20 women on it – round marble slab in the middle of the room - a very hot, steamy room. I lay down on my stomach was scrubbed all over my entire back, then flipped over and scrubbed on the front. Then I was directed over to sit along the wall on the marble seats where I was rinsed off with buckets of water being poured over me. The most interesting part of this was that in the middle of the huge marble slab, what appeared to be a bachelorette party was going on. About a dozen 20-something-year-old women were singing, one was drumming, and then a few of them got up to dance – all topless, some bottomless too - and completely uninhibited. The bride's friends dressed her in a frilly, ruffly white pair of panties and stretchy tube bra-type thing and she also got up to dance. They were all so lovely and the dancing was very erotic and sexy. After I was rinsed off I headed to the hot tub to relax a bit before getting a massage – and it was one of the best massages I’ve ever had.

After the massage I could hear some clapping and singing going on below and looked over the balcony to where another bridal group was serenading the bride. I managed to capture a small video of it that appears at the bottom of this post (and no, it's not x-rated).

We were so relaxed after all this that we simply couldn’t drag ourselves out to dinner, so we bought some cheese, crackers, wine, etc. and sat in our room and ate, then packed for our early departure on Monday for Cappadocia!

Day 4 – Cappadocia

An early start as we were picked up from our hotel at 5:30 am to catch our flight to Kayseri – a city in the area of central Turkey known as Cappadocia. We were met on arrival and taken to meet the rest of our tour group – 14 in all. We spent some time walking and climbing around some ‘fairy chimneys’ which are similar to the hoodoos in Alberta – rock formations worn down by water and wind.

Fairy chimneys

The area is full of them and many, many caves as well which were used by early Christians in the area. We then moved on to an area where the fairy chimneys looks look like mushrooms. There we were able to climb up to a small cave chapel and see the caves that were living quarters for Saint Simon.

me, Isabelle, Jackie & Cathy in St. Simon's Chapel

Climbing to the top of the hills we found spectacular views. We have been so fortunate with the weather on this trip – it’s been absolutely beautiful, spring weather – and in fact, it was very hot today around the stone, but there was always a breeze and once inside the caves it was very cool.

Our next stop was the town of Avanos where the Red River provides red clay for the pottery the area is known for. We stopped at a pottery workshop and got the requisite tour – complete with some shopping at the end; but I restrained myself, worried mostly about getting something back to Doha without having it all in pieces.

After our lunch break, we headed to the Goreme Open Air Museum which is a collection of 9 cave chapels and a cave church. This is where early Christians gathered and the chapels and church are covered in frescoes, some of which are in remarkably good shape considering the age of them. They are from anywhere from the 4^th to the 12^th century. We then went to a viewpoint that overlooked the entire area – and it was spectacular indeed!

We were then dropped at our hotel for the evening – a cave hotel. Our room is at the top of one of the fairy chimneys and we have a great view of the area. We have been told we’ll have a great view of the hot air balloons drifting over the valley in the morning.

Our room in the cave hotel - carved in a fairy chimney

One of the delights of the day was meeting the other people on the tour. The most inspiring was a couple named Monica and Frank who were 85 and 87 years old respectively and were doing a good job of keeping up with the rest of us as we hiked around these areas. They had met in Vienna after World War II and settled in Westchester County, New York, but have now retired to a home in Puerto Rico! Another couple – George and Odette – were Torontonians, originally from the Middle East. They were on the trip to celebrate their 40^th wedding anniversary. There were two young couples as well – one from Britain/Australia, and the other was a Japanese woman and an Australian man. The final members of our group were a Turkish couple who spoke no English, so it was near impossible to communicate with them. The guide had to repeat all she said in English to them in Turkish.

Frank, Cathy, Monica, Isabelle, Jackie, me & Odette

We had dinner at a restaurant nearby the hotel and the atmosphere and the meal were both wonderful. At the end of the meal, the owner of the restaurant came by our table and we had a great conversation with him about the area and life in the small villages.

Day 5 – More Cappadocia

Thank goodness, we had a later start today, we could catch up on a bit of sleep after yesterday’s early start. We took a long hike through Rose Valley where we saw farmers working in the vineyards uncovering the grapevines that were buried during the winter, and planting other crops – all doing the work by hand because their farms are small and it isn’t economical to purchase farm equipment. Over the course of the two days we saw farmers plowing by hand and using mules to pull their plows. It seemed so quaint to us, but it is such hard work! Besides the farmers, we got up close and personal with the beautiful formations that are the result of erosion.

View of the area around Goreme in Cappadocia

We then visited an art centre where beautiful objects are created out of onyx, turquoise, precious and semi-precious stones. There was a demonstration of shaping onyx into various articles.

After a stop for lunch we visited an underground city where Christians lived for many hundreds of years in hiding from the Romans. The city we visited had eight underground levels of which only 4 are open to the public. I am a bit claustrophobic, and managed to make it down 2 levels, but after that the passageways were too low and close and I simply could not carry on. Neither could Monica and Frank and another couple from Argentina (Ricardo and Maria – also delightful), so we found a table outside and enjoyed apple tea – a Turkey specialty.

Our next stop was a Turkish rug making centre where we saw a demonstration and learned about the many different types of rugs – the materials and techniques used. Of course, we also were shown samples of the different types of rugs, and I am now the proud owner of a silk-on-silk rug that is going to take a place of honour on my wall. The design is called the Tree of Life and is in red and blue-green and I love it!

Our final stop was Pigeon House where pigeon houses have been carved into the rock to make homes for the pigeons that provide the poop for fertilizer. The pigeons were also used as carrier pigeons, taking messages between villages all along the valley.

That night we attended a Turkish Night which was a dinner (really bad typical Turkish food) and Turkish dance which, although pretty bad, at least gave us a taste of the native dances and costumes.

Day 6 – Cappadocia

This is the day we all four looked forward to the most. We were up very early to go for a hot air balloon ride this morning. Our new best friends, Monica and Frank were there too! They needed a bit of help climbing in and out of the basket , but they were such good sports and they loved it, as did I! Watching 50 huge balloons all take off and float along the valley and over the fairy chimneys was a once in a lifetime experience that I am still having a hard time believing I have had.

Spent the rest of the day relaxing in the courtyard of the cave hotel and then flying back to Istanbul. We checked back into our lovely little hotel and went to dinner at a restaurant recommended by a colleague back in Doha. It was a lovely place in an old building with excellent food - we must remember to thank Diane for the recommendation!

Will wind this up for now; but check back later to find out how the week ends!