It’s deja vu all over again. Just two weeks ago we flew home to Florida from London’s Heathrow Airport and now, here we are again! Our flight on British Airways landed at 11:00 a.m. after being delayed taking off from Miami because a passenger who had checked his luggage failed to show up at the … Continue reading
Tag Archives: Turkey & Greece
Istanbul
We landed at Istanbul airport in the early afternoon and took a shuttle along the waterfront to the old city. I thought I’d post a map to give you some perspective about where in the world we are (right there at the blue dot). Istanbul is the only city in the world that I know … Continue reading
East Meets West
In biblical times, Istanbul was known as Byzantium, founded by Greeks around 600 B.C. The city later came under dominion of the Roman Empire. In 285 A.D., the administration of the Roman Empire was divided in half and in 324 A.D., the Roman Emperor Constantine moved the capital of the eastern division of Rome to … Continue reading
Harem
After conquering Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmet II set about establishing his Ottoman Empire. First order of business: build a palace. Every good islamic emperor needed somewhere to keep all his concubines and slave girls. So, in 1459, the Sultan ordered the building of Topkapı Palace which was to become the residence of the Ottoman … Continue reading
Magic Carpet Ride
Yesterday afternoon as we walked back toward the hotel, we thought we would stop at the Blue Mosque. As we approached the steps, a young Turkish man walked up to us and said that we could not go in the mosque just then because prayer was in process and it was a holy day; we … Continue reading
Old Meets New – Bosphorus River Cruise
Yesterday, we got a relatively early start and took a river cruise up the Bosphorus to the Black Sea. The boat departed at 10:35 from Eminönü next to the Galata Bridge which spans the Golden Horn tributary of the Bosphorus. It’s about 18 miles up the Bosphorus from old Istanbul to the Black Sea. Along … Continue reading
Anadolu Kavağı and Yoros Castle
The northern terminus of our Bosphorus cruise ended at the fishing village of Anadolu Kavağı. All along the waterfront were open-air seafood cafes and fishing boats. We decided to get in a little exercise before lunch, so we immediately headed up the hill to the ruins of the Roman fort called Yoros Castle. It was … Continue reading
Attaboy Atatürk
We got off the river cruise one stop before the southern terminus so that we could walk along the Bosphorus to the Tünel, an underground funicular, that would take us up to Taksim Square and the Galata Tower at the top of the hill overlooking the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul. As we exited the Tünel, … Continue reading
Outside In, Inside Out
Yesterday, we took a long walk across town to the Chora Church. When it was originally built in the early 5th century, this church stood outside the city walls that had been built about 100 years earlier by the Roman Emperor Constantine. However, the later Emperor Theodosius II extended the walls of the city in … Continue reading
Mosque Ethos
There are mosques everywhere here. I mentioned that there is one right across the street from us. Here’s a picture of the minaret that I took from the roof of our hotel which is where we have breakfast every morning. Note the loudspeaker on the minaret. Through loudspeakers like these, at blaring volume, the Adhān … Continue reading
Spice Girls
The Kapalı Çarşı, the Grand Bazaar, is a covered shopping district spanning 66 streets and containing somewhere around 5,000 shops. Here’s one of the main entrances: The Grand Bazaar has been a marketplace for about 600 years. Many of the shops seem to be held in the same family for generations, which means that these … Continue reading
Turkish Bath
When we were in Baden Baden, Germany, last Fall, we really enjoyed the Roman-style bath we had at the Friedrichsbad. So, we decided to try a Turkish bath here in Istanbul for comparison. Dale had read that only the Süleymaniye Hamami, “hamam” being the Turkish word for bath, makes provision for couples; all the other … Continue reading
Cappadocia
We had an early, but uneventful flight from Istanbul to Nevşehir in the midst of the Cappadocia region in central Turkey, with the minor of exception of the hardest landing we have ever experienced – it really woke us up. Nevertheless, we did enjoy traveling on Turkish Airlines. Nevşehir Airport is in the middle of … Continue reading
A Tuff Hike in the Pigeon Valley
Cappadocia is famous for its strange geological formations and cave dwellings. The soft rock that makes up the ground and hills is called “Tuff.” The guide book says that 30,000,000 years ago, the three volcanoes in the region erupted and covered the plateau with ash and mud. Tuff is the result of the compression of … Continue reading
Slip ‘N Slide
We took a different route back to Göreme from Uçhisar, walking the road along the ridge, looking down on Pigeon Valley. This gave us a view into the areas that were not reachable from the valley floor. We had a little trouble finding a way down, although we could see trails below, so we knew … Continue reading
A Religious Experience
As we neared the valley floor, we spotted a cave complex of greater proportion than those we had been exploring on our way down from the ridge, so we went to investigate. It was a columned Christian church, carved into the cliff! We entered through the large cave opening to the right, inside of which … Continue reading
Troglodytes
One of the ancient peoples to settle in Turkey were the Hittites from Europe. They were attacked by invaders from Thrace around 1200 B.C. Those Hittites living in the area now known as Cappadocia literally took to the hills for refuge, but they also went underground because the rock was so soft that they could … Continue reading
Holy Cow!
After visiting the underground city on Thursday morning, we continued southwest to the Ihlara Valley. As we drove along, we almost felt like we were in Colorado, approaching the Rockies. But once we got to the Ihlara Valley, it seemed more like we were in Utah or Arizona, back in the canyon lands. There was … Continue reading
Up, Up and Away in our Beautiful Balloon
Yesterday, we were glad, for the first time, to hear the morning call to prayer which, here in Cappadocia, was at 4:05 a.m. We were being picked up at 4:35 for an early morning balloon flight! It was a little windy Friday morning, so the company we chartered with, Butterfly Balloons, had to launch with … Continue reading
A Couple More Churches
After our early morning balloon ride, we went back to the hotel, ate breakfast, and took a nap. In the afternoon, we went to the Göreme Open Air Museum, a highlight on the tour bus circuit. We should have taken a pass on it; crowds ruin things for me. I’m going to be brief on … Continue reading
