To Market, To Market

When we travel, one of our favourite things to do is to visit the local markets.  We love the atmosphere - the smells, sights and sounds - created as folks go about their daily life in the towns we visit and open-air markets seem to be a focal point in that regard.

This morning we asked at the hotel front desk about shopping opportunities. Yesterday we had been in the centre of Bodrum and decided that the souvenir shops and other businesses were so geared to tourists (and FULL of tourists) that we just couldn't be bothered.  The young woman at our hotel helpfully advised that we order a taxi and go down the road about 5 kilometres to the shopping mall called Oasis.  "Ah! said I. "At last I will see some real shops selling genuine goods, as opposed to the knock-offs we've been seeing since arriving in Turkey."

Unfortunately, the mall did not fulfil our intention to be parted with our money, although D2 did purchase a good pair of shoes at a very reasonable price. The range of shops was simply not there, so I didn't find what I was looking for.  Never mind that - I was looking forward to visiting our SECOND Wonder of the Ancient World for this trip!  We had already been to the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus earlier in the week so we could tick off one Wonder.  The opportunity to visit the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus was going begging.

We caught a taxi from the shopping mall to the Mausoleum.  I'm not even going to include a photograph, such was our disappointment.  Rubble.  Just rubble.  And not even very much of it.  A few broken bits of old columns - ionic, I think. Rubble, all the same.  Still, two out of seven Wonders is pretty good in anyone's language.  I'd still like to see the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, though.

Deciding that we should probably do a little exercise today and ignoring the ascending temperature of the day, we decided to walk back to the hotel. First good decision of the day.  We accidentally came across the fresh food market, which is apparently open only two days each week.  Not only did we have a wonderful time just wandering down the aisles, looking at all sorts of delicious fruit and vegetables at RIDICULOUSLY cheap prices compared with Melbourne, but we discovered that the outer rim of the market is where the local housewives bring their freshly prepared cooking and baking, to sell. They sit one beside the other, probably catching up on gossip, sharing recipes, talking about their children, complaining about their husbands but most importantly offering their wares for purchase - some baked goods still on oven trays, some cooked items still in pots.

My two favourite Turkish foods are gözleme (very fine pancake filled with spinach and feta, then cooked on a griddle) and börek (also fine flaky pastry with filling, traditionally rolled and curled around and around before baking).  These were both on offer, amongst other things (for example, we tried the stuffed zucchini flowers filled with buttered rice, then stewed together).  Of course, each of the ladies wanted me to say that her cooking was better than her neighbour's, so I had to buy more than one of each. Poor me.

Börek

Gözleme

Here are some images from the market visit.

To finish our impromptu lunch, of course we needed baklava (layer upon layer of filo pastry filled with crushed pistachios and soaked in lots and lots of syrup) and my new favourite Turkish dessert - these amazing circles of deliciousness which are rather like a cross between a Spanish churro and a donut, but also drenched in syrup.  These are available in every Turkish town, from street vendors with carts laden with mountains of them.  It's a good thing we can't get these at home.

D1

Priene to Didyma

Where's that, you say? A visit to these two ancient cities was recommended by our faithful guide Ali (well done Ali) and once again we were not disappointed.

Priene is where you will find The Temple of Athena, but only after a steep climb up a stone stairway that seemed like it would never end. Once amongst the ruins, the first building you arrive at is the theatre, this one a little smaller than those seen as Pergamon and Athesus, with a seating capacity of 5000.

The theatre was constructed in the 4th century BC.

Priene is also notable for the layout of the city. This was one of the first cities to use a grid pattern to lay out the city streets, and standing above all the houses was The Temple of Athena, an imposing structure made from the basalt rock mined from the local hillside.

Large sections of broken columns are evident all around the site.

At Didyma the three remaining columns of the ruined Temple of Apollo stand 25 meters above the surrounding area, an area strewn with giant carved stone pieces from the 70 columns that have fallen to the ground.

The soaring 25 metre columns are all that are left standing. 

The original plan for the temple called for 122 columns and it is thought that only 72 were ever completed.

The skill of the stonemasons can be seen on every stone surface.

The column sections, some more than one meter across, lie on the ground near to where they fell.

We now realise that the ancient world comprised more than Egypt, Greece and the Roman Empire.

D2

Gallipoli

I think almost every Australian who comes to Turkey would be thinking about going to Gallipoli to remember and pay tribute to the soldiers who died there in 1915. There are 25 cemeteries alone for the Australian war dead, and when you walk among the headstones on the graves, you can't help but notice how young the boys were, who went to the other side of the world to fight an enemy they knew nothing about. Those killed and injured among the allied troops were in excess of 100,000. A sobering reminder when you come here is that there were also between 250,000 and 300,000 Turkish soldiers killed defending their homes, their country.

The memorial at ANZAC Cove.

Lone Pine cemetery and memorial.

Commerative wall at Lone Pine.

A commendation to the allied soldiers who died at Gallipoli from the Turkish government.

D2

A Life in Ruins

During the past few days D1 and I have been visiting several sites where ancient Turkish civilisations had established thriving communities, which strangely enough had many of the features that we look for today: meeting places, theatres, market squares, shopping streets, public toilets...the list goes on. 

What is amazing however is the engineering skill that was required to build these previously massive structures, the mining and transportation of the stone, the organisation of a labour force that was mostly made up of slaves and peasants.

The restoration projects being undertaken by the Turkish government are to be commended - several have already been underway for many, many decades, one in particular at Ephesus, with the help of the Austrian government is likely to be going for another 50 years given the scale of the project.

The following photos don't do justice to the size and scale of the restoration work being done at Assos, Pergamon and Ephesus.

The ruins of the Temple of Athena at Assos.

The ruins at Assos overlooking the sea.

The Theatre at Pergamon had a capacity for 12,000 people.

The reconstructed Temple of Trajan at Pergamon. 

Many of the relics from the Pergamon site were removed and taken to Germany where they still reside today in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

The Great Theatre had a capacity for 25,000 people and was used for concerts, plays, gladiator and animal fights, as well as being used as a forum for political discussions.

The Celsus Library built in 117 AD, which also houses a tomb for the governor of Ephesus.

The interior walls of this very large terrace house (950 square meters) at Ephesus are adorned with hand painted murals, each one painstakingly restored to its original condition dating back over 2000 years.

D2

The Kindness of Strangers - again

We first wrote about this topic a few years ago, when we visited Orvieto, a small hilltop town in Umbria.  You can read about it here.

Now we are of course in Istanbul and once again our gobs are smacked by similar generosity.  To start at the beginning, several months ago I began chatting online with a lady on Instagram, whom I shall call B for the purposes of protecting her privacy.  We were chatting about travel after I complimented her on her wonderful photos of Turkey. After a time, we started emailing each other because the Instagram posts were too lengthy, then became Facebook friends as well. It seemed that we were of similar ages and stages of life and both very interested in chatting about travel, cooking and of course our children.  B lives in Istanbul, which I hadn't known to begin with, but as our friendship evolved and I said that we would be visiting Istanbul, she indicated that she was keen to meet up. We told friends and family about this "situation" with my online friend wanting to meet us and to be honest, they warned us that not everything is always as it seems, and we should exercise caution.  I had a good feeling, though, and hoped that I was right. B really was going to be as nice as she seemed to be online.

B is delightful! Truly delightful.  On Saturday she came to our hotel bearing gifts - gifts, and more gifts. Exceedingly generous gifts, at that. Necklaces that she had made for me in exactly the right colours that she thought would suit me, an absolutely divine silk shawl in a stunning shade of green, even gifts from her daughter, to welcome us to Turkey. I was speechless.  B had travelled into the centre of Istanbul on a Saturday afternoon by bus and tram, a journey of one hour, to meet us AND she had brought gifts. How do you thank someone for that?

Anyway, we began our excursion; firstly B took us to a restaurant for a lunch of kofte (Turkish meatballs), then on to the magnificent Gülhane Park where after strolling through the gorgeous botanical gardens we drank tea in the tea garden overlooking the Bosphorus River.  We talked and talked like old friends - B has an excellent command of English, which is just as well, given that my Turkish is limited to "Merhaba!" (Hello!)

We arranged to meet up on the following day, Sunday, with her husband, S, to be included in the next adventure.  He had been working on Saturday but wanted to meet us and extend further hospitality! 

We firstly visited the magnificent Dolmabahçe Palace and Harem, a stunningly beautiful Baroque palace completed in 1856 for the Ottoman Sultans and their wives and women.  The richness of the decorations, the exquisitely painted ceilings and magnificent woven carpets are all exactly as you would expect was befitting for the royal order of residents in the palace. Photographs do not do it any justice but I have included a couple because what's a blog without a few photos, after all? The chandeliers and crystal balustrades of the staircase were simply glorious, but you will have to visit and see them for yourself!

Our next stop was a delicious lunch at the Malta Köskü in the Yildiz Palace. This is no ordinary kiosk, although Köskü does literally translate to that English word - have a quick look at the main photo on this website to get an idea of the grandness of this establishment, once the hunting lodge connected to the palace and now the location for many wedding parties (we counted four brides while we were there).

We continued on to do a tour of Yildiz Palace, a vast complex of former imperial Ottoman pavilions and villas used as the Sultan's residence and for visiting dignitaries from other countries (the German Chancellor Kaiser Wilhelm stayed there, as did Nicolae Ceausescu and more recently Bill Clinton).

After that, we headed back to the car to return to the hotel - our Turkish hosts were not quite done with the hosting yet, though, as we were "forced" to stop at a cafe on the way home, for iced coffee and pastries.

So, what do you make of that? Perfect strangers become perfect friends. We felt very blessed. We intend to catch up with B and S on our return to Istanbul in a couple of weeks.

D1

From Taksim Square to the Spice Bazaar

We have all heard about Taksim Square. It's the place Turkish citizens living in Istanbul love to demonstrate their feelings, most recently about the tragic mine disaster in Soma. Luckily for us there were no such gatherings on the day, so after a quick look around the square, we were off down Istiklal Avenue on our quest for bargains. 

Istiklal Avenue is one of the longest retail shopping strips in the world and there is nothing you can't buy there. Even on a wet Friday afternoon it was packed with people, all on their way to somewhere, some still searching for a bargain (D1), others with bags full of goodies.

 

           The avenue is alive with all sorts of people, some to entertain, and others trying to sell you something.

There seems to be no age barrier when it comes to busking for a Lire.

Istiklal Avenue is also famous for its old trams, and for those not up to walking, a small amount of change will get you a ride on a red rattler.

At the end of the strip is the also famous Galata Bridge, the crossing point between what is known as the Golden Horn ( the old part of Istanbul) and the new town. The bridge is a popular meeting place for many local fishermen who come here to try their luck and hopefully take home a bucketload of very small sardine-like fish.

This is also the place where locals and visitors come to buy fish sandwiches which are prepared on floating fast food boats.

Finally our journey comes to an end at the Spice Bazaar, a vast collection of vendors selling everything from rolling pins to fabulous aromatic ingredients from the four corners of the globe. As is often the case, there are many shops for the tourists who are here in large numbers, and there are other shops outside in the side streets where the prices are more reasonable and used mainly by the locals.

When we return it Istanbul in a few weeks from now, we will once again visit the Spice Bazaar on a quest for the best Turkish Delight, and explore the labyrinth which is the Grand Bazaar on our never ending search for a bargain.

D2

A Visit to an Hamam

For those of you that don't know, a hamam is a Turkish bath house, and today D1 and I went to experience the much talked-about pleasure of being scrubbed to the bone in front of an audience of strangers, all eager to see whether Aussie bits looked the same as theirs.

The process starts by lying prostrate on a hot marble slab, and you stay there until the perspiration is literally running off you, at which time a hundred year old gentleman appears ( a hundred year old lady for D1) and proceeds to scrub you with a giant steelwool glove, and he does this until he can show you the visible evidence of his efforts, which is bucket loads of dead skin clinging to your now depleted body. He then tips buckets of hot water over you to wash the evidence down the giant drain plug after which you lie down on the hot slab of marble again so that he can get the suds bucket and wash you from head to toe...and then there are more buckets of hot water thrown over you to clear the suds from your eyes and wash away any remaining signs of life.

Now it's time for the massage. Previous massages in Asia consist of gentle but firm movements resulting in a feeling of well-being, at peace with the world. The massage in the hamam is more deliberate and forceful with lots of hard pressing into pressure points, fast and hard hand movements which make you jump from the table only to be pushed firmly back into place for the next jab to the ribs and thumb into the thigh.

Now it's time for a shower, and you can't help but feel that you have survived the entire treatment  when the hundred year old guy returns and beckons you back to the now even hotter marble slab for scrub down Mark 2. There is more soap, more hot water buckets, more sliding around on the hot marble slab, and all the time the hundred year old guy is telling me that I should remember to leave a tip for him (reminding me that he's attendant number 30) before I escape back onto the street.

Another shower, a rest on a cooler marble slab, a brief moment of reflection wondering if D1 is having as much fun as I am, and then it's time to be dried off by the hundred year old guy and released to go and get changed.

On the way out the masseuse, the hundred year old guy, the towel guy all get tips, and I get lots of thank yous for being so generous (D1 is also spreading her financial largesse) and we are dismissed into the throngs of people on the street on a typical Sunday morning in Istanbul.

Was it a great experience? Yes, it was. Was I inappropriately touched by the hundred year old guy? I don't think so. Would I go back and do it all again? In a heartbeat...it was fabulous, and D1 feels the exact same way.

No photos of our visit to the hamam in this post for obvious reasons, but if you're ever in Istanbul we highly recommend the Cemberlitas Hamami (www.cemberlitashamami.com). It's an experience like no other.  Here's a photo from the internet to give you a fair idea of what happened.

D2

Istanbul - Part One (of several)

Apologies for the lateness of this first blog post - of course we have been busy, but we also had problems with our blogging platform.  We still have not completely rectified the issue but wanted to get a blog post written quickly, before all of our loyal readers (ha!) became completely disenchanted and stopped checking the site. We have another post or two about Istanbul in the pipeline, but there will probably be another delay before we can post them.  Tomorrow (Monday 26 May) we leave for Gallipoli. 

We arrived in Istanbul on Thursday afternoon and everything has been absolutely peachy since then.  What a city! The last couple of days have completely shaken my expectations to the core (speaking of which, there was an earthquake this afternoon just off the coast, measuring around 6 on the Richter Scale and in case you were worried about us, hold the calls to the Embassy - we're absolutely fine).  I knew this would be an interesting place, but oh my! It's fabulous! We've been really lucky with the weather, which always helps how you feel about a place.

The guide met us at the airport and it's been go, go, go, from that moment on.  Below are some selected photos and brief captions to give an idea of what we've been up to.

Thursday night we went to the top floor of our hotel where there is a rooftop bar and enjoyed a quiet drink and snack before heading down the road to a small restaurant for a mixed meze plate and another drink or two to settle us down after our long flight.  Loved the mint tea at the end of all that.  The past couple of days have certainly demonstrated that Turkey is good at tea! 

Yesterday we visited Topkapi Palace, Hagia Sophia, Yerebatan Cistern and the Blue Mosque.  We found the cistern unexpectedly interesting and beautiful. Who'd have thought that an underground water storage facility could be so romantic? The cistern was allegedly built by 7000 slaves in the 6th century as a water filtration system for the Great Palace of Constantinople.  It's absolutely massive and is supported by 336 marble columns arranged in rows.

Blue Mosque at sunset as seen from our hotel rooftop

Hagia Sophia Mosque - once a Greek Orthodox basilica, it then became a mosque and is now a museum.

Interior Hagia Sofia Mosque

Yerebatan Cistern

After a quiet dinner on the rooftop we went for a stroll and we were cajoled into enjoying the delights of some late-night tea, rice pudding and hookah pipe smoking. The evening's frivolity was accompanied by live music and a whirling dervish show.

Whirling Dervish show - this religious order was founded in the 13th century and is marked by the famous practice of its followers to whirl in slow circles as a form of devotion.

D1

Merhaba!

It's been a long time since my last confession blog post (I've never confessed, just so you know) but the time has come, as the walrus said*, to talk again.  As this is a travel blog, we are going to take up the keyboard once more to write about our journey. 

We are leaving for Turkey for 3.5 weeks on 21 May and we intend to blog as on previous occasions (you can read about those trips below, should you be so inclined). Hopefully we will always have an internet connection and will be able to update the blog every couple of days, specifically with photos and brief anecdotes about the trip.

Hoşçakalın

D1 and D2

* "The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax
Of cabbages and kings."