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The story of the Ottoman cannonballs in Nice

2016-06-06T07:00:00.000-04:00

The story of the Ottoman cannonballs in Nice

A view of the port of Monaco and the palace (R).

The current stop on our global tour is the southern region of France. We are heading from nice towards Monaco, a distance of 30 kilometers. Nice bays welcome us along the way, and we stop in each one to take photos. One of our stops is Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. The bays offer extraordinary views for their visitors. Finally we arrive in Monaco.
This is the second smallest country in the world after Vatican City, measuring two square kilometers in area. That's right -- two square kilometers. In the beginning, this seems unbelievable. This is a small country that has some tall buildings. Monaco is a member state of the UN. The population is 33,000 and its capital city is Monte Carlo.
Even though it is a small state, Monaco is able to attract a huge number of visitors every year. Banking, tourism and gambling are its main sources of revenue. The country is administered by a constitutional monarchy. The head of state is the prince of Monaco, who lives in a castle on the top of a hill. The Grimaldi family has ruled the country for seven centuries.
We leave one of the smallest states in the world and head towards Cannes, a city known for its film festivals. The population of Cannes is 70,000. The most important event in the city is the Cannes Film Festival, organized in mid-May every year in the Palace of Festivals. The scenery in Cannes is just breathtaking.

Nearly 1,400 Turks live in Cannes and Nice, and they mostly work in construction. They are doing their best to make a living. We stop by the Ala Turca kebab restaurant in Mandelieu, near Cannes. The Turkish entrepreneurs proudly offer Turkish shawarma -- a Levantine meal in which lamb, chicken, turkey, beef, veal, or mixed meats are grilled on a spit for as long as a day -- on the southern shores of France. We enjoy freshly served dishes, and the owner and the staff love their jobs.
We return to the city of Nice where we started our tour. We are surprised to see an Ottoman cannonball on the wall during our city tour. The Ottoman army sieged the city in 1543 and used cannonballs to seize control. One of these balls has been kept on the city walls.

Back in 1543, Nice was under the control of the Germans, the archenemy of the French. The Ottoman navy was asked by the French king to rescue the city. The Ottomans took the city from the Germans in 10 days and handed it over to the French. It was almost winter; therefore, the operation was postponed to the springtime. The Ottoman navy spent the winter in another French city, Toulon, which took on the appearance of an Ottoman city. The commander of the navy, Barbarossa, became upset because the French who had asked for their assistance were not ready for war and the promises they made were not kept. He then decided to withdraw the Ottoman fleet. In April of 1544, the Ottoman navy returned home after saving the south of France from the German occupation. After the Ottomans left, the French envoy said: “There has been no complaint that the Turks hurt anybody here. They were kind and polite. They paid for everything they bought during their stay.”

The residents of Toulon told stories of the Ottoman troops who were staying in their city; they remembered the Turks praying and bringing peace to the city as well as making their city a second İstanbul. A few centuries after this incident, a glorious painting depicting the Ottoman navy anchored in the Port of Toulon was hung in the municipal palace of the city, which hosted one of the most crucial bases of the French navy. An inscription below the painting honoring the memory of Barbarossa reads, “What you see is Barbarossa and his navy, who saved us all.”
Turkish Airlines (THY) is the only airline flying directly from İstanbul to Nice, and travel between İstanbul and Monte Carlo, Cannes or St. Tropez takes only two-and-a-half hours. Turkish Airlines has daily flights to Nice because of growing demand. The number of French tourists using Turkish Airlines in Nice has increased by 80 percent over the last year.
Turks living in the region have launched an education center, which they have needed for years, to educate their children. The Etude La Fontaine education center was founded in Marseilles in 2007. In 2008, it moved to its own building, and classes began on Nov. 8, 2008. Currently, there are 60 students studying at the center. The students take complimentary classes, and in addition to basic classes they also take English lessons. Center administrators note that they instruct the classes, particularly mathematics, in the French language, to make sure that the students address their deficiencies in school. The center also offers social activities for its students, including guitar, theatre and folklore classes as well as Turkish language sessions for the French students.

Keywords: nice , travel

source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_the-story-of-the-ottoman-cannonballs-in-nice_354768.html

In search of the seven churches of Asia Minor

2016-05-23T07:00:00.000-04:00

In search of the seven churches of Asia Minor

Güvercin Adası, Kuşadası (Photo: Pat Yale)

“Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyateira (Ahkisar), Sardis, Philadelphia (Alaşehir) and Laodicea.”
Best known as a sun and sand holiday destination, Turkey is also popular with pilgrims in search of the sites associated with the early history of Christianity in what was once Asia Minor. Some of those pilgrims take to the road following in the footsteps of St. Paul, who visited Anatolia on several occasions. Others come in search of the so-called Seven Churches of the Revelation, a phrase rich in meaning to those who know their Bible, but somewhat more mysterious to the rest of us.

So what were those seven churches and what can be seen at the sites now?

The Book of Revelation is the mystical last chapter of the New Testament. It was written by St. John of Patmos who may or may not have been the same person as St. John the Evangelist (also known as St. John the Apostle and St. John the Theologian), the close friend of Jesus who was with him at his death. If they were indeed the same person, then St. John of Patmos would also have been responsible for the gospel of St. John, one of the earlier books of the New Testament that recounts the life of Jesus.

Unfortunately, we are talking about events that took place almost 2,000 years ago, hence the uncertainty. According to some stories after the death of Jesus, St. John took Jesus' mother Mary from Jerusalem to Ephesus, by then the largest city of Roman Asia Minor. There he may have fallen foul of the authorities by refusing to take part in the imperial cult, which accorded the Roman emperor the status of a divinity. Even if St. John of Patmos and St. John the Evangelist were not the same person, it is likely that a St. John refused to sacrifice to the Emperor Domitian (r. 81-96), for which offence he was exiled to Patmos, then a desolate penal colony.

Already elderly by the time he arrived on Patmos, St. John then had a vision that inspired him to write letters to seven communities (a better translation of the Greek word “ekklesia” than “churches”) scattered around Ephesus. Those letters seem to have been intended to shore up their sometimes-wavering Christian faith.

Assuming that this letter-writing St. John was a different person from St. John the Evangelist, it is likely that he died and was buried on Patmos, reputedly at the great age of 120. If, on the other hand, he and the Evangelist were indeed one and the same person, it would appear that he eventually returned to Ephesus and took up residence on Ayasuluk Hill, now in the center of Selçuk. There, he wrote his gospel before dying and being buried on the hill where a great basilica was erected over his grave.

Today, you can easily visit all the places that received a letter from St. John. However, in the first century the Christian congregations almost certainly worshipped either in their homes or in caves, synagogues or outdoor venues. The ruined churches to be seen at the sites all date from the fourth century onward, which means that they have no direct connection with St. John.

Ephesus

By far the best known of the communities was Ephesus, which may already have had a population of some 150,000 in the latter half of the first century. Aside from the link with St. John, Ephesus was home for some years to St. Paul until, after angering the trinket-sellers who profited from pilgrims to the Temple of Artemis, he was effectively drummed out of town.

According to legend, St. John returned to Ephesus by floating on a cork that bore him as far as Miletus. Back in the city, he soon had problems with the temple priests who wanted him to prove the power of his god by drinking poison from a chalice. St. John supposedly made the sign of the cross over it, whereupon the poison slithered out of it in the shape of a snake, an image that came to represent the saint in later icons. He then proceeded to restore to life two criminals who had also been made to drink the poison.

St. John is said to have performed other miracles at Ephesus, including restoring to life Drusiana, his erstwhile landlady whom he caused to rise from her coffin and trot off home to cook him a meal.

For today's visitor, the most obvious reminder of Christianity in Ephesus is surprisingly easy to overlook. The ruins of a huge basilica still survive to the west of the lower gate, the entrance nearest to Selçuk. Here the first church dedicated to Mary the Mother of God was built in the fourth century on the site of an older building whose purpose is unclear. Its sheer size aside, its most striking feature was its baptistery, which is still adorned with huge stone-carved crosses. It was in this building that the Third Ecumenical Council of 431 made the decision to expel Nestorius, the patriarch of Constantinople, from the church, leading to a schism and the eventual birth of the Chaldean Church.

Smyrna

Ancient Smyrna stood on the hillside at Bayraklı, in the northern part of what is now İzmir. Although the site has been excavated, there is little to remind visitors that it once had a Christian community. St. John is said to have ordained as bishop of Smyrna St. Polycarp, who was burned to death, probably for refusing to swear an oath to the emperor as god in c.155.

Pergamum/Bergama

Newly elevated to World Heritage Site status, the ancient city of Pergamum, north of İzmir, is best known for the fantastic Greco-Roman ruins both on the lofty Acropolis and across town where the Asklepion was a hugely important medical shrine. Many visitors barely glance at the huge but shattered ruin called Kızıl Avlu (the Red Courtyard) that started life as a temple to the Egyptian gods Isis, Serapis and Harpocrates. According to St. John, this was the very throne of the devil, so it's perhaps appropriate that a small church dedicated to him was built right inside it in the fourth century. St. John also mentions an Antipas, whom he ordained here and who was martyred for his faith by being roasted alive in a bull-shaped cauldron in 92 A.D.

Thyateira

Perhaps the least satisfactory of the sites in terms of what there is for a visitor to see is Thyateira, which sits right in the built-up center of modern Akhisar, near Sardis. Although ruins of a building with an apse survive, no Christian artifacts were found in it, so it was probably a civic structure. Otherwise, you can see only the scant remains of a porticoed street.

Interestingly, in the Acts of the Apostles, another book of the Bible, St. Paul reports having baptized a seller of purple cloth named Lydia, a native of Thyateira whom he met in Philippi in modern Greece at the end of his second journey.

Sardis

The main archeological site at Sardis is dominated by the remains of a magnificent synagogue and a huge reconstructed wall from the Hall of the Imperial Cult. However, if you look closely at the row of shops excavated beside the synagogue you'll see what appears to be a font with huge crosses carved into it, apparently suggesting that this building was at some point converted into a baptistery.

If you then walk to the separate site of the Temple of Artemis you will pass on your right the remains of a small fourth-century apsidal church with its brick dome collapsed on top of it. More impressively, on the north side of the huge temple there stands an intact church where an apse was apparently added to a basically fourth-century structure 200 years later. Afterwards, it was buried by a landslide and was only dug out again in 1912, hence its fine state of preservation

Philadelphia

As with Thyateira, so with Philadelphia, the slight remains of which survive right in the heart of modern Alaşehir, near Sardis. The difference here is that these remains consist solely of the soaring brick columns that once supported the dome of what must have been a colossal church dedicated to St. John the Theologian. It was destroyed in 1922 toward the end of the Turkish War of Independence.

Laodicea

In some ways the most rewarding of the seven sites to visit nowadays is Laodicea, near Pamukkale, where archeologists have been working hard to make sense of what was, not so long ago, just a mess of fallen stones. In particular, they are meticulously rebuilding the Byzantine church in the heart of the ruins which features a lovely mosaic floor.

Keywords: churches , Asia

source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_in-search-of-the-seven-churches-of-asia-minor_354944.html

Around the Sea of Marmara: Exploring İstanbul’s backyard

2016-05-09T02:12:00.000-04:00

Around the Sea of Marmara: Exploring İstanbul’s backyard

Gelibolu (Photo: Pat Yale)

Racing into İstanbul in a taxi from the airport, visitors rarely have time to appreciate the lovely stretch of water to their right. Then they wake up in their Sultanahmet hotels and find that breakfast is served on a roof terrace that offers a panoramic view of what some mistakenly assume to be the Bosporus but is in fact the Sea of Marmara.

Covering an area of 11,350 square kilometers, the Sea of Marmara has always held great strategic importance as the link between the Black Sea and the Aegean via the straits of the Bosporus to the northeast and the Dardanelles to the southwest. It's named after Marmara, the largest island in the Marmara group that lies to the south of the sea. That in turn is named after the marble (“mermer” in Turkish) that is still quarried in great quantities there.

The Sea of Marmara is effectively İstanbul's backyard, yet most of the settlements along its shore receive relatively few foreign visitors despite being easy to get to. The following is a summary of what to see if you drive around the sea in a counterclockwise direction.

Tekirdağ

Heading west out of İstanbul along the northern shore of the Sea of Marmara, it takes a long time to get clear of the urban sprawl and the build-up of holiday homes, but eventually you arrive in Tekirdağ, best known in Turkey for its rakı factory but also an active fishing port where you can stroll along the promenade and watch the men fixing their nets in the sun.

The main mosque is a minor work of the great architect Sinan, but more interesting are two small museums, the first the local archeology museum which is housed in a magnificent early 20th-century building, the second a monument to Prince Francis II Rakoczy (1676-1735), a Hungarian exiled to this then-remote Ottoman town after he took part in the Hungarian War of Independence against the Habsburgs. It contains some lovely watercolors of old Tekirdağ.

Gelibolu

If you continue driving around the shores of the sea, you will eventually reach the mouth of the Dardanelles at Gelibolu, a very pretty little harbor town presided over by a tower that has been converted into a museum to Piri Reis (c. 1465-1555), a Gelibolu-born admiral who produced the first map to show the American continent in its entirety. Gelibolu is also home to a small Çanakkale museum as well as to the largest Mevlevihane (lodge for whirling dervishes) in the world. There's a beach at nearby Hamzaköy and fish restaurants dishing up fresh sardines all around the harbor.

Biga and Karabiga

If you take the ferry across from Gelibolu to Lapseki and then continue driving round the Sea of Marmara (the road diverts inland at this point), you will come to the small town of Biga, interesting only for a couple of surviving Ottoman mansions, one converted into a hotel, the other into a museum. Here, though, you can take the road that heads north to the shore at Karabiga, where pieces of an old castle tumble picturesquely down the cliffs of a much more rugged stretch of coastline. It was near here in 334 B.C. that Alexander the Great first defeated the Persians at the Battle of Granicus.

Erdek

Once a glitzy holiday resort that attracted the moneyed elite, Erdek is now a faded shadow of its old self but filled with hotels that nonetheless boast priceless sunset views over the Sea of Marmara from their balconies. The only specific tourist attraction nearby is the minor archeological site at Cyzikus, one of those places where you come to ponder the strange turns of the wheel of fortune that rendered what was once a town as rich and powerful as Ephesus an also-ran in the touristic stakes.

Marmara Islands

Erdek offers one of the main access points to the Marmara Islands throughout the summer. If you fancy a quick sun-and-sand break away from İstanbul, then these islands might just fit the bill. Mainly catering to the Turkish-family holiday market, the main island Avşa in particular is full of small family-run pensions that don't charge an arm and a leg and are often very close to the sea. Marmara island is bigger, more mountainous, and perhaps more visually enticing. The smaller, less readily accessible islands of Ekinlik and Paşalimanı are predictably more exclusive.

Mudanya

Continuing eastwards along the Sea of Marmara, you will come eventually to Mudanya, a ferry port that played an important role in the final events of the Turkish War of Independence as the place where İsmet İnönü met the leaders of the British, French and Italians to thrash out the boundaries of the new Turkish Republic. The elegant Mütadele Evi (Armistice House) where they did this is now open to the public as a museum and offers a chance to see inside one of the fine seaside mansions built as summer retreats by some of İstanbul's wealthiest families in the early 20th century.

Trilye

Just a little further east, you will come to the lovely little seaside town of Trilye, once a largely Greek settlement known for its fine olive oil and called Zeytinbağı. Here street after cobbled street is lined with lovely old Ottoman houses in varying states of repair, the centerpiece being the grand Taş Mektep (Stone School) that started life as a seminary for priests. Also worth seeking out are three small Byzantine churches, two of them in ruins, the third restored for use as the Fatih Cami.

Yalova/Termal

One of the best-known destinations on the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara is Yalova, one of the ports for fast-ferries from İstanbul and just a short bus ride away from Termal, a lovely wooded spa resort that found particular favor with Atatürk. Here you can swim in the open air in a large heated pool or sample the more discreet charms of assorted Turkish baths before taking a stroll around a large arboretum. You can also visit the newly restored summerhouse built for Atatürk, while in Yalova itself there is a more elegant sea-facing wooden pavilion for which he was also responsible. It's called the Yürüyen Köşkü (Walking Pavilion) because when the branches of nearby trees started to encroach on the view he had it painstakingly inched a little further along the coast.

Karamürsel

Much less visited than Yalova/Termal, the small town of Karamürsel nonetheless boasts a pleasant landscaped waterfront whence you can hop on a ferry across the Sea of Marmara to Kocaeli (İzmit). Karamürsel played a walk-on part in Ottoman history as the site of the first naval shipyard founded in 1327. Accordingly, there's a monument here to Karamürsel, the admiral responsible who also designed the kadırga, the prototype of the galleys that served the navy in its early years.

Eskihisar

Near Karamürsel is Topçular, where it's possible to hop on a ferry and cross back to the northern side of the Sea of Marmara at Eskihisar, a small town that is more or less a suburb of İstanbul now. As you approach across the water, you will get an excellent look at the huge castle that still dominates the town. It was here that the great Ottoman artist, archeologist and museum-maker, Osman Hamdi Bey, kept a summerhouse. A lovely whitewashed yalı (waterside mansion), it's open to the public as a museum that shows off replicas of his paintings, the best known of which is “The Tortoise Trainer” that is on display in İstanbul's Pera Museum. Osman Hamdi Bey is buried in a shady cemetery nearby.

Hereke

Heading back to İstanbul, you might want to make one last quick stop at Hereke, once the place where fine silk carpets were woven to adorn the İstanbul palaces. Today the old factory is intermittently open to the public, who can also pause to appreciate a small yalı built for Kaiser Wilhelm II, who introduced chemical dyes from Germany to Turkey. Despite the busy main road roaring behind it, there's still a very pretty little harbor here where you can tuck into one last fish supper before returning to İstanbul.

Crossing the Sea of Marmara

Fast ferries sail from Yenikapı in İstanbul to Yalova, Mudanya and Bandırma, near Erdek (www.ido.com.tr/en/timetables/2014-summer-timetable). At the Dardanelles end, car ferries cross from Gelibolu to Lapseki (www.gestasdenizulasim.com.tr/bilgiler.php?mid=16). At the İstanbul end, car ferries cross from Topçular to Eskihisar every 20 minutes.

In summer there are car ferries from Tekirdağ to the Marmara Islands (www.adalarvapursaatleri.com/tekirdag-feribot-gidis-saatleri.html). All year round, there are ferries to the Islands from Erdek (www.gestasdenizulasim.com.tr/bilgiler.php?mid=16).

Keywords: Marmara , travel

source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_around-the-sea-of-marmara-exploring-istanbuls-backyard_355621.html

Touring Üsküdar

2016-04-25T07:00:00.000-04:00

Touring Üsküdar

(Photo: Today's Zaman, Mehmet Yaman)

The landscape of İstanbul seems more artistic if you look from Üsküdar -- that is, of course, if you ignore the freakish buildings.
We decided to take a tour of Üsküdar in the month of Ramadan. Yahya Kemal, a famous poet, favored this part of the city because it was conquered first, praising it as follows: “Üsküdar, the city of witnesses of a magic dream / Every other city envies you…” This district hosts a number of important places that make İstanbul memorable. It welcomes its visitors via Maiden's Tower, the Aziz Mahmud Hüdai Tomb, Çamlıca and Çengelköy. It is summer time. It is hot everywhere. But still we identified a route for a tour in Üsküdar to have a better taste of the spiritual atmosphere of the city. I should tell you in advance that the tour does not include certain famous places like Kuzguncuk, Beylerbeyi, Çengelköy and Kandilli. Only the destinations within walking distance are included. Well, let's get started:

Salacak and Maiden's Tower

We have a suggestion for those who would like to see the historical peninsula. At sunset, you can break your fast in a restaurant here or on the rocks looking towards the Blue Mosque or Hagia Sophia. The azan is filling the air. It is accompanied by a nice view of Maiden's Tower and İstanbul's historical imagery. The nice thing is that here you can't see the modern skyscrapers destroying the city's skyline.
1- Rum Mehmet Pasha Mosque
Some readers may ask whether this is the right place to start an Üsküdar tour. Let me explain. We briefly pass by a mosque named after Mihrimah Sultan, Sultan Suleiman's daughter, and the Yeni Valide Mosque built by Emetullah Rabia Gülnuş Sultan, mother of Sultan Mustafa II and Ahmed III, as they are typically the first places that welcome visitors of this part of the city. Our destination is Salacak. After passing by the Şemsi Paşa Mosque, you will see the office of the marriage registry to your right. Just there, a mosque is hidden among the trees. This mosque, built by Sulatan Fatih's vizier, Rumi Mehmed, was first used in 1471. The inner part of the mosque, reflecting the characteristics of Byzantine and Ottoman architectural practices, is cozy. I should clarify one matter: There were a lot of masjids, or small mosques, before the conquest of the city, but this is the first building made in the form of a large mosque.
2- Ayazma Mosque
Ayazma is located in a neighborhood adjacent to the Şemsi Pasha Mosque. The mosque, built by Mustafa III, was first used in 1760. The Janissary Graveyard, Italian-style tiles and its magnificent atmosphere make this a special place that must be seen. As we know, Mehmet Tahir Ağa is the architect of this building. Hopefully, public authorities will pay care and attention to the building, whose architect was Mehmet Tahir Ağa, as the mosque has been under restoration for three months.
3- Aziz Mahmud Hüdayî Tomb
After passing through the hills, our next destination is the final resting place of a fairly important person: Aziz Mahmud Hüdayi, one of the spiritual leaders in the city. Born in Ankara in 1548, Hüdayi was serving as a qadi -- a member of the judiciary who settled legal disputes in Ottoman times -- in Bursa. However, he left his post to become a student of Üftade, the saint who lived in Bursa. His tomb hosts a number of visitors every day. Hüdayi, who died in Üsküdar in 1628, was buried on the grounds of his shrine. Let us recall his prayer before leaving his tomb, which is adorned with a special and famous prayer: “Those who visit me in my tomb or recite part of Quran are ours; those who love me shall not drown in the sea, shall not suffer from poverty and shall keep their faith intact.”
4- Doğancılar Park
Well, it is now time for some rest. The road will take us from the tomb to Doğancılar Park. This is like home of serenity and peace. It resembles the large room of a palace. While here, one should also visit the Nasuhi Mehmet Efendi Mosque and the tomb right across from the park. This is also a sacred place where Miraciye, an important text describing the Prophet Muhammad's ascension to Heaven, was written.
5- Karacaahmet Sultan Tomb
Karacaahmet Sultan, one of the dervishes of Hacı Bektaş Veli, is one of the spiritual leaders buried in Üsküdar. His tomb is found in a temple serving as cemevi (house of union). We should also note that the area named after him is the largest graveyard in Turkey.
6- Valide-i Atik Külliyesi (social complex)
Next we walk towards the Zeynep Kamil neighborhood. On the left-hand side, we see Şakirin Mosque, built in a modern style. The social complex appearing in front of us is the final work of Sinan the Architect. This is the old Valide Mosque, built in 1583. The construction of the building was sponsored and funded by Nurbanu Sultan, mother of Sultan Murad III. The mosque exhibits the finest examples of İznik tiles. It is also reported that Khidr -- a revered figure in Muslim and Islam-influenced areas who is believed to be described in the Quran as a righteous servant of God -- performed prayers here. The garden of the mosque is a peaceful oasis. You should have some rest under the old trees here and, during Ramadan, enjoy a glass of tea. Those who are not overtired can continue on to the Çinili Mosque as well.
7- Üsküdar Square
We descend towards the square after visiting the social complex. On our way, we commune with the historical streets of Üsküdar. We observe a number of historical artifacts and works along the road -- baths, shrines and tombs. The first significant place welcoming us to the square is the Karadavut Mosque. If you wish, you may have some rest there. I also recommend the tea houses right behind the municipal building after your iftar, or fast-breaking dinner.
8- Fethi Pasha Grove
The time for iftar is approaching. Now we have a dilemma. The Fethi Pasha Grove is the right place for those who would like to break their fast in a green area. It is located on the right-hand side in the direction of the bridge. I should note that this place has become popular as the location of the Hüseyin Avni Pasha Mansion, which recently burned down.

Keywords: üsküdar , buildings

source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_touring-uskudar_355913.html

Day trip Cappadocia: Güzleyurt, Ihlara, Selime and Ağzıkarahan

2016-04-11T07:00:00.000-04:00

Day trip Cappadocia: Güzleyurt, Ihlara, Selime and Ağzıkarahan

Ihlara Gorge (Photo: Pat Yale)

“Not much that's definite is known about the underground cities. Some people think the Hittites built them to hide from their enemies. Some Americans have suggested the climate got colder and people lived in them to keep warm. Some think they were built so that Christians could hide from the Romans during persecution periods.”
We're standing in the entrance to the Güzleyurt Yeraltı Şehri, one of a network of so-called underground cities that thread their way through the soil of Cappadocia, and our guide is running through what little is known about them. Then the group is off, squeezing its way down a chute that leads from the upper to the lower level of this one, the only one in which archeologists have been able to identify a toilet, despite the fact that people may have spent weeks if not months at a time hiding inside these man-made underground cave labyrinths.

Lovely Güzelyurt lies on the less-visited western side of Cappadocia and it's the first main stop on one of the day tours from Göreme. As we approach the underground city, the road winds down into a beautiful wooded valley, great splashes of greenery contrasting beautifully with the honey-colored stone of the mainly abandoned houses of old Gelveri, the largely Greek town that existed here before the Greco-Turkish population exchange of 1923.

A path trails from the entrance of the underground city to the local mosque, a grand building in a walled garden that started life as a church built beside an ayazma, or sacred spring, still accessible today down a steep flight of stairs. The original church on the site dated back to 385 when it was commissioned by the Emperor Theodosius and named after Gregory of Nazianus (329-90), a local boy who had risen to become the Archbishop of Constantinople and was later canonized. The church you see today, however, is a rebuild of 1835 that was turned into a mosque after the population exchange, with the addition of a minaret over the gate. Happily, although the walls were whitewashed to conceal their frescoes the old wooden iconostasis was reused to make an attractive surround for the new mihrab while the wooden pulpit donated by Tsar Nicholas II was left in its place on a pillar.

On a tour there's not enough time to look around the rest of Güzelyurt, but staying visitors will find that it's home to several rock-cut medieval churches as well as to a more unusual rock-cut mosque. On the outskirts, the 19th-century Yüksek Kilise (High Church) perches picturesquely on a rock overlooking a lake.

Ihlara Gorge

The church-mosque and underground city may be fascinating, but the central feature of this particular tour is a walk through the middle of the spectacular Ihlara Gorge, a 14-kilometer-long canyon carved out of the rocky landscape by the Melendiz Çayı, a river that still ripples along its bottom providing a wonderfully refreshing backdrop for the walk. You can walk the entire length of the gorge in a single day without any special training, but most tours stick with a more manageable abbreviated stroll of around four kilometers along a path that is clearly laid out and well labeled.

The 400-odd steps down from the main entrance deposited us near the colorful ninth or 10th-century Ağaçaltı Kilise (Under the Tree Church), which is particularly unusual in featuring a very battered fresco of Daniel in the Lion's Den in the apse where one might more normally expect to see a figure of the Pantocrator or of Mary with Jesus. It being August, groups were queuing up to follow us into the tiny cross-shaped church cut straight out of the rock, so off we hurried to begin out walk.

I've always loved Ihlara and even today when it is far more “discovered” than when I first saw it on my own in 1992, it still retains its charm. Reclining on cushions on a platform set up in the water, glass of freshly squeezed orange juice in hand, ducks swimming past in hope of scraps of gözleme, I felt myself in heaven, a feeling only slightly dented by the over-development around Belisirma village where everyone stops for a trout lunch beside the river.

Selime Monastery

After lunch our minivan picked us up to drive to the pinprick village of Selime at the far end of the gorge, which is dominated by one of Cappadocia's biggest and most impressive rock-cut monastic complexes (the trouble with walking the entire gorge alone is that you end up here, 14 kilometers away from your car, unless you can arrange for someone to pick you up later).

The monastery, too, is a great deal more discovered than it used to be, with a ticket booth greeting visitors, where in the past you were lucky even to find the custodian (the same ticket covers admission to both the Ihlara Gorge and the Selime Monastery -- most tour prices include entry fees). Still, this is a stunning, unforgettable place where it's hard to know which is the more memorable: the steep-sided rock-cut path wide enough only to put one foot in front of the other; the huge, soot-blackened kitchen with its soaring pyramidal chimney; the lovely carved lintel over the doorway leading into a church on two stories with Romanesque-style columns: or the so-called “cathedral,” its frescoed images of stories from the Bible so soot-blackened that unless urgent restoration is carried out they will soon be lost altogether.

Across the road from the huge rock cone of Selime is a cemetery dominated by one of the conical türbes (tombs) that are scattered across the Selçuk heartlands.

Ağzıkarahan Caravanserai

On the way back to Göreme we stopped off in the village of Ağzıkara, which is home to one of the finest of the great caravanserais built by the Selçuks right the way across Anatolia. These caravanserais were prototype hotels where traveling salesmen and their animals could put up for three days with the state bearing the cost of their accommodation. Most were built as far apart from one another as a camel could comfortably walk in a day, although the one at Ağzıkara is actually quite close to the newly restored caravanserai of Tepsidelik, now converted into a restaurant.

Ağzıkarahan is a fairly typical caravanserai, its austere, almost fortress-like outside walls cheered up only by an outburst of glorious carving around the main entrance. It was commissioned in 1231 when the great Selçuk leader Alaeddin Keykubad I was ruling from Konya and completed in 1239 by which time Giyaseddin Keyhüsrev had succeeded him.
Inside, the huge courtyard is broken up by a mescid (chapel) raised up on stone stilts, the steps leading up to it almost as elaborately carved as the entrance. On one side of the courtyard a vast, high-ceilinged stable to accommodate the camels in winter is fitted with stone ledges that could serve as beds but also made it easier to unload the animals. On the other side an open-sided arched area provided stabling in summer.

Fate has not been kind to Ağzıkarahan, which attracted quite a lot of tourists until four years ago when a bypass left it high and dry. Since then, the visitors have virtually dried up. Now it is being restored. Rumor has it that it, like Tepsidelik, will be turned into a restaurant afterwards.

On our way back to Göreme we made one last photostop in front of Uçhisar Kalesi, another soaring rock cone. Back at the travel agency, we downed a reviving drink and chatted over nibbles. It had been a long day but a thoroughly satisfactory one, of that fact we were all agreed.

Pat Yale was a guest of Heritage Travel (www.goreme.com, tel: 0384-271 2687) in Göreme.

Keywords: Cappadocia , trip

source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_day-trip-cappadocia-guzleyurt-ihlara-selime-and-agzikarahan_356407.html

Traveling through the emotions

2016-03-28T07:00:00.000-04:00

Traveling through the emotions

(Photo: Diego Monfredini)

“Touching is everything to us. Then hearing, but hearing is not enough. You have to listen to the people, the music, the streets and even silence, because even silence tells you something.” If every city has a peculiar sound, silence is what Elena Bussino says about Cappadocia.
Bussino who travelled to Cappadocia along with seven other visually impaired tourists says: “I sense that this place is still pristine, silence is the sound of Cappadocia.” Bussino travels despite his blindness. This is pretty surprising to us given that we do not appreciate the most basic senses including hearing, touching and listening. For them, relying on these senses is just normal. They touch, listen, smell and even take selfies. Most of them do not remember how many times they have performed such a trip. Bussino lists some of the places he has been to, “Britain, Spain, France, Prague, Budapest, Ireland…” He tries to visit an English-speaking country every year because he is an English teacher and wants to remain fluent.
Bussino and his friends usually travel with family and exclusive tours that cater solely for the visually impaired is something new for them. Travel agencies tend not to pay attention to these niche events which tend to be organized by specific societies and charity groups. But the “traveling via emotions” project by Enrico Radrizzani is an exception. He believes that he is the only business entrepreneur organizing these kinds tours.

Radrizzani says, “I live wherever my suitcase is.” Cappadocia is the place where his suitcase has stayed the longest. Radrizzani who came to Turkey 24 years ago for the first time has traveled around the country a lot since then. He stayed for short periods of time in countries where he was showing tourists. Currently, he travels back and forth between Turkey and Italy. This is the second tour to Cappadocia that Radrizzani has organized for the visually impaired. The first was not as comprehensive. There were only four people in the first, but this one is totally different he tells us. His job is both hard and easy: “To ensure that they appreciate what is going on around them, we try to tell them that they should leave all other senses aside so that they grasp what their eyes cannot see. This takes a long time.” Of course, this is the hardest part, but the tourists are pretty independent and friendly, they are also pretty brave. Radrizzani, who has held countless tours so far, notes that regular tourists sometimes act childishly where the visually impaired tourists are pretty comfortable. He says: “They are pretty familiar with the idea that the cities have not been built with the needs of the visually impaired in mind and they use all of their other senses to the fullest. For this reason, they are more powerful. For instance, last week, we held a march in the full moon with a group of regular tourists. Most of them were scared of walking in the dark. But these people walk in the dark day and night. They fear nothing.”
We get to see what Radrizzani is trying to tell us first hand when we go on a nature walk in both Meskendir Valley and Mustafa Paşa. The visually impaired tourists did not complain about a thing when passing through the hardest parts of the routes. They never complained of being tired and we realized just how strong their other senses are. We want to talk to them about how they feel. Ester Tornavacca says: “We learn how to use the sense of touch at an early age. It just becomes part of your life over time. My mum taught me how to use touch since childhood. I started travelling with my mum. She told me I should touch everything during the trips. Touching is like seeing to us. I think that this sense is stronger in women. It takes some courage, that's all, true, it is hard, but not impossible.”

Tornavacca came from Turin. She works as an analyst in a company in Italy as well as teaches drama to children. She is one of the two in the group who is partially sighted. She says: “I have no vision in one eye but I do have slight vision in the other. I can just see colors and shades, no details. I know you are in front of me, but I cannot tell how close you are. I need to touch to see that.”
Tornavacca adds: “I have traveled a lot but these were standard tours organized by travel agencies without considering the needs of visually impaired people. I heard about Enrico's company last year for the first time. I wanted to join the tour to Turkey because Turkey is one of the countries I wanted to see most.” Like Bussino, she also dreams that the next stop will be Istanbul.
Tornavacca talks a lot about her mother who encouraged her to travel more: “My mum was looking for me as well, so I was also able to see things around me.” Elena Bussino believes that traveling is not a problem at all for a visually impaired people if they have somebody to accompany them. She holds that the key is scheduling the vacations and travels at the same time. Some people have children and others have conflicting schedules. Normally travel agencies do not allow visually impaired people to travel by themselves. So what they really need is somebody to walk with them.

Almost all of the guests in Cappadocia lost their vision right after birth. In addition to Elena, who has not been able to see since age 3, Consuelo Bconsu has been suffering from the same problem since he was 18. He believes that this carries some hardships: “You lose the world you are familiar with and you are aware of what you lost. Of course, remembering colors and objects makes communication with people easier. When somebody speaks about a ‘red shawl,' you have an idea of what they are talking about.”

Bconsu works in the human resources department of IBM in Italy. Like others, he travels a lot. He has memories of the places he has been to. Every city has its own voice, odor and atmosphere in his mind: “I cannot tell you exactly, but they do have them. Otherwise, every part of the world would be the same to us.”

We realized that we do not use our other senses

Radrizzani has a team of six, including himself, on the tours he organizes for the visually impaired travelers. Four young Italians contribute to the tour and he has a Turkish guide as well. Three of them accompany the tourists on the tour: “We do not do anything. They take care of everything. We just walk with them.” Valentina Coviello says, “We have learned a lot from them.” She adds: “During the valley walk, we traveled with two groups. After a while, we realized that the other people in the other group started to smell the flowers and touch stones and trees. I realized after walking with them that we use our senses pretty rarely. Now I touch, smell and listen, and sometimes I even close my eyes.”
Visually impaired tourists communicate with local people and they like to talk to others. Bussino explains why: “If you visually impaired, people around you become more curious about you. You can take advantage of this and communicate with those people and become comfortable with their culture and customs.” Paolo Rivalta, a visually impaired traveler, explains why visually impaired people rely on other senses: “I pay attention to other senses because I cannot see. You most probably ignore them because you are able to see, because eyes are the most dominant sensory organ. Maybe you think you do not need other senses.”

Diego Monfredini is another member of the “Traveling via Emotions” team. He is a professional photographer and the producer of an award winning short film about traveling through emotions. He not only takes photos but helps the tourists walk, too.

‘What you see on your right-hand side is…'

Cafer Gezer is serving as a guide for tourists in Cappadocia. Traveling via Emotions, which is owned by Radrizzani, cooperates with local agencies. The logic of tourism was what drove Radrizzani to introduce this traveling through motions project. The Italian tourism entrepreneur avoids the classic tour approach in his organizations. He cooperates with local agencies to organize slow tours that give more time for the tourists to get to know the local people and their culture. In other words, it is not a standard travel tour where people have a short space of time to see as many places as possible. He had experience with visually impaired tourists for the first time in the Ancona Museum in Italy six years ago. He has received many requests since then. Over the last three years, he took visually impaired tourists to Cappadocia. Radrizzani wants to improve this project and for this reason he is open to recommendations and cooperation. He will organize a tour to Morocco and Tunisia next month but he is also considering tours in southeastern Anatolia and Istanbul. And of course, it won't be just Italians joining the trip.

This is Cafer Gezer's second experience with visually impaired tourists. He talks about his experiences: “This is just new for us. We learn together with them.” In fact, they do what unimpaired people do on a regular tour. The only difference is that he gives a lot more details. For instance, he sometimes forgets that the audience is visually impaired people, starting by saying, “What you see on your right-hand side is…” But some of the tourists just correct him, saying, “You mean what you see…”

On the Traveling through Emotions tours, visitors are able to do everything regular tourists would do, with a few added extras. Radrizzani explains: “They touch the strings and designs in the rug workshops. We allow them to touch the final product in the marbling workshop. We attended a roof wedding ceremony where they danced and talked to the people. And most specially, they touched whirling dervishes.” Of course, these were all made possible by Radrizzani's connections in Cappadocia after spending a lot of time travelling in the area. People in Uçhisar know him and his friendships and connections enable him to organize special events for the visually impaired visitors. At this point, Radrizzani says that the traveling through emotions tour is not more expensive than regular tours. He says: “People in the region are sensitive. The hotels offer their best prices out of a sense of social responsibility. The people in my crew work on voluntary basis.”

They touch while flying

Visually impaired visitors also experience the helium balloon tour, an indispensable part of any Cappadocia tour. They actually have an added experience in visiting the home of the pilot who steers the balloon. İsmail Keremoğlu welcomes his guests and gives details, including the technical information, about the helium balloon experience. Then they touch the balloon that they will be travelling in the next day. Before sunrise, they move to the spot, once again, they are allowed to touch the balloon. Then we get onboard and rise 300 meters high. Bussino and other friends stand next to the pilot and listen to Cappadocia. Another group of Italians in the balloon are busy taking photos. Those people look at the view, that is for sure, but I am not sure whether they can actually see.

We were busy with taking photos that we would share on Facebook when they were enjoying the sense of serenity and escalation. The silence is broken by a song as one of the visitors starts to sing, “La chante mi cantare.” This is followed by laughter. Our pilot is pretty pleased with the new guests and he has a surprise for them. He does something that he does not normally do and lowers the balloon to pass through trees so that his guests can “see” in their own way. The visitors touch the leaves of the trees. Our pilot turns his face towards us and says, “You will see sunrise in a moment.” And then he turns towards the other side, telling the vision-impaired guests that they will soon feel the touch of the sun on their skin. Then another little surprise follows. The balloon slightly touches a rock and this makes people pretty happy. And silence again. For some reason, I recall my forgotten senses, the ones I have forgotten to use for a long time, particularly my eyes. First, I put my camera in my bag, then I start to take a real look at what is around me. And then I close my eyes to hear the silence because they I have been taught that silence has something to tell us.

Keywords: traveling , emotions

source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_traveling-through-the-emotions_357013.html

Slowly along the Turkish Riviera

2016-03-14T07:00:00.000-04:00

Slowly along the Turkish Riviera

Akdeniz (Photo: Sunday's Zaman, Selahattin Sevi)

The turquoise coast. The turkish riviera. Don't those words have a romantic ring to them? Don't they just make you want to rush out and take a holiday immediately?

The Turkish Riviera stretches all the way from Marmaris in the west to Antalya in the east. My money's on the bit in the middle though, the bit that is bookended by Fethiye in the west and Antalya in the east. Clear azure seas. Perfect rocky coves. Delightful little beaches. In the hills behind them the ruins of the lost Lycian civilization. What could be more alluring?

Here are some of the highlights of that stretch of the coast, most of them readily accessible on day trips from either Fethiye or Antalya.

Ölüdeniz and Kayaköy

Facing out over a bay full of rocky islands, Fethiye town makes a great place to base yourself with all sorts of shops and restaurants tucked away in the bazaar area along with an old hamam (Turkish bath) and a lively fish market. In the evening few things could be nicer than strolling along the harbor front and sizing up the boats that wait to take holidaymakers out on “12 Island” tours of the bay. There's even a town beach in the suburb of Çalış accessible in summer via a delightful water taxi ride from the harbor.

Çalıs, however, is fairly built-up. To stretch out on sands without a hotel looming over you, you're better off heading out to Ölüdeniz where a spit of sand juts out into a glorious lagoon. These days you'll find it jampacked with sunbeds, although an admission fee keeps things relatively exclusive. Don't fancy paying? Well, then you can stretch out on the sand for free at Belcekiz, which is where the dolmuş from Fethiye will drop you. As you snooze the day away, you'll be able to watch the hang-gliders launching themselves off nearby Baba Dağı (Mt Baba). Daniel Craig tried it in Skyfall should you fancy channeling his James Bond alter ego.

Returning to Fethiye, you can hop off the dolmuş from Ölüdeniz and hop into another one running inland to the ruins of Karaköy, the abandoned Greek settlement that provided the inspiration for Louis de Berniere's wonderful novel, "Birds Without Wings." In 1923, the Greeks who used to live here were sent to live in Greece. A smaller number of Turks “returned” from Greece to Turkey, and so the old houses were left empty. Despite frequent suggestions that they should be rebuilt, the houses and churches still stand abandoned for the time being. This is a great place to come and let your imagination take wing.

Tlos and Saklıkent Gorge

Fethiye travel agents offer combined trips to the ruins of the great Lycian city of Tlos perched partly on a dramatic plug of rock. Most of what survives today dates the later years of the Roman occupation, although the Lycian necropolis with its rock-cut tombs survives with a much-later Ottoman castle plonked down on top of it.

Tours also take in the lovely if no longer hidden gorge at Saklıkent (Hidden City). Here the canyon walls soar so high and are so close together that the sun never reaches the bottom even in summer, leaving the water running along the bottom icy cold. All manner of daredevil sports are on offer here and a string of restaurants line the banks of the river outside the gorge itself. Some tours will take you instead for lunch in nearby Yakaköy, where restaurants wrap themselves in picturesque style around trees and running water.

Butterfly Valley and Faralya

In summer, boats ply back and forth from Belcekiz beach to lovely Butterfly Valley where it's possible to camp behind the small beach off the path running inland to a small waterfall backed by soaring rocks. On top of those rocks sits Faralya, accessible by a path that only the surefooted should attempt. Everyone else is better advised to take the dolmuş from Fethiye to the hotels and pensions lined up to scoop its spectacular sunset views.

A short stop in Butterfly Valley is also a fixture on the boat trips out of Ölüdeniz, if you just want to get a quick look and move on.

Xanthos and the Letoon

Before the Romans came along, this was a part of the world that belonged to the mysterious Lycians about whom little that's certain is known. Their capital was, however, uphill from Kınık, which is easily accessible from Fethiye. Here you can admire another rock-cut necropolis as well as a strange tower-like monument that dates back to the days when the Persians had overrun the site. Most of the finest monuments from Xanthos were removed to the British Museum in the 19th century, but there's enough left here to give you a sense of what the city must have been like in the days before its menfolk killed their wives and children and set fire to the town rather than surrender to the Persians.

A little way away from Xanthos stands the Letoon, the remains of a huge temple complex dedicated to the goddess Leto and her children, Apollo and Artemis, that was the most sacred place for the Lycians. Together these two sites form one of Turkey's world heritage sites.

Patara

Of all the beaches along the Turkish Riviera none can compare with the splendor of Patara, an 18-kilometer-long stretch of sand fading on the western side into dunes planted with eucalyptuses that give off a vague whiff of Australia. Like the beach at Ölüdeniz, the one at Patara is protected with all the hotel development inland at Gelemiş. Not that keen on sunbathing? Well, the area between Gelemiş and the beach is thickly covered in ruins, some of them, such as the old Greco-Roman theater, absolutely magnificent.

Kalkan

A big hit with the British, many of whom have set up home here, Kalkan was once a small fishing village, the memory of which still hangs about the harbor front where chi-chi restaurants compete to see which can vanish beneath the thickest coating of bougainvillea each summer. It's a pretty place with not a great deal in the way of sightseeing on offer. Make it your base, then venture out to explore on day trips.

Kaş and Kaleköy

Built on a hillside that slopes down to another colorful harbor, Kaş offers a great mix of gourmet dining and boutique shopping with a smidgen of local sightseeing and plenty of options on the watersports front. It's also the best base for visiting the delightful offshore village of Kaleköy, one of the prettiest places in all Turkey with yet another Lycian necropolis to explore and a row of fish restaurants lining the waterfront. From Kaş you can also hop across to the Greek island of Kastellorizo (Meis) where a gyro for lunch might make a welcome change from yet another döner kebap.

Demre and Myra

Approaching the small town of Demre, you will be amazed at the serried rows of plastic-wrapped greenhouses. Behind this not very appealing façade, however, there's a town whose life revolves around the ruins of a Byzantine church thought to have housed the bones of St Nicholas, the prototype Father Christmas (Noel Baba), until they were stolen by 11th-century pirates and carried off to Bari in Italy. That aside, the church is worth visiting for its wonderfully colorful frescoes and mosaics. A quick kilometer's walk away, there are also spectacular remains of a Greco-Roman theater and -- yes, you've guessed it -- another picturesque rock-cut Lycian necropolis.

Olympos and Çıralı

Treehouse or eco-pension? Your answer to this accommodation question will dictate whether you're better off heading for Olympos, where most of the treehouses these days are really more like chalets, or to Çıralı, a small beach resort where most of the accommodation has been designed with an eye to protecting the environment (although these days there's a great deal of it). Whichever you choose, you'll have on your doorstep the romantically ramshackle ruins of ancient Lycian and Roman Olympos and the eerie Chimaera, an inextinguishable flame that flares from the mountainside and makes a great sight either during the day when the path will seem less scary or in the dark when the hooting of the local owls will add to the sense of awe.

Phaselis

Close to Antalya with its choice of beaches (including a new women-only one), its marvelous walled Ottoman enclave (the Kaleiçi) and its superb museum lie the ruins of Phaselis set right on the beach so that you can visit them, then take a dip afterwards. Come soon since a planned new hotel development will almost certainly detract from the glory of the erstwhile untouched woodland setting.

Keywords: turkish riviera , turquoise , coast

source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_slowly-along-the-turkish-riviera_356969.html

Out and about from Trabzon

2016-02-29T07:00:00.000-05:00

Out and about from Trabzon

Sumela Monastery (Photo: Sunday's Zaman, Pat Yale)

Way down towards the far eastern end of Turkey's black sea coast the great port city of Trabzon has an illustrious history that is somewhat belied by its workaday modern appearance. It was to this distant outpost that the Byzantine emperor fled in 1204 when the army of the Fourth Crusade overran what was then Constantinople (today's İstanbul).
Even after their rivals for the throne managed to seize the city back in 1261, the rulers of the breakaway Empire of Trebizond stayed put here. It wasn't until 1461 that the Ottomans pushed them out and seized it for themselves.
But Byzantine culture had left a lasting mark on Trabzon. It wasn't until 1924 that the last Greeks were forced by the terms of the Treaty of Lausanne to “return” to Greece, while Turks from Greece came to take their place.

For centuries, Trabzon sat at the end of one of the Silk Road trails, its port bustling with merchants exporting the silks and spices of the East and dispatching by road the less exotic produce of the West. Right into the 20th century, camel trains were still a common sight around town.

Today Trabzon is an exciting, energetic city brimming with self-confidence and with a distinctive atmosphere born of its long contact with Russia and the Caucasus. The exquisite Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia (now converted into a mosque) and a pair of elegant museums aside, the town center is not big on historic sightseeing. Very little is made, for example, of the role once played by the Fatih Cami as the Church of Panagia Khristokefalos where the breakaway Byzantine emperors were crowned; most other reminders of the Byzantine era, including the old palace, go utterly ignored.

But Trabzon remains a great place to stay with lots of pleasant local restaurants and tea gardens, and a lively bazaar to discover in between trips out to explore the surrounding area.

Sumela Monastery

The number-one drawcard that pulls tourists by the busload into this area is the Sumela Monastery, clinging like a limpet to a rock-face deep in the glorious pine forest of the Altındere National Park. After the last of the monks left at the time of the population exchange, the once-flourishing monastery fell into ruins. Recently, though, it has been effectively rebuilt, which makes it easier to imagine how life might have been lived on the mountainside if harder to remember just how old the original building was.

To understand that, you need to step inside the rock shelter at the back of the site and look up at its colorful Byzantine frescoes. For it was here that in the fourth century Saints Barnabas and Sophronius claimed to have found an icon of the Virgin Mary painted by St. Luke, one of the four evangelists who had been born in what is now Antakya. Despite the difficulty of reaching the site, a shrine rapidly grew up here. Work on expanding it continued well into the 19th century as can be seen from the somewhat battered frescoes adorning the outside wall of a smaller church on the site making it look rather like a church from deepest Transylvania.

To get the most out of a visit here, it's probably best to come alone so that you can take your time over the climb up to the monastery, then take a good look round before perhaps pausing for lunch in the national park.

Uzungöl

Second in popularity only to the monastery as a day-trip destination is Uzungöl, the “long lake” that nestles in the mountains to the east of Trabzon, inland from the small town of Of, known mainly for the piety of its residents. Uzungöl is often promoted as a second Switzerland, evoking images of pretty, pointy-roofed chalets grouped picturesquely around the water. Unfortunately, reality comes with a great deal more concrete, although recent years have seen an attempt to improve things by wood-facing some of the older buildings.

These days, Uzungöl finds particular favor with visitors from Saudi Arabia; “they love the greenery and the rain,” a local hotel receptionist explained.

Akçaabat

If you're staying in Trabzon for a few days, you might want to head out west to visit the small town of Akçaabat, which is best known for its tasty köfte, served with aplomb at a string of large sea-facing restaurants along the main road.

For most people, that's about as far as a trip to Akçaabat goes, but really the thing to do is to struggle up the steep hill behind the town center in search of the lovely old Ortamahalle, the part of the town where the Greeks used to live in delightful wooden-framed houses clustered around the early 14th-century Church of the Archangel Michael.

As with Trabzon, so with Akçaabat as it appears that the locals have preferred to forget their Byzantine past: On my most recent visit, the church was open to visitors, although nothing had been done to protect its beautiful mosaic floor or provide any information about it. On the other hand, the lovely houses were being restored and will no doubt provide wonderful new homes with sea views for better-off Akçaabatlıs. In due course, no doubt the church, too, will receive more attention.

Vakfıkebir

Vakfıkebir is known throughout Turkey for producing mouth-wateringly delicious bread in loaves the size of cartwheels. If you are in Trabzon on a Monday, it's worth popping out here to take a turn around a sprawling riverside market. Then you can treat yourself to a sandwich you won't be forgetting in a hurry.

Tirebolu

Beyond Akçaabat and Vakfıkebir is the small town of Tirebolu where a castle, probably built by Genoese traders in the 14th century, perched on a rock, dominates a pretty fishing harbor. It won't take long to look around here, which means that you can come by bus, then hop on and off at Vakfıkebir and Akçaabat on the way back to Trabzon.

Sürmene

The Black Sea Highway roars along the eastern Black Sea coast, a boon to truckers in a hurry to get to Georgia, a nightmare for more or less everyone else. The highway was built on reclaimed land, a fact that's easy to forget when you're in the towns along the way, but that becomes more obvious if you side-trip east to Sürmene to visit the stunning Memişağa Konaği, a huge mansion with a wooden-framed superstructure attached to a stone ground floor, that is known locally as the Kastell. When it was built in the 19th century, the mansion would have sat in enviable tranquility with its wooden shutters opening onto a glorious vista of the Black Sea. Now it's stranded inland astride a bluff above the highway.

The Memişağa Konaği is theoretically open to the public, although you may have to ask around for the caretaker. Inside it showcases marvelous examples of the sort of painted woodwork that once adorned the walls and ceilings of the homes of the Black Sea wealthy. Stroll back in the Trabzon direction towards the center of Sürmene, and on the outskirts you'll find a cluster of the sort of solid wooden mansions that would have been the homes of the more middling class of merchant. Now, of course, they're expensive to maintain and most are standing empty.

Rize

Beyond Sürmene lies Rize, the capital of Turkish tea-growing country with a museum to show off all the fine packaging that has been used to market the product since it was introduced to the area in the 1930s by Zihni Derin, whose bust sits outside the Tea Research Institute to celebrate his achievement. Like Trabzon, Rize is a town that is more focused on looking forward than back, but the tea museum is housed in a fine restored Ottoman house in the town center and the remains of a castle still protect the western flanks of the town. Come here to get a taste of the Laz and Hemşin cultures that live on in the coastal towns and hidden valleys beyond Rize, quite literally if you order one of the tasty local delicacies, lahana çorbası (cabbage soup), mıhlama (cheese fondue) or mısır ekmeği (cornbread).

Keywords: Trabzon , black sea coast

source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_out-and-about-from-trabzon_357666.html

From Harput to Lake Van, Erzurum and Trabzon with Henry Fanshawe Tozer (2)

2016-02-15T07:00:00.000-05:00

From Harput to Lake Van, Erzurum and Trabzon with Henry Fanshawe Tozer (2)

Akdamar Church, Van

Disembarking at the Black Sea port of Samsun in the spring of 1879, the British geographer Henry Fanshawe Tozer made his way southwest over several mountain chains to the Central Anatolia plateau. Here he explored the fascinating remains around the Hittite capital of Hattuşa, east of Ankara, before riding southeast to the crucial trading hub of Kayseri. After a quick detour west to the fairy tale landscape of Cappadocia, Tozer and his party headed northeast to Sivas, then southeast across the biblical Euphrates to Harput (outside modern Elazığ).
From Harput onward, the territory the curious Tozer would venture through was inhabited largely by Kurds and Armenians. It was a remote and mountainous region that the Ottoman authorities were struggling to keep a firm grip on -- especially in the wake of the crippling 1877-8 war with Russia. Britain, motivated by its own interests in the region, had stepped in to help Ottoman Turkey against imperial Russia. In return, the ruling sultan, Abdul Hamid II, had been forced to accept the presence of British officials roaming at will over Anatolia -- handy for British travelers' such as Tozer in the short-term, but the resentment caused by this partial ceding of independence to a foreign power was to eventually have devastating consequences for Anatolia's Christian population.

From Harput to Muş

From Harput, Tozer headed east to the today little-visited town of Palu. Here he was shown some rock-cut chambers in the Urartian fortress, which his guides informed him “were the dwelling place of St Mezrop, the Armenian saint, who invented the Armenian alphabet about 406 AD.” The party then skirted the mountainous Dersim region (today the Munzur Mountains around Tunceli). Having mainly fraternized with Turks, Greeks and Armenians up until now, the party had their first contact with Kurds. The group they met “hardly spoke a word of Turkish, so that we had difficulty communicating with them, and we found them very suspicious, and demanding high price for articles such as milk and cheese, which we bought of them, and demanding the money be paid on the spot.”

Today the Surp Garabet Monastery on the Muş Plain, the party's next destination, is completely ruined and desolate. Tozer reached it on Aug. 24, 1879 and found this important monastery -- believed by Armenians to contain a very holy relic, the body of John the Baptist -- and pilgrimage stop “full of men, women and children … picnicking on the ground. … Some of the women had one nostril pierced for a silver ornament.” The monastery was then home to 20 monks, the head priest of which spoke fluent French, and 180 lay brothers.
The town of Muş was quite the contrast to the monastery, being “quite the filthiest town we had met with in Turkey … the pavements were broken and ragged; every street was an open drain, and the stenches were fearful.” After lodging in Muş with a well-off Armenian, the travelers set-off the next morning on fresh horses for Bitlis, nestling deep down in a valley below Lake Van. Here they were hosted by a well-known American missionary, Reverend George Knapp, who was working with the local Armenian community. According to Tozer, Bitlis -- today a fascinating place clustered around its imposing old citadel -- consisted of “3000 houses, 2000 of which belong to Kurds, 1000 to Armenians, 20 to the Turks and 50 to the Syrians.”

Up Mount Süphan and by boat across Lake Van

Every traveler to eastern Turkey today longs for their first sight of Lake Van. Back in 1979, Tozer first saw it following a five-hour ride from Bitlis. “A beautiful view, owing to the numerous bays, the succession of headlands, and the finely cut outline of the ridges.” The party rode around the north shore of the lake to Ahlat, famed for its Selçuk tombs and gravestones, before reaching the pretty settlement of Adilcevaz. Having conquered Mount Erciyes outside of Kayseri, the lure of the even higher Mount Süphan, a volcanic cone towering above the village, was irresistible. Despite camping 7,000 feet up on the slopes of the peak and leaving at 3 a.m. the next morning, Tozer, who was weakened by the journey, failed to reach the summit. He did, however, enjoy the splendid lake and mountain views from the rim of this crater-topped, 4,058-meter-high peak.
Tozer and his companions reached Van by sailing from Adilcevaz and lodged in the old, walled town at the foot of the dramatic Rock of Van. Today Van is an undulating sea of rubble, bar a couple of well-restored Ottoman mosques and the scant remnants of a church and a couple of caravanserais, but it then had a prosperous population of some 30,000 “of whom three fourths are Armenians.”

The Rock of Van

Eager to explore the Rock of Van, Tozer first had to get permission from the commandant of the Ottoman garrison then stationed atop it. Then, as now, the view from the summit of the sheer, 100-meter-high, 1.5-kilometer-long rock was spectacular: “The panorama from the highest point was enchanting, for on one side lay the expanse of the blue sparkly lake, with its circuit of mountains, among which Siphan [Süphan] and Nimrud Dagh [Nemrut] were conspicuous, while on the opposite direction the broken Varak Dagh [Erek] formed a noble object.”
The oldest historic remains on the rock are now known to be Urartian, a unique civilization centered in Van between 900 and 600 B.C. At the time of Tozer's visit, they were thought to be Assyrian and the cuneiform inscriptions that mark the rock-cut tomb of Urartian King Argishti I that Tozer saw were “still a riddle to philologists.” Before leaving Van, Tozer visited another American missionary promoting the Protestant variant of the Christian faith to the sometimes unwilling Apostolic Armenians led by Dr. Reynolds.

Üç Kümbetler, Erzurum (Photo: Cihan)

Past Kurdish encampments and a biblical peak to Erzurum

They left Van on Sept. 6, riding north along the eastern shore of the lake and then following the gorge of Bendimah River. Led by a local, they overnighted at a Kurdish encampment “with numerous tents forming a long line, some large and black, others smaller, round and white. The men who were hanging about them were a wild and surly looking set, with hair streaming down in long locks … all of course were armed. Their possessions might be seen about the encampment -- sheep, goats, oxen and cows, herds of horses, big mastiff dogs, and greyhounds clothed in small coats. The whole formed a highly picturesque scene.”

Avoiding Doğubeyazıt, which according to the locals had been ruined in the war with Russia, they headed across high, volcanic peaks to Diyadin -- today known for its hot springs -- reveling in the fine view of 5,165-meter-high Mount Ararat (Ağrı Dağ) en route. From Diyadin they continued westward towards Erzurum, passing “a long line of 170 laden camels.” Tozer was impressed with Erzurum as they approached, noting, “As seen from without, it seemed the most imposing city, with the exception of Amasia, that we had reached on our journey, owing to the numerous minarets and other striking buildings that rise from its midst.”
In Erzurum they were “received with the greatest kindness by our consul, General Major Trotter, who entertained us during our stay.” Trotter had been in the city during the recent Russian siege during which the strategically crucial outpost nearly fell, and according to Tozer, the population had fallen to around 20,000 as a result of the recent difficulties. Tozer reported that the whole region was in disarray as the Kurds were taking advantage of the lack of central control (the Ottoman troops had not been paid in four years) to pillage the Armenians. Worse, the Circassians (Çerkez) who had arrived as a result of Russian advances “came with nothing but their arms … they follow no pursuits save those of highway robbers and petty pilfering, and being well-armed with rifles, revolvers and swords, whilst the Zapitehs (Ottoman police) often have nothing better than flintlock guns.”

Uzungöl, Trabzon (Photo: Cihan)

Over the Pontic Alps to Trabzon

From Erzurum Tozer's party headed north, over the Kop Pass, to the top of the Pontic Alps from where they “looked down into a deep valley, in which were cheerful, well-built villages, with walls of stone and red-tile roofs; beyond this rose forest clad mountains … delicately cut ridges … the snow-topped mountains of Lazistan and, completing all, the expanse of the soft-blue Euxine (Black Sea).” The cultural, topographic and climatic contrast between the arid Anatolian Plateau and the Black Sea hinterland still shocks travelers today, how much more marked it must have been in Tozer's day.
Tozer waxed lyrical about their next stop, the famous cliff-hanging monastery of Sumela, then still inhabited by Greek Orthodox monks. They were hosted by the gracious monks and as they left the next day for Trabzon the normally reserved Brit was moved to write that it was “one of the loveliest spots we had ever seen.” It remains a picturesque place with the monastery recently restored. The monks, though, are long gone, prey to the post-WWI population exchange between Greece and Turkey.
Finally they reached Trabzon, or Trebizond as Tozer knew it: “We came in sight of the city, which was the term of our wandering. We had concluded a ride of 1,500 miles, which had been accomplished without illness or incident of any kind.” It was indeed quite an achievement. In Trabzon they explored the various Byzantine churches turned mosques, but couldn't gain access to the famous Haghia Sophia (Aya Sofya) as it “had been appropriated for military purposes.” Then on Sept. 27 Tozer and his companion, TM Crowder, boarded a French steamship bound for Constantinople.

Sümela Monastery, Trabzon (Photo: Cihan)
Henry Fanshawe Tozer's “Turkish Armenia and Eastern Asia Minor” can be read online at https://archive.org/details/turkisharmeniaea00tozeuoft.

Keywords: Tozer , Turkey

source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_from-harput-to-lake-van-erzurum-and-trabzon-with-henry-fanshawe-tozer-2_377007.html

From Samsun to Cappadocia and Beyond with Henry Fanshawe Tozer. Part 1

2016-02-01T07:00:00.000-05:00

From Samsun to Cappadocia and Beyond with Henry Fanshawe Tozer. Part 1

Hattuşa remains (Photo: Sunday's Zaman)

When Henry Fanshawe Tozer embarked on a long journey across Anatolia in the spring of 1879, the fascinating region that was then the heartland of the Ottoman Empire was on the edge of crisis.
Muslim refugees had flooded in from the Balkans and Caucasus, victims of the expansionist policies of imperialist Russia. Their arrival upset the natural balance of the longer-established Anatolian people -- Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Kurds and other ethno-religious groups. In 1874 a major famine had decimated the population, state taxes went uncollected.
The sultanate was in disarray with Abdul Aziz forced to step down in 1876. His successor, Murad V, had a nervous breakdown and was deposed later the same year, paving the way for the paranoid Abdul Hamid II to take over the ailing empire. The war with Russia, which began in 1877, was to have disastrous consequences as well. Faced with the loss of vast swathes of territory, the Ottomans had no choice but to accept the help of Britain, who in 1878 obtained the island of Cyprus in return. The sultan also agreed to respect the rights of the empire's substantial Christian population and British officials penetrated the remotest parts of Anatolia to supervise the implementation of the agreement.

Amasya’s famous apples (Photo: Cihan)

Over the mountains from Samsun to Amasya

Given the parlous state of Anatolia in the 1870s, it's no wonder that Tozer cancelled his original trip, scheduled for 1874, and waited until the final year of the decade to set out into Anatolia. Like so many travellers' before him, he made the first part of the journey -- from Constantinople (İstanbul) to Samsun -- by boat. Tozer's travelling companions were TM Crowder, the bursar of Corpus Christi, Oxford, and a Greek dragoman whom Tozer noted with faint praise as “a rough and far from first-rate travelling servant, but hardy and healthy, and possessing a thorough knowledge of Turkey.”
Tozer was less than enthusiastic about the Black Sea port of city Samsun when his ship docked, writing: “Samsun is inconsiderable in size and by no means imposing in appearance. … There are few minarets and the most conspicuous building is a church of recent construction.” Rather like a backpacker today setting off for some less visited part of Turkey, Tozer sought information about the lay of the land from other foreigners who had been there before, in his case the French consul in Samsun. His words were a stark warning: “You must not think of starting for several days; you must wait until a caravan is formed. … The roads are thoroughly unsafe owing to Circassians and other brigands.”
Undeterred, Tozer eventually managed to scrape together five horses for the journey and set-off at three o'clock that afternoon. “Fortified by a firman from the sultan,” Tozer and his companions were officially sanctioned to roam across Anatolia and were able to enlist a couple of military guards, one Turk and one Circassian to accompany them. A “post boy” also accompanied them to care for the steeds as Tozer had persuaded the official postmaster in town to provide him with horses -- Samsun then being the last stop before Constantinople on the postal route between the Baghdad and the Ottoman capital.
Four mountain chains and one “verminous inn” later the party reached Amasya. They stayed in a caravanserai right by the turbid Yesilırmak river, opposite the chief draw of the town even today, the “famous ‘Tombs of the Kings,' which were the principal object of our visit.” Equally exciting to the Oxford-educated geographer Tozer was that he was now in the birthplace of one of the most famous geographers in antiquity, Strabo (63 BC-AD 24), “to whom everyone who is interested in ancient geography is so much indebted.”

En route to visit another foreign consul stationed in Anatolia high up above the river, Tozer “stopped to admire the magnificent view… the town lying beneath you, with its trees and minarets, the river spanned by several bridges, the rocky heights on both sides.” For the British academic this was heady prose and praise indeed, as rarely did the phlegmatic Tozer allow romance to colour his descriptions.

From the land of the Hittites to Kayseri

Next the party rode across yet more mountains to Çorum and then onto Alaca. Today the impressive pair of Hittite-era sphinxes flanking a gateway there are replicas, while the originals are on display in Ankara's splendid and recently renovated Museum of Anatolian Civilisations. Tozer was privileged to see the originals still in situ, noting, “It was impossible not to feel astonishment at these strange objects lying in such a remote place.” Archaeology was very much in the embryonic stage at the time of Tozer's travels, so it is not surprising that at the party's next goal, Boğazkale, there is virtually no description of the extensive remains of the former Hittite capital of Hattuşa. It had simply not been uncovered. Tozer did manage, however, to view the delightful relief-carved scenes of Hittite warriors and deities at nearby Yazılıkaya.
Continuing their journey southward, the party reached Yozgat, then a settlement of “3,000 families, 50 of whom are Greek, 1,000 Armenian, the rest Turkish” and were struck by “the unusual cleanness of the town.” Tozer attributed this to the wealth generated by Yozgat's principal product -- Angora wool. Their next destination was Kayseri, a four days ride away. There they lodged in the Armenian quarter, hosted by Kerope Yakobian, a protestant pastor who had spent two years undergoing training for his ministry in Scotland. Today booming Kayseri has a population of well over 1 million. According to Tozer, in 1879 it comprised just 60,000 souls of which 16,000 of were Armenian, 4,000 Greek and the remainder Turkish.
Like many visitors to Kayseri both before and after him, Tozer was fascinated by the spectacular volcanic peak of Mount Erciyes, rising above the city in unearthly, snow-capped splendour. Unlike the vast majority of travellers, however, Tozer was determined to climb this 3,916 meter high-peak. Guided by an elderly Armenian called Stephan the party camped at 2,700 meters. The next day they rose at 2 a.m. and carrying only “a piece of meat and some bread each” made their way up a snow-filled gully to the summit ridge, which they reached at 6 a.m. They reached the actual summit well ahead of their guide, who struggled up manfully behind them. The spectacular views were “as wonderful a sight as can be conceived,” allowed the normally guarded geographer.

Cappadocia (Photo: DHA)

From Cappadocia to Sivas

The next day they headed west to Cappadocia. Today this unique and beautiful region is so rammed with boutique cave hotels and overflown by squadrons of hot-air balloons that it's hard to imagine it as the little-visited backwater it was at the time of Tozer's expedition. They lodged in Ürgüp with a Greek called “Capitan Oglu” who took them to Göreme the next day. Tozer described the area as “a valley, perhaps three-quarters of a mile in length, which has been scooped out to a depth of five hundred feet. … The cliffs fall steeply on both sides, sometimes with sheer descent, sometimes in a succession of terraces… and about these terraces… were pinnacles, obelisks, pyramids and broken towers of tufa, presenting the wildest scene of confusion.” At least Cappadocia's topography has changed but little since Tozer's day.
The party returned to Kayseri before setting out on the four day ride northeast to Sivas. En route they visited the Armenian monastery of Surp Garabed, passed a salt lake and explored the famous caravanserai at Sultanhanı. The village surrounding it is still a scruffy sort of place, out of keeping with the grandness of the remains of the caravanserai. Even back then it was “a small, poverty-stricken village.” Of Sivas itself Tozer had little to say, but he used the time he spent there to talk to the locals and reflect on what they thought of the current state of affairs in Anatolia. “The opinion prevailed that the present regime was intolerable. On this subject there was no difference; Mahometans and Christians, natives and foreign residents, all thought alike.”

Çifte minareli medrese, Sivas (Photo: DHA)

Across the Euphrates to Harput

Tozer and his entourage left Sivas on Aug. 12 and after a further four days riding they reached the Euphrates, always a thrilling moment for the traveller, especially a geographer. The famed river presented “a wild but most impressive scene” being “about 300 feet wide…the current strong.” Tozer wasn't so impressed by the craft that would take them to the eastern shores of the biblical river for “it was of extremely crude and primitive construction… 30 feet long by 15 feet wide, flat bottomed…had it been roofed over, it would not have made a bad Noah's Ark.”
They overnighted at Keban, today best known for its dam. Even then the silver mines, which had previously brought much prosperity to the settlement, were exhausted. They lodged at the house of a wealthy Armenian before riding on to Harput. Today a rather forlorn collection of ruins outside Elazığ, Harput was then a flourishing Armenian town and a centre of American protestant missionary activity in Eastern Anatolia, well-known for its theological seminary and English language school (renamed Euphrates College not long after Tozer's visit), but is now completely destroyed.
Tozer was enchanted by Harput, writing of the panorama from the ruined castle at its heart. “After the dreary scenery of the Anti-Taurus, I hailed with delight the change to bold, sharply cut mountain outlines and brighter colouring… we now seem to have reached a new and more romantic land.”
For Tozer, the real adventure was about to begin.
Henry Fanshawe Tozer's “Turkish Armenia and Eastern Asia Minor” can be read online at https://archive.org/details/turkisharmeniaea00tozeuoft.

Keywords: Henry Fanshawe Tozer

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_from-samsun-to-cappadocia-and-beyond-with-henry-fanshawe-tozer-part-1_376433.html

Turkey through a traveler’s eyes: Frances Elliot, an ‘idle woman in Constantinople’

2016-01-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

Turkey through a traveler’s eyes: Frances Elliot, an ‘idle woman in Constantinople’

Hippodrome, Sultanahmet

“The real beauty of Constantinople is in its water.
Water everywhere, clear, blue, and shimmering; away to the far south the placid sea of Marmora … To the north the long, low stretch of the Bosphorus teaming with steamers…and at hand the watery bosom of the Golden Horn cuts into the densest portion of the city, and disputes possession with the land.”
In these words at least I'll agree with their author, Frances Elliot. The self-styled “Idle Woman in Constantinople” visited the great city known today as İstanbul back in the May of 1892, and was more than justified in her assertion that the city's visual appeal derives, then as now, in large part from its situation astride these three great waterways.

Bleak and bigoted first impressions

But overall, Elliot is so negative about one of the world's great cities that it's hard to fathom why she bothered visiting at all, let alone writing a book about it; and that's allowing for the bigoted and imperious attitudes of the average Westerner of the period and the fact that the city was then, like the Ottoman Empire of which it was capital, in precipitous decline.
Arriving from Europe by train, her first impressions were scathing. The handsome Ottoman-era wooden houses, the surviving examples of which today sell for exorbitant sums to be transformed into boutique hotels and the like, Elliot decries as “common little buildings, not two alike in the whole city, piled one on the other. … The diminutive windows half-closed with wooden shutters to conceal the life of the harem.”
Of a city packed with splendid Ottoman-era mosques, fountains, bath houses and other buildings, she writes: “Ruin more complete, more ruthless, never was beheld. Absolute, sordid ruin, without dignity or pathos. Dust, dirt, neglect and noise everywhere.” About the vibrant hustle and bustle of a city at the crossroads of Europe and Asia she is equally dismissive: “No quiet, no repose! A train rushes by, a passing cart raises clouds of dust out of the dry soil, a troop of Turkish children try to finger you. … a dragoman at your heels, whom you must have for protection […] mumbles incessantly in a sort of pigeon English; the cries of the vendors of cakes and water. The grunts of Persian and Armenian porters with their heavy loads, the click of the laden horses and donkeys […] make up a discord enough to crush the spirit of the most enthusiastic stranger.”

Across the Golden Horn to Pera

Travelling only with her maid, Elliot was relieved to be met at İstanbul Sirkeci Terminal by a splendidly dressed Greek kavass (consular guard) sent by the British Embassy. He soon has all her luggage piled into a horse and carriage, which proceeds along “the most execrable road I ever was shaken on in my life,” reaching the Galata Bridge in the “full evening splendour of the setting sun.” Here at last she begins to appreciate the beauty of the old city on its peninsula, noting approvingly “the Moslem side crowned with a noble line of mosques with gilded minarets” and “the long dark point of the Seraglio [Topkapı Palace], running far out into the water, crowned with its dark mysterious groves, so weird and beautiful.”
She appreciates too the cosmopolitan hubbub of the Galata Bridge itself, with its “English with white umbrellas and low hats … Armenians, with coloured sash glaring out of rags … Greeks in white petticoats and gold embroidered vests … blind beggars in threadbare turbans… Albanian sellers of sesame, honey and sweets; Greek and Bulgarian fruit sellers (and oh! what tempting strawberries), dervishes in white turbans and long dark kaftans.”
These and a whole host of other colorful characters briefly lighten Elliot's spirits, but as her carriage proceeds up the narrow streets of Galata she is soon back to criticizing the city she has come to write about, with its “miserable-looking open shops, about the size of cupboards,” street dogs whose plight “became a great grief to me” and the “cynical desolation” of a Moslem cemetery they ride by. Even the British Embassy, just off the Grande Rue de Pera (today's İstiklal Caddesi), designed by the noted architect Charles Barry and completed in 1855, she castigates as “most incongruous in architecture. Tuscan Gothic, copied from the Palazzo Pitti at Florence! Now this for an Oriental capital strikes one as absurd.”

Exploring Sultanahmet

Elliot based herself in the long-gone Hotel Royal, situated near the British Embassy, and set off daily to explore the city. Like so many visitors both before and after her, Elliot makes the cathedral built at the behest of the sixth-century Byzantine emperor Justinian, the Hagia Sophia (Aya Sofya), her first port of call. You won't be surprised to earn that this iconic building fails to impress the peevish Elliot. Berating its “agglomeration of shapeless roofs” and the “four clumsy minarets” added piecemeal after its conversion to a mosque following the Ottoman Turkish conquest of 1453, she was “quite bewildered with disappointment” before she'd even entered the holy building.
On entering her mood was not improved by the “slippers, dirty and old” she is compelled to wear over her shoes on entering the church-turned-mosque, which are too large and “keep dropping off, which enrages the door-keeper.” The cavernous interior, glittering with gold mosaic, its soaring dome floating of ethereally 55 meters above the floor the nave, she dismisses summarily: “The squareness of the church detracts from its size. […] the openness of the church offends by its plainness […] it did not impress me, and I am bound to tell the truth.”
Of course, the art and architecture of the Byzantine period had yet to undergo a rehabilitation that did not begin until the 20th century, and the Victorian world, of which Elliot was a typical product, remained in complete thrall to Classical Greece and Rome. But to find nary a good word to say about one of the world's most important buildings feels harsh even when judged by the standards of her time.
Her next stop, the nearby Hippodrome (At Meydan) fares no better, despite having its origins in the late-Roman, rather than Byzantine, period. To Elliot it is “an oblong area of a most vulgar and unpleasant aspect” where “horses ready saddled stand in the dust for hire, held by Turkish youths, and a crowd of fiacres with tourists, arabas, and ox-carts are drawn up in the shade; sellers of Turkish delight, water carriers and beggars” make the ancient chariot racing arena “a most unclean spot, and bitterly disappointing.”
The adjacent Blue Mosque, built by Sultan Ahmed I in 1609 and today one of the most visited sights in İstanbul, she describes as an “ugly mosque, with its six heavy minarets and four great domes.” Of the city's renowned mosques in general, Elliot writes, “If you have seen one mosque you have seen all, the variations are so trifling, the absence of art complete and the monotony so excessive.” So much for the great works of Sinan and other notable Ottoman architects!

Trips up the Golden Horn and Bosporus

At least Elliot was moderately adventurous, heading up the Golden Horn by caique, then following the line of the fifth century land walls of Theodosius. At last she finds something to praise, noting, “The walls of Rome, of which we hear so much, are not to be compared in height, strength or picturesqueness with those of Constantinople.” She also clearly enjoyed the pomp of a spectacle denied to today's visitors to the city, that of the sultan (Abdülhamit) and his entourage making his way from his palace in Yıldız to Friday prayers, and also reserved rare praise for the Süleymaniye Mosque complex, “of which the Turks are justly proud. It is by far the most artistic among the mosques which crown the hills.”
Enervated by the city's June heat, Elliot abandons the Hotel Royal and heads up the Bosporus to Therapia (today's Tarabya) by steamer, noting en-route, “Taken as a whole, the Bosphorus, though the slopes never rise to commanding heights, is excessively picturesque.” Arriving at Tarabya she heads for the “comfortable establishment of Petali's Hotel, with a charming view from every window” and settles herself in “a suite of airy rooms.” Here she has a very pleasant time of it, picnicking in the Belgrade Forest and hobnobbing with the Persian and British ambassadors. Elliot's last trip was to attend a social gathering across the Bosporus at the Sweet Waters of Asia, close to the fortification of Anadoluhisarı. Next day she “bade adieu to Constantinople from the deck of the ambassador's launch, and steamed by Vienna home into the Western world.”
Turkish readers will likely be very offended by Elliot's bigotry about their race and religion, but her visit does provide some useful and colorful information about İstanbul in the late 19th century.

Frances Minto Elliot

Born in 1820 in Berkshire, England, Frances Vickriss Dickinson married John Geils of Scotland when she was only 18. The marriage was a disaster, and after seven years she moved to London and filed for divorce. During the acrimonious and long-winded divorce proceedings she began writing for several noted London magazines, and soon got to know some of Victorian London's leading writers, including Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins. Although the injured party in the divorce, she was ostracized from polite London society and moved to Italy, eventually remarrying an elderly widower, Gilbert Elliot, though this marriage too foundered. She wrote four books in the “Idle Woman in” genre, several other travelogues and three novels. Little known today, she was very popular in her time. Elliot died in Italy aged 78.
“Diary of an Idle Woman in Constantinople” is republished by Ulan Press through Amazon.co.uk

Haghia Sophia

Sirkeci train station (Photo: Sunday's Zaman)

Sirkeci

Keywords: Turkey , traveler

Cappadocia’s other churches

2016-01-04T07:00:00.000-05:00

Cappadocia’s other churches

Saklı Church, Göreme (Photo: Pat Yale)

When it comes to Cappadocia, visitors are spoilt for choice of things to see and do. They can take to the skies in a hot-air balloon for a bird's-eye view of the spectacular scenery. They can explore the myriad valleys with their extraordinary rock formations on foot or on horseback. They can make their way to Avanos and try their hand at throwing a pot. Or they can delve beneath the surface quite literally in one of the many underground cities that riddle the area.
But most of all, they can take time out to inspect some of the wonderful medieval churches hollowed out of the rocks during the centuries when Cappadocia was a remote province of the Byzantine Empire. These churches are astonishing, partly because of the extraordinary way in which they mimic the shape of conventional masonry churches right down to columns and domes that serve no structural function in a cave context. But most of all they are astonishing because of the colorful frescoes that cover the walls and ceilings -- utterly mind-blowing when you see them for the first time.

Some of the finest of the frescoed churches are to be found in the Göreme Open Air Museum where several are grouped together to form what must once have been a very lively monastic settlement. But what if you arrive at the museum and find the car park jam-packed with coaches as can easily happen especially over a bayram (public holiday)? Luckily, there are plenty of other stand-alone churches to explore. And there's a fair chance that you'll have some of them to yourself.

The following list offers a mere taster. There are many other rock-cut churches to discover especially in the Ihlara and Soğanlı valleys.

El Nazar Church, Göreme

If the car park at the Open Air Museum is indeed full, one of the easiest alternatives to find is the El Nazar Church, which is signposted to the left off the road leading back to Göreme. After a walk of perhaps 300 meters, you'll come to a conical formation that looks rather like an outsize molar. Inside, it is a small but impressively frescoed 10th-century church, its neat, small dome decorated with a painting of the Pantocrator (God the Almighty).

Aynalı Church, Göreme

Alternatively, you could head for the 11th-century Aynalı (Symmetrical) Church, which is uphill behind the museum and clearly signposted off the road to the right. In place of the frescoes of the El Nazar Church, it's decorated with lively red and white geometrical patterns. Like the Yusuf Koç Church in Göreme, the Aynalı Church appears to have been part of a monastery with a huge hall running back from the church and tunnels leading to other rooms at least some of which could be sealed off with rolling stones as in the underground cities.

Yusuf Koç Church, Göreme

If you're staying in Göreme, there are several impressively frescoed churches right on your doorstep. The closest is the 11th-century Yusuf Koç Church, named after a man on whose land it used to stand. The church is part of a rock-cut monastic complex that includes an open-sided cave with a rock-cut refectory table running along one side. But it's the church itself, accessed via a metal ladder, that is most impressive.

Inside, what looks just like any one of the fairy-chimney cones standing around it, you'll find a brilliantly colorful church with twin domes and the tops of lost columns hanging from the ceiling where they were probably axed at the same time as a pigeon house was sliced into the walls. Here you'll find a painting of St George spearing his dragon, a popular image in an area that revered him as its patron saint. Here, too, you'll see life-size portraits of Saints Helena and Constantine holding the True Cross, which she is believed to have discovered while visiting Jerusalem.

Durmuş Kadir Church, Göreme

Close enough to be visited together with the Yusuf Koç Church, the Durmuş Kadir Church probably dates back to the sixth or seventh century, making it one of the oldest in the area. It may lack the glorious frescoes that are such a pull but offers instead one of the best examples of the sheer ambition brought to bear on creating the cave churches since it's at least as large as many masonry ones. The church is also worth seeing for the free-standing ambo (pulpit) that dominates the naos (nave), the partially surviving stone screen, and the synthronon, a tiered bench ringing the apse that is a feature of the most impressive Byzantine churches.

Haçlı Church

If you're walking in the Güllüdere (Rose Valley), you should make a point of looking for the wonderful Haçlı (Cross) Church, accessible via a steep metal ladder at the back of a small café. Here you'll find some of the most wonderfully colorful frescoes, including a magnificent 10th-century Pantocrator painted onto the apse and virtually undamaged despite its great age. Visitable on the same walk, especially if you have a guide to show you the way, are the Üçhaçlı (Three Crosses) Church, with more damaged frescoes, and the Kolonlu (Columned) Church, which, like the Durmuş Kadir, is more impressive for its virtuoso architecture, including the soaring pillars from which it takes its name.

Church of John the Baptist, Çavusin

On the way to or from Avanos, you can easily hop off the bus at Çavuşin where, right by the road, you'll see a 10th-century church whose façade has sheered away leaving some of its paintings exposed to the elements. Once again, access is via a metal ladder that lets you inspect at close quarters the huge painted archangels thus exposed before stepping inside the church to swoon over a barrel-vaulted ceiling entirely painted with pictures showing Bible stories in continuous strips. More unexpectedly, here, too, are images of the Emperor Nicephorus Focas and his wife, who visited the area in the 960s.

Church of St John, Gülsehir

If you have a car, it's an easy drive south of Nevşehir to Gülşehir where the Church of St John (AKA Karşı Kilise) lurks on the northern outskirts unpromisingly hidden behind a cluster of modern houses. From the outside, the cone that houses the church looks equally unpromising. Inside, however, the frescoes have been wonderfully restored. What's more, they're easy to view from a platform reached by a spiral ladder that brings you up close enough to admire the details, especially of the dramatic Last Judgment scene painted on the west wall, an image that is rarely shown in Cappadocia.

Some local tours take in this church, which can also be visited by bus from Nevsehir to Gülşehir.

Church of St Theodore, Yesilöz (Tagor)

Virtually impossible to reach without private transport, the Tagor Church is, not surprisingly, one of the least well-known marvels of Cappadocia, despite the fact that it has a unique upper gallery, perhaps intended for women worshippers, that overlooks the central naos. Windows let into the raised dome allow light to flood into the church, which probably dates from the late 1lth or early 12th century.

Sakli Church, Göreme

The Saklı (Hidden) Church is a small gem of a building tucked away beneath a plateau within walking distance of the El Nazar. Unfortunately it's obvious from the fractured state of some of the ceiling paintings that it is not entirely safe in its current state, so the church is kept locked unless the El Nazar custodian feels like showing it to visitors. Should you be lucky enough to get inside, you will discover more glorious frescoes painted with a more restrained palate than those of the El Nazar.

Church of Forty Martyrs, Sahinefendi

One of the finest of all Cappadocia's less-visited treasures is the superb Church of Forty Martyrs hidden inside one of the dramatic fairy chimneys dotting the roadside at Şahinefendi, a village too often whipped through by minibuses on their way to Soğanlı. Access is problematic despite the fact that the frescoes on the walls and ceiling are newly restored and that the church has been readied for visitors. For the time being, the keyholder also has to guard the Roman ruins at nearby Sobesos so may be reluctant to divert to unlock the gate. If he does, you will discover a dramatic rendering of the strange story of the 40 martyrs, a group of early Christians from Sivas who refused to give up their faith and were driven out onto a frozen lake to freeze to death. There's even an image of the one man who recanted being replaced by a local official who converted to Christianity and who is shown casting off his elaborate robe to join the men on the lake. Unusually, an inscription permits the paintings to be dated accurately to 1216.

Keywords: Cappadocia , church

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_cappadocias-other-churches_358483.html

Mushrooms with everything: Bolu and around

2015-12-21T07:00:00.000-05:00

Mushrooms with everything: Bolu and around

Beauty of Mudurnu (Photo: Pat Yale)

“We call this one grandfather's beard. This is the deer mushroom. And this one is called blonde girl.”
I've arrived in bolu in mushroom season and in front of the late 15th-century Kadı Cami, conspicuous only for its austerity, I bump into a man in a captain's cap wearing a T-shirt emblazoned “Yavuz Sultan Selim The Caliph.” He looks an unlikely mushroom advocate, but he rattles off the names of his products with all the enthusiasm of a car showroom salesman.

“We call it pretty girl, too,” cuts in a woman sitting beside him in the blue-and-red-striped şalvar that are the favored choice of local matrons. I look at the bowls and plates lined up in front of her. Some are filled with what look like sponges, others with what looks like seaweed. All of it, however, turns out to be fungus of one sort or another, and soon I'm being given a quick lesson in mushroom cookery.

The mushrooms are not the only things being sold in front of the mosque, though. Minutes later and I'm being handed raspberries and apples to taste. Bolu may have one of western Turkey's coolest climates, but clearly it makes for perfect market-gardening conditions.

Bolu is one of those towns that goes virtually ignored by foreign tourists, although it's popular with Turks who use it as a base for visiting the many lakes in the surrounding countryside and as an alternative base for visiting the ski resort at nearby Kartalkaya. In the last couple of years the entire town center has been redesigned to turn it into a pedestrian zone with a cycle path running down the middle. At one end brand-new restaurants and cafes dot landscaped parkland so designed that even the walls of the local branch of Burger King have plants running up and down their sides.

Unfortunately, the town remains low on serious tourist attractions. There's one old han and the slight remains of a Roman stadium, now hidden behind billboards. Otherwise the only thing that might draw a visitor in is the local archaeological museum. This showcases the finds from ancient Bithynia, which still crop up from time to time when new roads are being built.

Still, Bolu remains the best base for exploring the surrounding area with two significant caveats which are that the town-center hotels are disappointingly overpriced and old-fashioned, and that it's not at all easy for a visitor without a car to get to grips with the public transport system, with buses to local destinations leaving from different offices scattered all around town.

Mudurnu

Probably the single most interesting place to go from Bolu is Mudurnu, a delightful small town to the southwest that glories in all the historic attractions its larger neighbor lacks.

Mudurnu is one of those towns that has found itself washed-up by the tide of history. Once upon a time it stood on one of the old Silk Roads that crisscrossed Anatolia, hence the fine 14th-century Yıldırım Beyazıt Cami that still survives along with its hamam in the town center. Nearby the bazaar is one of those that still echoes to the sound of copper-beaters, although gradually some of its old shops are being refurbished to sell the sort of handicrafts more attractive to visitors such as jewelry made from oya, the beads that used to be used to decorate women's headscarves.

If Bolu is low on good hotels, Mudurnu is awash with them especially if you are the type of visitor who rates character more highly than the latest in high-tech gadgetry. These hotels are mostly housed in beautifully restored Ottoman mansions dotted about the town center, some of them boasting inviting courtyards or gardens. Finest of them all is probably the Hacı Şakirler Konağı, which still retains all its Ottoman decoration on the inside as well as the outside.

If you're planning a visit to Mudurnu, you might like to know that it is also home to a rather lovely tradition known as the Esnaf Duası (the Tradesmen's Prayer). Every Friday immediately before lunchtime prayers in the Yıldırım Beyazıt Cami, the men from the bazaar line up in two rows in front of their shops to share hunks of bread and squares of lokum (Turkish delight) before praying together in the street. It's a quietly moving sight.

Seben

Directly south of Bolu a spectacular wooded road winds through the mountains and down past Seben Gölü (Lake Seben) to the small town of Seben. In itself the town is of no great interest. However, in the vicinity it's possible to visit two abandoned cave settlements, one at Solaklar, the other at Muslar. Unlike the more elaborate cave settlements of Cappadocia in Central Anatolia that have continued in use until today, the cave homes of Seben are no longer lived in and are much more like simple prehistoric rock shelters without the modern add-ons that made it possible for people to continue to live in the Cappadocian versions. As so often, no written records survive to fill us in on the history of the sites, although it is believed that they were inhabited in Phrygian times.

Rather unexpectedly, there are also the remains of what must have been a fine Byzantine church near Seben at Çeltikdere. The road to reach it wanders through a sequence of attractive villages with half-timbered farmhouses before disintegrating into a track that winds down to a beautiful, peaceful gorge. Here the church stands in complete collapse with just its apse with its arrow-slit windows still standing. It makes the perfect backdrop for a picnic.

Mengen

Northeast of Bolu, the small town of Mengen was once the source of many of the chefs who cooked for the sultans in Constantinople. Today it still offers cookery courses in a department of the local university, although it can't be said that the restaurants around town offer anything to get too excited about. However, once a year cooks from all over Turkey descend on Mengen to take part in a lively festival, focal point of which is a pilav günü (rice day) at which visitors are served risotto from a giant cauldron. If you'd like to take a look make a note in your diary for the end of September next year.

Turkey's little Lake District

When it comes to lakes, foreign visitors tend to think first of the group of lakes in Western Anatolia around Eğirdir and Beyşehir, and then of Lake Van in the far east of the country. Turks, however, also think of the area around Bolu and in particular of Yedigöller, the cluster of small lakes in the forests north of the town. Rather surprisingly, given the amount of new road-building in the country, the roads to Yedigöller remain poor and no public transport serves the lakes.

This means that you may find it easier to visit either Gölcük, the pretty small lake just to the south of Bolu, or Abant Gölü (Lake Abant), the picture-perfect expanse of water set in woodland near Mudurnu. In high summer there are infrequent buses direct to Abant or you can take a taxi form Mudurnu. Several large hotels sit right beside the lake, but despite their five-star ratings they are not perhaps as modern as you might anticipate. Still, come here in the season when the water-lilies are in flower on the water (about now) and you probably won't be complaining. Alternatively, you can hold onto until a snowy winter day, then come here to be driven around the lake in a horse-drawn phaeton equipped with the equivalent of skis, a magical experience.

WHERE TO STAY
Hacı Şakirler Konağı, Mudurnu. Tel: 0374-421 3856
Hotel Kaşmir, Bolu. Tel: 0374-215 8614
Keyvanlar Konağı, Mudurnu. Tel: 0374-421 3750
Fuatbeyler Konağı, Mudurnu. Tel: 0374-421 2444

HOW TO GET THERE
Bolu is conveniently located midway between İstanbul and Ankara, with frequent buses from both towns. The new bus station is remote from the town center and poorly served by public transport.

Keywords: mushrooms , bolu

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_mushrooms-with-everything-bolu-and-around_360614.html

Side has been attracting visitors for thousands of years

2015-12-07T07:00:00.000-05:00

Side has been attracting visitors for thousands of years

Temple of Apollo in Side, Antalya. (Photo: Cihan)

After thousands of years of settlement by newcomers ranging from the ancient Greeks, Romans and Persians to pirates, Arabs and Jews, the town of side on the Turkish Mediterranean coast is used to visitors.
Side (pronounced "see day") is on Turkey's southeastern coast, around 70 kilometers (40 miles) from the city of Antalya, a popular, developed tourist resort.
A peninsula just 1 kilometer long and 400 meters wide, Side is one of the most famous classical sites in Turkey.

(Photo: Cihan)
It is believed to have been founded by Greek settlers in the seventh century B.C., and its harbor and geography made it an attractive trade center for other occupiers, including Alexander the Great, Sicilian pirates and the Romans.
In the seventh century A.D. Arabs raided and burned Side, causing the beginning of its slow decline. Then, in 1895, Turkish Muslim refugees from Crete arrived and the revival began.
Here are tips from Reuters, whose 2,600 journalists in all parts of the world offer visitors the best local insights, for getting the most out of the Side area.

Explore the ruins

At the end of the road leading to the Old Town (Antik Side), an amphitheater on the left was built in the Roman style because Side didn't have a suitable hillside which could be hollowed out in the more usual Greek way.
Not as well-preserved as the one in nearby Aspendos, it still can seat up to 20,000 people and hosts jazz festivals, opera, and classical concerts during the summer months.

People watch the popular German entertainment show 'Wetten Dass...?' ('Bet it...?') hosted by Thomas Gottschalk at the ancient Roman amphitheatre of Aspendos. (Photo: AP)
Towards the Hellenistic main gate into the ancient city, you can stroll through the ruins of homes or shops, some of which still have their original mosaic floors.
Through the gate of the ancient city you come to a street flanked by colonnades. The remains of a Roman bath are here -- now a museum displaying Roman statues.
At the eastern edge of the peninsula, past the harbor to the left, stand the remains of the 2,000-year-old temple of apollo, at their most majestic at sunset. The Turkish government has been restoring the temple's columns, which saltwater has been eroding.

Getting around

The best way to explore Side is on foot. Its back streets hide small mosques, boutique hotels, quirky cottages and olive gardens.
At Side harbor you can get boat trips to Antalya, Manavgat or go on the trail of dolphins, which, if you are lucky, can be spotted off the peninsula.
On land, minibuses called dolmuş are a frequent, cheap and often entertaining way to get around -- if you are prepared to squeeze in. Taxis are available but set the price of your journey before climbing aboard.

Sun, sea, set sail

Side has long, hot summers and short, mild winters. In the peak season -- July and August -- temperatures can reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) or higher. Spring and autumn are more comfortable times to visit, with temperatures in the 20s and 30s but maybe the odd thunderstorm and rain.
Sun worshippers have plenty of choice with stretches of beach on both the east and west sides of the peninsula.
The west side was regenerated around five years ago with a promenade lined with restaurants and five-star hotels. The sea here is shallower and therefore more popular with some tourists.
The east side is less crowded and attracts more locals, especially on Sundays. Lined with beach bars, there is a more relaxed feel. The beach is wider, a bit rockier and the sea is slightly deeper, great for watersports and parasailing.

Shop till you drop

The center of Side is the place for leather goods, hand-woven rugs, pottery, designer handbags, jewelry, watches and sportswear -- but be prepared to haggle and explore the side streets for the best deals.
Manavgat, a working town just north of Side, might not be as glamorous but has plentiful and cheap markets twice a week, as well as plenty of sportswear and clothes shops. This is the place to experience the juiciest strawberries, cherries, melons and figs -- at pleasingly low prices.

Eating and drinking

For cheap snacks sample fresh corn cobs, or try a durum, a wrap filled with typical döner kebab ingredients.
For a few Turkish lira you can pick up the Turkish version of a pizza, called lahmacun -- an oval, thin dough topped with minced meat, herbs and tomatoes.
Opposite the Roman Baths in the Old Town, the family-run Ocakbaşı restaurant offers good value Turkish food in a beautiful garden surrounded by ruins. Savor the generous portions of complimentary meze. (http://bit.ly/1w2mTCr)
For food with a more elegant twist and for excellent views of the sea, try Aphrodite in the harbor, or Karma directly behind it. (www.aphroditeside.com) (www.karmaside.com)
The Apollonik bar, named after the Temple of Apollo close by, has been in business for 55 years. The tiny building resembles something from Hansel and Gretel: grab a table outside under the sweet-smelling grape vines to watch the sunset and sample killer cocktails. (www.apollonik.com)

Explore

Just three kilometers north of Manavgat are waterfalls on the Manavgat River. Boat trips reach here from Manavgat town but you can also drive to the Oymapınar Dam, a thundering tower of water.

A waterfall on Manavgat River. (Photo: Cihan)
Nearby is the Green Lake, named for the color of the water. This is a peaceful spot to escape the heat. Restaurants are signposted where you can eat by the lakeside and swim from floating jetties.
If the ruins of Side whetted your appetite for more antiquity, Aspendos, said to have the best-preserved Greek amphitheater, lies between Side and Antalya. Further south, the ruins of Perge include an acropolis dating back to the Bronze Age.
South of Antalya and inland, Pamukkale, or "cotton castle" in Turkish, looks just that. A World Heritage site, hot springs pop out of vast terraces of carbonated minerals which were produced over thousands of years by flowing water.

Keywords: side , temple of apollo , Aspendos , Turkey , travel

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_side-has-been-attracting-visitors-for-thousands-of-years_361885.html

Chasing the autumn sun: Fethiye versus Antalya

2015-11-23T07:00:00.000-05:00

Chasing the autumn sun: Fethiye versus Antalya

Kayaköy-Levissi (Photo: Pat Yale)

There's no getting away from it. The shorter days and falling leaves tell the usual story. Autumn is drawing to an end and winter will soon be upon us. So what better time to start planning a last-minute dash for the Mediterranean sun, especially as there's another holiday, the Cumhuriyet Bayramı (Republic Day, Oct. 29), in the offing.

Don't know where to go? Well, my money would be on fethiye or Antalya, which can be at their very best at this time of year. Antalya in particular is often nicer now than in the height of summer when the muggy heat can be pretty unbearable.

The two towns have a lot in common. Both sit in spectacular bays with mountainous islands shimmering on the horizon. Both offer easy access to a wide range of historic attractions in their backyards. And both have been in the tourism business a long time, which means that they have all the hotels, shops, restaurants and bars a visitor could possibly hope for.

So which to go for? It's a tough call, but here are the pros and cons.

Fethiye

Towards the western end of the Mediterranean Fethiye is much smaller than Antalya, something that has many advantages, especially in terms of the time it takes to get around the town center. However, it's still big enough to have a life beyond tourism for those who prefer not to stay in a visitor ghetto.

Fethiye's long waterfront was always very attractive but has been made even more so in recent years by new landscaping that extends it much further, with new cafes lined up to take in the extra views. Personally, I still like the heart of the waterfront where the wooden gulets (yachts) are lined up best of all. You don't have to take a boat ride, but you'd have to be pretty determined to pass up all the offers, whether it's just a quick whip round the bay on the “12 Islands” cruise, a run over to Göçek to shop at its Sunday market, or a real “blue cruise” taking in some of the sights along the coastline while sleeping onboard beneath the stars.

Behind the waterfront, Fethiye offers a sprawling bazaar area and an old hamam (Turkish bath). It's all pretty touristy but no less fun for all that, and if you wander into the old fish market area, select your fish, then have it cooked and served to you at one of the tables nearby, you're more or less guaranteed to have a good time.

The formal tourist attractions of Fethiye are relatively minor: the picturesque but not especially exciting Carian tombs cut into the rock at the back of town, the theater that has just been rather controversially restored and a museum housing the finds from nearby sites such as Tlos and the Letoon. But the surrounding area more than makes up for this. Indeed, you'll be spoilt for choice whether your tastes run to the Lycian archaeological sites at Tlos, Pınara, Patara and Xanthos-Letoon, the latter a world heritage site; to the glorious beach-fringed lagoon at Ölüdeniz; to the daredevil thrill of paragliding off Baba Dağı (Mt. Baba); to wading through ice-cold water in the Saklıkent Gorge; or to cruising along the river from Dalyan to İztuzu Beach where you can visit a hospital set up to care for injured loggerhead turtles. From Ölüdeniz there's also a wonderful boat ride to lovely Butterfly Valley where you'll just about have time to race inland to inspect a small waterfall.

The one excursion you should be sure to make is to the ruins of Kayaköy, as the old Levissi the place that inspired “Birds Without Wings” author Louis de Bernieres to set pen to paper. Levissi had to be abandoned in 1923 when the “Greek” Christians living in Turkey were forced to relocate to Greece while the “Turkish” Muslims in Greece came to live in Turkey. Fewer Turks arrived than Greeks departed and the settlement was eventually allowed to fall into ruin, its doors and windows scavenged for new buildings, its churches left to rot.

The reason why this excursion should top your list is that, not for the first time, plans are currently being floated to rebuild part of the settlement. Conceivably, if this was done slowly and carefully for non-commercial reasons, it might not be a disaster. However, talk of creating an “international brand” around the ruins has left many fretting about what might happen. If you're the sort of person who likes to wander amid ruins and let your imagination take wing then you might not have that opportunity for much longer.

The nearest airport to Fethiye is in Dalaman.

Antalya

Far bigger than Fethiye, Antalya will suit those who like to be able to indulge their usual urban habits even while holidaying near a beach. The waterfront of Fethiye is longer and prettier than the harbor area of Antalya. However, Fethiye has almost no old architecture while the Kaleiçi (Inner Castle) area of old Antalya is choc-a-block with lovely old Ottoman houses, some beautifully restored, some rebuilt, some still awaiting a savior. Mixed in with these houses are Roman remains, including the fine Arch of Hadrian that serves as one entrance to the area, as well as several attractive Ottoman mosques, one of them with a fluted minaret that crops up in many photographs.

When it comes to specific attractions within the town Antalya beats Fethiye hands down. The Antalya Museum is one of the finest in the country, showcasing the finds from the nearby ruins of Perge in particular, but in Kaleiçi there is also a lovely private museum, the Suna and İnan Kiraç Museum, partially housed in a disused church and emphasizing aspects of Turkish culture such as weddings and circumcisions. The town also boasts a fine new aquarium and a large aquapark.

As with Fethiye, so with Antalya, there's a wide choice of places to visit on local day trips. Organized excursions often take in the extensive Roman ruins not just of Perge but also of nearby Side and Aspendos, which is home to a beautifully restored Classical theater. You can also visit the beautiful seaside ruins of Phaselis and the mountainside ruins of Termessos, or the cave at Karain in which traces of prehistoric settlement have been found.

Slightly further afield you can ride the Olympos Teleferik, a cable car running up Tahtalı Dağı (Mt Tahtalı, 2365m) and offering splendid views (on a clear day) across the Beydağları (Bey Mountains) national park to the sea. Those with a private car can also drive to Olympos and Çiralı where the Chimaera, an inextinguishable flame, shoots up beside the rocky mountain path. You could even drive up to Sagalassos, another mountainside archaeological site where the old fountains built by the Greeks and Romans now flow with water once again.

If Fethiye is all about boat rides and paragliding, Antalya is best known for white-water rafting and golfing. The white-water rafting takes place in the lovely Köprülü Kanyon, a 14-kilometer-long canyon east of Antalya, which is one of the most popular places in the whole country for trying out the sport, not least because some of the runs are suitable for less experienced rafters.

The golfing takes place in Belek, which specializes in catering to those for whom no holiday would be complete without being able to hit a small white ball across a green. Belek also majors on huge hotels that are the antithesis of the boutique offerings of the Kaleiçi. Vast and frequently themed, they are mostly all-inclusive and perfect for family holidays.

Antalya has its own international airport with a second not far away in Gazipaşa, near Alanya.

Keywords: fethiye , Antalya

Source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_chasing-the-autumn-sun-fethiye-versus-antalya_361843.html

Enrollment for Turkish Classes has started - SPRING 2016. Enroll Now!

2015-11-18T14:53:00.000-05:00

Enrollment for Turkish Classes has Started

Enroll Now!

Rumi Forum
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www.rumiforum.org

For registration please fill out the registration form at this link:

http://bit.ly/turkishdc (Due date for the form is DECEMBER 25)

Learn Turkish in Washington, DC! Experienced teachers are offering Turkish Language Classes at the Rumi Forum in Washington DC. If you are looking for Turkish lessons in DC Metropolitan Area, Rumi Forum is the right place to begin.

- There are three terms in a year (Spring, Summer, Fall)
- The classes are usually held on weekdays Monday – Fridays (6 – 8:30 PM).

- Turkish language classes are open to everyone who is interested.
- The classes are arranged based on the number of students interested in at any level.
- Our teachers are using a Turkish Language Book Set written in Turkish and English.

For the intensive program: A two and a half hour class per week and four classes in a month.

Intensive Turkish Classes for SPRING 2016

JANUARY 4 - MARCH 27

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Cost: $ 300
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All levels 1- 7 will be offered

For further queries please email: turkish@rumiforum.org

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The best of the west

2015-11-09T07:00:00.000-05:00

The best of the west

Pamukkale (Photo: Pat Yale)

The bad news is that recent events on the political front mean that tourism to the eastern parts of Turkey is likely to take a significant hit, at least in the short term. The good news is, however, that Turkey is a vast country, which means that there are more than enough alternative destinations for those in search of something a little less mainstream than a beach holiday. It has long been my opinion that Western Anatolia is one of the least appreciated parts of the country when it comes to foreign visitors. Now could be the time when it comes into its own.

Here are a few suggestions of where to visit in Western Anatolia, starting with the blockbuster destinations of Pamukkale-Hierapolis and Afrodisias that already receive their fair share of visitors and moving on to places such as Afyon and Gölhisar, which are waiting in the wings.

Pamukkale-Hierapolis

Why? Rare combination of man-made and natural beauty
Pamukkale is the site that launched a thousand dog-eared posters of tourists frolicking in the turquoise waters of the travertines that cascade down a hillside in front of the sprawling ruins of ancient Hierapolis, the place where St. Philip is believed to have been buried. With more than enough to occupy a day of anyone's time, Pamukkale is already a fixture on many tourists' itineraries. The sleepy little village at the foot of the travertines could do with more staying visitors, though, and those who do linger will find that there are plenty of other sites to see in the surrounding area including the increasingly impressive ruins of ancient Laodikya, site of one of the Seven Churches of the Revelation; and the beautiful old painted mosque at Akköy, within walking distance of Pamukkale village.

Afrodisias

Why? Magnificent Greco-Roman archaeological site good enough to rival Ephesus
Famously publicized by photographer Ara Güler, Afrodisias, the ruins of the city of the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, once stood silent and forgotten around the village of Eski Geyre. Today some of the old buildings of Eski Geyre survive to serve as a café and exhibition center, but you'll probably be too busy racing out to the Classical ruins to notice them. Afrodisias has all the typical features of a Greco-Roman site (Theater? Tick. Odeon? Tick. Huge temple? Tick), although perhaps the most striking survivor is the glorious stadium, one of the best preserved in the world. In the end, though, the real winner these days is the restored Sebasteion, a temple to the Roman emperor as deity, the splendid carvings from which are now housed in a purpose-built gallery that shows them off to perfection.

Kütahya

Why? Ceramics with a backdrop of fine Ottoman housing
Once known almost exclusively as a place to come to eyeball the sort of ceramics that took over from İznikware in the 18th century, Kütahya is also a great place to come to explore a partially restored Ottoman townscape and stay in Ottoman style at the Ispartılar Konağı (tel: 0274-216 1975) in the renovated Germiyan quarter. It's also the best base for making a side trip out to the remains of ancient Aizanoi, appealingly scattered around the village of Çavdarhisar.

Afyon

Why? Drama of a hilltop castle combined with the pleasures of an old Ottoman townscape
Modern Afyon labors under the weight of its full name, which is Afyonkarahisar, a moniker that commemorates both the opium poppies (afyon) that grow hereabouts and the black castle (kara hisar) that looms above the town, daring visitors to make the ascent. Afyon's new archeological museum is way out of the center unlike its other great treasure, an Ulu Cami that belongs to a group of so-called “forest mosques,” their ceilings supported by a forest of columns carved from tree trunks. With Eskişehir, Afyon also makes a great base for exploring the newly waymarked Frig Yolu (Phrygian Way), centered on the remains of a great Phrygian temple at Midasşehri. Much of the lovely old Ottoman housing survives, some of it restored, some not. Stay at the lovely Şehitoğlu Konağı (tel: 0272-214 1313) to get the full effect.

Sardis

Why? Remains of ancient Lydian town where coins were first minted
Most easily visited on a day trip from İzmir, Sardis is nonetheless on the edge of Western Anatolia and easy to fit in if you're heading across country from Denizli. The remains of the ancient mint are pretty unmemorable, unlike the spectacular mosaic floors of what was once one of Anatolia's largest synagogues and the reconstructed Court of the Hall of the Imperial Cult. A short walk away from these obvious ruins lie the remains of the Temple of Artemis, one of the four largest temples in ancient Asia Minor and beautifully sited against a mountain backdrop.

Turkish Lake District

Why? Glorious lakeside settings. Stopping point on waymarked St. Paul's Trail
If it's lakeside scenery you're after, then you should head straight for Eğirdır where you can either stay on the mainland in the shadow of a ruined castle or out on an island linked to it by a causeway where the strong breezes will act as a constant reminder that you're sitting in the middle of a lake. Surprisingly, there's little in the way of watersports development, not even in the form of boat trips out onto the lake. For that, you should head for equally lovely Beyşehir, where the ruins of a Selçuk summer palace sit right beside the water. Finally, you could stay in Burdur, where the lake is a couple of kilometers out of the town center, but where there's a great museum and a couple of lovely restored Ottoman houses open to the public.

Gölhisar (Cibyra)

Why? Newly excavated archaeological site you may well have to yourself
If you've popped your head into Burdur Museum, you will have seen some fine carvings depicting gladiators that were found south of town at the remote site of Cibyra, uphill from Gölhisar. Barely ready for visitors, the site nonetheless boasts another very impressive stadium as wall as a theater and bouleterion (council house) that are almost intact. An impressive mosaic showing the head of Medusa may or may not be visible when you visit.

Akşehir

Why? Nasrettin Hoca links make this a fun place to bring children
The small town of Akşehir is completely off the radar when it comes to foreign visitors, and yet it is a surprisingly pleasant place with several lovely Selçuk monuments. But what makes Akşehir refreshingly different from many other similar inland towns is that it is believed to be the last resting place of Middle Eastern funnyman Nasrettin Hoca, a fact enthusiastically celebrated in the local park with reproductions of some of his best-known stories dotted about.

Yalvaç and Antioch in Psidia

Why? Archeological site associated with St. Paul
Compared to Afrodisias and Hierapolis, Antioch in Psidia is very much an also-ran tourist attraction with few of the surviving ruins especially striking to the non-specialist visitor. On the other hand, the site has strong associations with St. Paul, who is believed to have visited on three out of four of his trans-Anatolian missionary journeys and for some people this will give it a particular poignancy. Yalvaç is the small town just up the road from the site. Here, in the Çınaraltı Meydanı, you'll find one of those lovely Turkish corners where a group of teashops are grouped together in the shade of a huge and ancient plane tree, in this case rumored to be more than 800 years old.

Eskişehir

Why? To appreciate what can be done with a so-so town with a bit of imagination
Not so long ago the large town of Eskişehir was not a place where anyone wanted to linger unless they were tempted to sample its thermal baths. Then came an imaginative administration led by Yılmaz Büyükerşen, and the next thing anyone knew there was a flashy new tram, gondolas and Amsterdam canal boats on the river, inviting public parks and the restored Odunpazarı district where Ottoman houses grouped around the attractive 16th-century Kurşunlu Cami had been restored to serve as cafes and restaurants. For anyone interested in urban regeneration projects Eskişehir is Turkey's most unexpected must-see destination.

Keywords: Western , Anatolia

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_the-best-of-the-west_361199.html

The taste of Tarsus

2015-10-26T07:00:00.000-04:00

The taste of Tarsus

Old Tarsus (Photo: Pat Yale)

On a muggy, hot summer day I staggered up to a juice bar in the eastern Mediterranean city of tarsus. My fringe was plastered to my forehead. My glasses were smeared with sweat. Beads of perspiration were dripping off my chin onto my T-shirt.
“Very hot,” I said apologetically to the juice seller.
“Yes, humid,” he said, gently wiping away a single drop of sweat adorning his own forehead.
For those not brought up in this part of the world, the climate all along Turkey's south coast can be pretty punishing, but the wet heat concentrates its worst on the corner where the coastline makes its abrupt downward turn into Hatay. The good thing is that this ensures lush Levantine vegetation of palms, fig trees and banana plants. The bad thing is that it can make it hard to make oneself stir far from a hotel room with its air conditioning unit turned up high.
At the juice bar I downed a mixed fruit juice followed in short order by a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. But at that time of year I could easily have been more adventurous, because this is when the prickly pear bushes come into fruit and glasses of prickly pear juice (hint inciri suyu) are a common sight in Tarsus. Almost as common are bowls of yayla karsambaç, the Tarsus take on a slushie, with fruit juice poured over crushed ice to help you cool down.

Şalgam: an acquired taste

Finally, one can always take a deep breath and order a glass of şalgam, the so-called “turnip juice” that is claimed for itself by nearby Adana but spills over in large quantities to Tarsus too. Şalgam is actually made from carrots that have been added to fermented bulgur with a dose of salt. True aficionados drink it in between crunching on sticks of carrot called tane. It's very much an acquired taste.
Mention Tarsus to most people and the first thing that will come to their mind is St. Paul, the Tarsus-born Saul who underwent a religious experience on the road to Damascus and not only converted to Christianity and changed his name but also became one of the most ardent advocates for his new religion. A few people, after scratching their heads, will recall that Tarsus also had something to do with Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, who was summoned to the city in 41 BC to meet Marc Anthony, the Roman leader of the eastern part of what was then still a rambling republic. The queen is said to have sailed up the Cyndus river to meet him in a perfumed barge full of flowers. Needless to say, he promptly fell in love with her and forgot all about politics. Today, a poorly restored gate from the old city wall is named after the queen, although it can't have been standing when she visited.
Finally, a few sharper Turks will remember a link with the Şahmeran, a Mesopotamian fertility symbol with the body of a snake and the head of a human. These days the Şahmeran tends to be most closely associated with Mardin, where craftsmen in the bazaar turn out beautiful images of a creature that appears to be female under glass. The Tarsus Şahmeran, however, was firmly male, and a bit of an unreconstructed, voyeuristic male at that, since a local story records him climbing onto the roof of the Roman bathhouse to spy on the daughter of the king of Tarsus as she bathed. Unluckily for him, he lost his footing and fell into the arms of her waiting bodyguards who promptly put him to death. A statue of the Şahmeran looking like a many-headed cobra presides over a road junction in the center of town.
What few people know, however, is that on the quiet, Tarsus is almost as intriguing a place for people interested in food as Antakya further along the coast. This is mainly a result of its complex crossroads position, lost in the Mersin-Adana sprawl yet near enough to Hatay to have borrowed some of its trendy culinary clothing.
Take hummus, for example. This crushed chickpea and tahini dish is a Middle Eastern favorite that frequently crops up in Antakya by reason of its geographical proximity to Syria. Its popularity in Tarsus is less easy to understand, and does not, as in Kilis, have anything to do with the recent influx of refugees. But the hummus of Tarsus is hummus with a novel twist, because here you can eat it warmed through, dribbled with olive oil and dotted with chickpeas and slithers of pastırma (pastırmalı humus). It's absolutely delicious and best sampled at the award-winning Kervan Humus Salonu, tucked away on a side street.
The other dish that Tarsus seems to have borrowed from its eastern neighbors is the Gaziantep and Kilis favorite lahmacun, but here too it puts its own spin on the familiar serving of paper-thin bread spread with a paste of ground meat and vegetables. In Tarsus they take their lahmacun in bite-sized portions on sale by the hundred in the town's many bakeries. Fresh from the oven and piping hot, they're incredibly moreish.

Tasty tantuni

If şalgam was Adana's gift to Tarsus, then tantuni was Mersin's. Tantuni is a dish of stir-fried meat or chicken that is served in the same sort of soft-bread dürüm wrap as a döner kebab, except that this bread has been used to mop up the meat juices before being wrapped round the contents. The tantuni on offer in Tarsus may not quite match up to the version on sale in Mersin itself, but it certainly makes a good alternative to the more familiar döner.
When it comes to dessert, Tarsus lays claim to one sweet entirely of its own making, and that is cezerye, a gelatinous confection that, like şalgam, has carrot as its base ingredient but now with the addition of crushed hazelnuts or pistachios, honey, sugar and a mixture of different spices all sprinkled with grated coconut, then sliced into squares. You'll see it rising up in conical pyramids in the windows of every other sweetshop in town.
Dinner and cezerye dessert over, Tarsuslus, like Turks all over the country, adjourn to a teahouse to let their meal digest in the relative cool of evening over glass after glass of tea. Until recently the best and most obvious place to take one's tea was the pedestrianized Atatürk Bulvarı Yarenlik Alanı, which sits near an impressive stretch of exposed Roman road. As its name made plain, this used to be a place where one was encouraged to sit down for a friendly chat with others at one of a number of small cafes. Unfortunately these have now vanished, their place taken only by a string of park benches interspersed with busts of every famous or half-famous person ever to have graced Tarsus with their presence. In their absence you'll have to settle for an ordinary teahouse in a rather male-dominated town or (whisper it) head up to the Tarsu shopping mall for a drink in a branch of a cheerier coffeehouse chain.
WHERE TO STAY
Tarsus is low on decent places to stay, so you might want to stay overnight in Mersin, where there are lots of hotels near the bus terminal, or in Adana and visit on a day trip.
Hotel Bosnalı, Adana. Tel: 0322-359 8000
Hotel Mercan, Adana. Tel: 0322-351 2603
Konak Efsus, Tarsus. Tel: 0324-614 0807
Şelale Hotel, Tarsus. Tel: 0324-614 0600
Taşköprü Hotel, Adana. Tel: 0322-359 1144
HOW TO GET HERE
The nearest airport is in Adana, which is also served, like Mersin, by most big bus companies. Frequent minibuses connect Adana and Mersin with Tarsus. Driving, you'll need to keep your eyes peeled for the turn-off to Tarsus marked by a Kültür Park housing the Nusret minelayer that played a big part in the events at Gallipoli in 1915 -- it's easy to miss amid the heavy traffic.

Keywords: tarsus , travel

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_the-taste-of-tarsus_362490.html

DAY TRIPPING İZMİR III

2015-10-12T07:00:00.000-04:00

DAY TRIPPING İZMİR III

Urla Harbor (Photo: Pat Yale)

The sheer size of İzmir means that it serves as something of an obstacle to people traveling along the Aegean coast. Routes that bypass the conurbation usually whip travelers round it on the eastern side. That leaves the small resorts on the Çeşme and Karaburun peninsulas to the west more or less cut off from passing traffic.
Still, if you're spending a few days in İzmir, you might want to head out in this direction, especially now that the western bus terminal at Üçkuyular is finally accessible by metro.
Looking at a map, the biggest town west of İzmir is Çeşme (which is actually much smaller than you might expect). Çeşme can be reached by hourly bus from the main İzmir bus station as well as from Üçkuyular, but most of the other settlements are only served by buses from Üçkuyular.
Here, then, are the last places I recommend visiting in the İzmir area.

Çeşme and around

Çeşme is dominated by a vast Genoese castle that now serves as the local museum and offers spectacular sea views from its ramparts. In front of it stands a somewhat bizarre statue of Cezayirli Gazi Hasan Paşa (1714-90) with his pet lion. Other than that, Çeşme has little in the way of specific tourist attractions, although it's worth popping your head into what was originally the Church of Hagios Haralambos on the main road down to the harbor. Now used as a cultural center, it can usually be relied on to have something going on inside that will enable you to wander in and admire the sheer size and decoration of one of Turkey's many late 19th-century churches.
Many people come to Çeşme to catch the ferry to the Greek island of Chios, easily visitable on a day trip. If you plan on staying overnight, it's worth knowing that the vast Kanuni Kervansaray Historic Hotel (tel: 0232-712 0630), created out of a 16th-century caravanserai, is only 10 minutes' walk from the ferry. Prices drop dramatically off-season.
The Çeşme eating scene is pretty mediocre, although the coming of a marina has stirred a few Italian restaurants and café-bars into the mix. One option is to head out to Dalyan (not to be confused with the larger Dalyan near Fethiye), where fish restaurant after fish restaurant hugs the banks of a stream running down to the sea.
From Çeşme it's easy to bus-hop your way round the local beaches. The nearest is Boyalık, on the outskirts of Çeşme itself, but you can also catch a bus to the wilder sands around Altınkum. Alternatively, you can head for Ilıca, where a wide swathe of sand is overlooked by an enormous Sheraton hotel. This is an unexpectedly upscale spa resort with some fine residential housing just inland. If you can afford to stay at the Nars Ilıca Hotel (tel: 0232-729 0001), you're unlikely to regret it.

Alaçatı

These days it's not so much Çeşme as Alaçatı that draws people west from İzmir. Let's be frank -- Alaçatı may be lovely, but it's also unabashedly expensive, so even if you would like to stay, a day trip may be all that you can afford. Once a small virtually abandoned Ottoman Greek settlement, Alaçatı has a picture-postcard beauty, with lovely stone houses, each with a jutting wooden cumba (bay window), fanning out from a central square dominated by a vast church, now turned into a mosque. Since 2001, most of these houses have been snapped up and turned into boutique hotels, gourmet restaurants and stylish shops that appeal particularly to İstanbullus in search of a sea break but reluctant to travel as far as Bodrum. In July and August, the narrow streets are so crammed with bodies that it's hard to appreciate the architecture. Travel out of season, however, and you will readily understand what it was that attracted the first-comers to this then-isolated corner of the country.
Not all of Alaçatı has been developed even now. The best thing to do is wander into the back street behind the church-mosque where you'll find an inviting mix of dereliction and gentrification with lots of antique shops and cafes thrown in.
Even without its man-made beauty, Alaçatı has another claim to fame, which is the nearby beach, a favorite with the windsurfing community. As you ride out there on the bus you'll pass the rather odd Port Alaçatı Marina development, an attempt to create something “Venetian” on erstwhile undeveloped land.

Urla

The main highway from İzmir to Çeşme slices across the Çeşme Peninsula, making movement between the other settlements in the area difficult. If you'd like to visit Urla, site of the ancient Greek settlement of Clazomenae, you're best off taking a bus directly from Üçkuyular. Once there you'll find an extremely pretty harbor dominated by the restored Customs Office that houses a nice café. Scant remains of Clazomenae can be seen on and around the hill above the harbor; closer to it you'll see the erstwhile home of the Greek poet Yorgo Seferis (1900-71), now a small hotel.
Urla keeps one more trick up its sleeve, which is the old town about one kilometer inland. Full of Alaçatı-style houses on a grander scale, some of them now restored, it is also home to a couple of pleasant mosques, including one with a lovely painted şadırvan (ablutions fountain) of a type more common around Amasya.

Karaburun Peninsula

On a map, the Karaburun Peninsula, jutting into the sea northwest of İzmir, looks as if it should be remote and wildly beautiful. Unfortunately, the usual concrete blight has been allowed to take hold, rendering the port towns of Mordoğan and Karaburun (both with summer ferries to Eski Foça) less inviting than you might have hoped. The prettiest village on the peninsula is Ildır, where attractive stone houses stand directly over some of the remains of ancient Greek Erythrae. Up above the village there are more ruins, not dramatic in themselves but leading inexorably upwards to a headland offering spectacular sea views. For the time being, tourism here is very low-key, although a couple of hotels and smart cafes have already opened, no doubt hoping to emulate the success of Alaçatı.

Sığacık, Teos and Akkum

Southwest of İzmir, buses from Üçkuyular run to Seferihisar, a town that has signed up to the Slow City movement and boasts a large statue of three intertwined snails accordingly. A city museum is in the planning. Until it opens, you are more likely to want to head straight to the harbor at Sığacık, something made considerably less simple by the opening of a new out-of-town bus station where you must exit the İzmir bus, wait for another to run you into town, then board a third to get to Sığacık.
Once you get there, however, you will find a quaint little settlement hunkered down behind stone walls, probably dating back to the Genoese days of the late Middle Ages. Inside the walls there's a small mosque complete with even smaller medrese and ruinous hamam. Otherwise, most of the housing here used to be pretty indifferent in design. A recent initiative has seen all the accumulated concrete and old paint stripped back so that the houses can be repainted in pastel colors. Once finished they should look a great deal more alluring.
From Sığacık, frequent buses ferry people out to the windsurfing beach at Akkum. If you'd like to visit the ruins of ancient Teos you will need to take a taxi either from Akkum or from Sığacık itself. Although Teos is thought to have been home to the largest temple to Dionysius in the ancient world, the surviving remains are fairly insubstantial; a new museum being built on the site should soon make a visit more worthwhile. Regardless, it sits in a bucolic setting amid ancient olive trees, a world away from the bustle of big-city İzmir.

Keywords: İzmir

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_day-tripping-izmir-iii_364249.html

Day tripping İzmir: II

2015-09-28T07:00:00.000-04:00

Day tripping İzmir: II

Acropolis, Bergama (Photo: Pat Yale)

If you're heading north or south along Turkey's Aegean coast, there's no way that you can avoid having to transit İzmir without a lengthy diversion. But fear not -- the city may be huge, but it's also increasingly attractive as a tourist destination if you allow yourself enough time to get to grips with it. What's more, it makes a great base for day tripping out to some of the many attractive archeological sites, towns and resorts in the vicinity.
Last week I suggested a number of places to visit that lie inland from İzmir, towns such as Tire, Bayındır and Ödemiş that are far more inviting than their low touristic profile might suggest. But most visitors will probably be keener to visit places that are by the sea or feature dramatic archeological remains.

Bergama

Of course the single most important place that can be visited on a day trip from İzmir is Ephesus, the sprawling Roman settlement that is the main target of the cruise passengers who pour ashore here throughout the summer. But for my money Ephesus is better visited from smaller Selçuk, the medieval-to-modern town that grew up nearby, or from the cruise port-cum-holiday resort of Kuşadası, both places readily accessible from İzmir.

Bergama, however, is a place that you might easily choose to visit from İzmir since, unlike Selçuk and Kuşadası, it has a relatively small and unexciting choice of places in which to stay. Until recently, Bergama has always seemed a surprisingly under-visited town given the high quality of its historic attractions. This year, however, it was elevated to world heritage site status ahead of Ephesus and the authorities have been working hard to make it more inviting to visitors. In particular, the installation of a cable-car to get people up to the Acropolis has made Bergama a much more manageable town to get around than it used to be. Restoration work is also currently under way at the Kızıl Avlu (Red Basilica). Some may squirm at its brash new appearance, but the end result may be to turn what was very much an also-ran attraction into something far more interesting.

Bergama has three main points of interest: the Acropolis, which was once home to the incredible Altar of Zeus that now graces the Pergamum Museum in Berlin; the Asclepeion, which was once an ancient medical center; and the Bergama Museum, which houses some of the finds from the ancient spa center of Allianoi, lost beneath the waters of the Yortanlı Barajı (Dam) in 2011. The main sites aside, the older part of town is also well worth an hour or so of your time. It's the sort of place where you'll come across a café where old men play backgammon in the sun seemingly oblivious of the fact that the tarpaulin above their heads is supported on columns removed from a lost Roman building. You may also stumble upon the old abandoned synagogue that was recently renovated. Even the Kurtuluş Cami is a find since the modern mosque is housed inside a medieval tower right beside the Kızıl Avlu.

Eski and Yeni Foça

Bergama may have the ruins, but it certainly doesn't have the sea. If that's what you're after, you may prefer to head north instead to the two Foças, once important Genoese trading centers and now flourishing seaside resorts. The larger of the two is Eski (Old) Foça, which mainly straddles the headland between two harbors. Here the remains of the Genoese castle are being slowly and lovingly restored while a number of small boutique hotels have opened both behind it and around the smaller of the two harbors. As yet, though, there isn't really enough accommodation to cater for the mid-summer rush, which is one good reason for visiting on a day trip from İzmir.

Yeni (New) Foça is easily accessible by bus from Eski Foça, although there are also direct buses from İzmir. Somewhat surprisingly, it's Yeni Foça that retains more of its historic character with street after street of attractive Ottoman Greek houses running back from the small strip of sand that is its main drawcard. There are no specific attractions here, although for those who grow weary from the concrete that encases most Turkish towns this is a wonderfully relaxing and inspirational small town. You might even find yourself standing in front of the Griffin Boutique Hotel (tel: 0232-814 7777), housed in a redundant winery, and wishing that you hadn't booked that bus ticket back to İzmir.

Dikili and Çandarlı

North of the Foças is another small seaside resort that finds more favor with Turks than foreigners and that is Dikili, a pleasantly sleepy place that only really comes to life during the school summer holiday period. There's nothing specific to draw you up here if history is your thing. However, just to the south Çandarlı is home to one of the finest castles surviving from the period when the Genoese had planted trading colonies round much of the Turkish coast. Despite recent claims that it would be opening to the public, the castle remained as firmly garrisoned against visitors as ever on my most recent visit.

Metropolis (Torbalı)

History lovers might also like to hop on the bus (or the train) to Torbalı, south of İzmir, where the ruins of the ancient settlement of Metropolis survive on the outskirts. While by no means as impressive as the ruins at Bergama, those at Metropolis are nonetheless interesting, with the remains of a theater, a bathhouse and a communal latrine. There's also a fine mosaic floor that the caretaker may be persuaded to soak for you so that you will be able to see how the colors would originally have glistened.

Akhisar and Alaşehir

For those with an interest in biblical history, İzmir, as Smyrna, was one of the Seven Churches mentioned by St. John of Patmos in the Book of Revelation. Today the ruins of Smyrna are more accessible than they used to be thanks to a handy new Metro station at Bayraklı. Sardis, too, is readily accessible by bus from İzmir. Far fewer people realize that two more of the “churches” (actually settlements) also lie in İzmir's backyard.

Akhisar was once Thyateira, although it has little to show for the fact beyond the ruins of a building with an apse whose use remains unclear and traces of a porticoed street. Alaşehir was the original Philadelphia (City of Brotherly Love). Here at least there are remains of a church, and one that was obviously of monumental size to judge from the surviving arches that must once have supported a central dome. Doesn't seem worth going so far just for that? Well, a lengthy stretch of the old city wall also survives here and you can have fun tracking its path as it wends its way through the houses and car parks near where the bus from İzmir drops you off.

Kemalpaşa

Akhisar and Alaşehir are sites of relatively minor interest except to specialists. Ditto Kemalpaşa, one of the easiest places to get to from İzmir with minibuses departing every 20 minutes from the otogar. Kemalpaşa was the ancient Nif, a fact it seems to have been determined to forget in the rush to modernity. Just one major monument survives from the period that would be well worth going out of your way to visit were it not for the fact that it is currently hidden behind scaffolding. This monument was the Laskarisler Sarayı (palace, also known locally as Kız Kulesi, the Maiden's Tower), the summer home of the Byzantine emperors living in exile in Nicaea (İznik) after the Crusaders drove them out of Constantinople (İstanbul) in 1204. The emperor responsible for its construction was actually buried in its grounds.

The scaffolding is due to come down any day soon according to the sign. Once that happens expect to see a newly restored building vaguely reminiscent of the better known Tekfur Sarayı in İstanbul.

Keywords: İzmir , day trip

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_day-tripping-izmir-ii_363701.html

Awesome Aphrodisias

2015-09-21T07:00:00.000-04:00

Awesome Aphrodisias

(Photo: Pat Yale, Sunday's Zaman)

The small photography gallery in aphrodisias (Afrodisias) houses an extraordinary black-and-white image.
Two bearded middle-aged men in flat caps are sitting cross-legged on a bench beneath a plane tree enjoying a smoke and a chat in the quiet of their village. Look more closely, however, and you will see that this is no ordinary bench. Instead, it has armrests carved in the shape of dolphins and footrests in the shape of lions' feet. It is, in other words, a Roman bench. Yet the men sitting on it on that sunny day were doing so in 1958, when the great photographer Ara Güler had come to visit the village of Geyre, then squatting amid the remains of ancient Aphrodisias.

It goes more or less without saying that those two men were among the last Turks permitted to live here. Second in extent only to those of ephesus (Efes), the ruins of Aphrodisias were far too splendid to be left unexcavated. And so the villagers were moved to Yeni Geyre (New Geyre), leaving just a handful of the buildings of Eski Geyre (Old Geyre) to molder amid the ruins rather as they do at Stratonicea (Stratonikeia), out west near Yağatan. The amazing thing is that the marble bench still survives, still standing beneath that same plane tree, which means that you can plonk yourself down on it for a rest just as those two men did more than 50 years ago.

The gallery also displays other Güler photographs of the last days of Eski Geyre, revealing a world in which a Roman capital could be casually reused as the base for a wooden column, a piece of temple architrave as the bottom of an oil press. The romantics among us might wish that we could still see such sights, but of course that's wishful thinking.

The site

The excavated remains of Aphrodisias cover a wide area so make sure that you allow plenty of time to do them justice. Most tours set aside no more than three hours, which is barely enough time to get all the way around the site.

You start off on your explorations from what was once the main square of Eski Geyre and is now home not just to the photography gallery but also to Aphrodisias' splendid museum, best visited at the end of your tour (but leave plenty of time for it). Most people head straight out from the square, heading for the reconstructed tetrapylon, a monumental gateway erected in the second century, probably at the junction of two main roads. From here a ceremonial walkway may have led to the Temple of Aphrodite, whose existence explains much of the ancient city's wealth and importance.

Today the remains of the temple are far from the most impressive thing to see here. However, the original structure long predated Roman occupation of the site and seems to have started life as a place where a goddess combining the attributes of the ancient Semitic fertility deity, Ishtar and the ancient Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, was worshipped, apparently with much unseemly behavior. Needless to say, the later Christian occupants of the city were less than happy with the temple's reputation and hastily built a Byzantine basilican church over the site of the temple's final incarnation under Emperor Hadrian (r. 117-38). Not content with that, they hacked the cult statue of Aphrodite to pieces and rammed the body into a wall as building material, an ignominious fate from which it has since been rescued.

More impressive to look at are the ruins of the 262-meter-long stadium, probably built in the first or second century and able to seat up to 30,000 spectators in tiers of seats 30 deep. Here the locals held an annual festival that must have been a little like a cut-down version of the Olympic Games and that was apparently modeled on the Pythian Games in Delphi (Greece), with lots of wrestling and racing.

The stadium is a little apart from the main site. Returning from it you pass behind the Temple of Aphrodite and come to the remains of the Bishop's Palace with, right beside it, a dainty little bouleuterion (council house) where small theatrical performances probably took place when it wasn't needed for government business.

Beyond the bouleuterion you will come to the ruins of the baths of Hadrian and then, over a hill, to the fine theater, originally paid for some time between 39 and 27 B.C. by a prominent local citizen called Julius Zoilos, whose statue can be seen in the museum. In the second century B.C. it was extensively altered to accommodate gladiatorial fights and it's that later version that you look down on today.

But at Aphrodisias the very best is also best saved until last, and that is the splendid partially reconstructed Sebasteion, a huge temple complex that, while also paying homage to Aphrodite, was really a shrine to the deified Roman emperors. Most particularly it was a shrine to Augustus (r. 27 B.C.-A.D. 14) and his immediate descendants, Nero and Claudius, who appeared in the carvings adorning the two lofty porticoes that flanked the actual temple. Today those carvings are one of the greatest, yet least-sung glories of Aphrodisias.

The museum

Five years ago the doors of the Aphrodisias Museum reopened to show off one of the finest displays of ancient sculpture to be seen anywhere in the world. In antiquity, the town was well known for a school of sculpture that made use of locally quarried marble to produce exquisite carvings, sometimes entwining black and white marble to stunning effect. According to the Blue Guide travel guidebook, sculptures from Aphrodisias have been found as far afield as Leptis Magna in Libya and Tivoli in Italy. Of course the finest collection is on display here in the local museum.

There are many things to wow the visitor here, not least the battered remains of the statue of Aphrodite removed from the walls of the later church. But in the end everything pales into insignificance the minute you step across the threshold of the new gallery designed to house the original carvings from the Sebasteion. As an anonymous blogger wrote after a visit, “Aphrodisias (Museum) has more reliefs than the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum,” going on to note that only the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, home to the carvings from the Altar of Zeus, has more.

One could no doubt argue over whether the considerably older (fifth century B.C.) Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon in Athens are finer pieces of art. The one thing almost anyone who visits this gallery will probably agree on is that it makes the case for the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece almost unanswerable. Here you can look at the Sebasteion, then wander into the museum to look at the carvings that once adorned it, then step outside again for another look. What could be more perfect? Why are the crowds not flocking here by the thousands?

Where to stay

There is no accommodation at Aphrodisias itself and only limited accommodation down the road in Geyre. Most people visit the site on tours from Pamukkale, where there is accommodation to suit all tastes either in the village, in the nearby thermal resort of Karahayıt or in Denizli town.

Allgau Pension, Pamukkale. Tel: 0258-272 2028
Hotel Laodikya, Denizli. Tel: 0258-265 1506
Hotel Koray, Pamukkale. Tel: 0258-272 2300
Richmond Pamukkale Thermal Hotel, Karahayıt. Tel: 0258-271 4294

How to get there

The nearest airport to Aphrodisias is in Denizli, which is also easily accessible by train from İzmir and Selçuk. From Denizli there are regular minibuses to Pamukkale and Karahayıt. Pamukkale hotel and pension owners will be able to book a transport-only tour to Aphrodisias for you, although if you drive yourself you will probably be able to spend more time there.

Keywords: aphrodisias , ephesus , travel

source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_awesome-aphrodisias_351451.html

Day tripping İzmir

2015-09-14T07:00:00.000-04:00

Day tripping İzmir

Manisa Festival (Photo: Pat Yale)

Let's face it -- İzmir, right in the middle of Turkey's Aegean coast, is one hell of a big city. So if you're heading from north to south or vice versa you're going to have to decide what to do about it -- factor in the time for a visit or give it a wide berth?

Personally, I think that it's worth spending a few days in İzmir now that the Metro system makes getting about town so much easier than it used to be. That's not only because İzmir itself has plenty of pleasant areas to explore if you allow enough time to get to grips with it but also because it makes a good base for exploring quite a lot of small towns, archaeological sites and resorts nearby, most of the onward transportation to the surrounding areas leaving from the upper floor of the same bus station that will have delivered you to İzmir. Which raises another interesting possibility -- if you don't actually want to stay in a big city you could easily opt to overnight in one of these neighboring places and just hop in and out of İzmir Otogar to get to the others.

The Metro was recently extended to Üçkuyular, site of İzmir's second bus station serving Çeşme, Seferihisar and the Karaburun Peninsula. But let's start off by taking a look at some of the places you can reach from the main otogar.

Tire

One of my very favorite small towns has to be Tire, not so long ago an almost forgotten backwater known, if it was known at all, for its big Tuesday street market. Slowly but surely that is starting to change as the local authority wises up to what a treasure it has in its hands, as typified by the recent opening of a pleasing new Kent Müzesi (City Museum) with lots of information on the old handicrafts that are still being practised in the old part of town. The interviews with some of the workers -- helpfully translated into English -- make somewhat sobering reading. With the sole exception of the one with Arif Con, feltmaker extraordinaire, they tell a sad story of trades dying a death with no one to carry them on once the current practitioners are done.

After reading them, it's well worth making a beeline for Con's shop, a buzzing hive of colorful activity where the old and somewhat tired art of feltmaking has been given a completely modern makeover. Out have gone the heavy, square-shouldered coats once made for shepherds. In have come gossamer-fine shawls it would be hard to believe had been made from felt if you'd not seen the work in progress in the shop.

Tire is a place of small pleasures, with a myriad minor mosques, medreses and other monuments dating back to the Beylik period between the Selçuk supremacy and the Ottoman conquest. Some of the old Ottoman housing stock is also being spruced up, most conspicuously in the case of the Gülcüoğlu Konakları (tel: 0232-511 0614), which now serve as a very popular hotel (book ahead midweek). If you can't get in, no matter, because the high-rise Tirem Hotel (tel: 0232-511 0200) right beside the bus stop for İzmir has been given a colorful new look that makes it a decent alternative.

Bayındır

If Tire falls below most people's radars, Bayındır is even less well known despite having a similar mix of attractions. Here, too, the authorities are belatedly waking up to what they have to offer and the old Tekel building was recently converted into another Kent Müzesi, albeit this time with no English translations. Come here to find out about the Efes, the local braves whose bloodthirsty exploits somewhat belie their showy costumes. Here, too, you'll see photographs of local women wearing the siyah çizgi, a black shawl and headscarf combination with a white pattern around its edge. At the Friday market you'll still see older women wearing it but within a generation it will be gone.

Bayındır's main claim to fame is that it lies at the heart of Turkey's flower-growing region. Every year at the end of April/start of May there's a lively flower festival to coincide with the time when the surrounding fields are full of vibrant color for kilometer after kilometer. It's a sight well worth seeing, especially now that the old local government building has been converted into the inviting Suotel (tel: 0232-581 5966).

Ödemiş and Birgi

The strange thing about the siyah çizgi is that although you'll be able to see women wearing it in Bayındır you won't be to buy one there. Instead to buy one you'll have to head for nearby Ödemiş whose Saturday market is almost a match for Tire's Tuesday one, thrusting out tentacles into all the back streets in the center of town. Here, too, there's a fine Kent Müzesi. It's only labeled in Turkish but it won't take much imagination to realize that this was once an area known for its tobacco industry, with entire walls of houses hung with drying leaves in season.

The main reason to come to Ödemiş, however, will be to hop the bus to pretty little Birgi, surely one of Turkey's most delightful villages and where the environmental organization ÇEKÜL has done excellent work in encouraging sensitive signposting and discouraging concrete blight. Birgi is home to the finest Ottoman house open to the public in Turkey. The Çakırağa Konağı is an absolute delight, its front consisting of three floors of open verandahs that give it the strange appearance of a child's toy theater. Nor is that the only gem on offer here. The Ulu Cami is also worth going out of your way to see. Like the minor mosques of Tire, it, too, is a monument to the Beylik period with fine woodwork surviving and odd pieces of Roman masonry reused in the walls.

A stay at the Birgi Çınaraltı Pansiyon (tel: 0537-927 4217) is always a peaceful delight but Ödemiş also rises to a couple of decent options, including the Otel Güven (tel: 0232-509 0909).

Manisa

Its proximity to İzmir means that people sometimes omit to visit Manisa, a town with an interesting history as one of the places where the early Ottoman princes were sent to learn statecraft. The palace in which they lived has vanished without trace but their presence in the town explains why there's a mosque by Sinan, the Muradiye Cami, in such a seemingly out of the way place.

The Sinan mosque is delightful, its rich tiled interior standing in stark contrast to the town's other splendid mosque, the more austere Ulu Cami, erected in the Beylik period and making copious use of marble columns and capitals filched from an older Roman building.

Manisa Museum should be a winner since it houses the finds from nearby Sardis. Unfortunately it has been closed for restoration for years. Instead you should consider whether you couldn't plan a trip to coincide with the end of March when the town bursts into celebration for the Manisa Mesir Festival, a centuries' old commemoration of the day when a local man, Merkez Efendi, succeeded where other doctors had failed and cured Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent's mother, Hafza Sultan, of debilitating illness with a mixture of 41 ingredients that are now ritually tossed to the waiting crowds from the roof of the Sultan Cami medrese by Ottoman costumed figures. It's a fun day out for all the family.

Sardis

Manisa Museum may fail to deliver but the nearby archaeological site of Sardis, up the road at Sart, near Salihli, more than makes up for the disappointment. The main site showcases the splendid mosaic pavements of what must have been one of the largest synagogues in ancient Asia Minor, with right beside it, the reconstructed Court of the Hall of the Imperial Cult providing a slight echo of the Library of Celsus at Ephesus.

Up the road and easy to overlook are the romantic ruins of one of the largest temples in the ancient world, dedicated to Artemis and picturesquely set against a mountain backdrop. There's an almost intact Byzantine church hunkered down amid the columns. (to be continued)

Keywords: İzmir , trip

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_day-tripping-izmir_363109.html

Museum city: Bursa

2015-08-31T07:00:00.000-04:00

Museum city: Bursa

Bursa Museum of Turkish and Islamic Art. (Photo: Pat Yale)

The first time I ever visited a Kent Müzesi (City Museum) in Turkey -- as opposed to an archaeological museum with an ethnographic add-on -- it was in Bursa. Since then, City museums have become a boom business with new ones opening all over the country but especially along the Aegean coast.
In the meantime, Bursa has capitalized on having been ahead of the game by opening several more impressive museums. If you're the sort of person who likes nothing more than to while away a few hours admiring the contents of glass cases, then this will be the perfect city for you. And of course when the weather's not of the best there are few better places to take refuge from the cold outdoors than a museum.

Bursa City Museum

Kent Müzesi (City Museum)

First stop on a trip to Bursa -- and ideally on a trip to Turkey -- should be the City Museum, a state-of-the-art affair that gives a quick rundown on the life of the early sultans on the ground floor. If that sounds a little too wordy for you then the basement will offer the instant antidote. Down there you will find installed replicas of the sort of shops that used to grace all of Turkey's towns before the age of the shopping mall. Come here to see what the saddle maker's shop used to look like as well as to watch a short clip of felt makers in action, pounding the wool with their knees in a way that one assumes would be guaranteed to induce arthritis.

Kılıç Kalkan Evi (Sword and Shield House)

Tucked up in Setbaşı within easy walking distance of the town center is this replica Ottoman house, which exists to tell the story of an unexpected local dance form, the kılıç kalkan oyunu (sword and shield dance). Step inside and you will be able to see famous locals who have learnt the dance, including the current vali (governor). The caretaker will be keen to explain everything to you and will invite you to come and watch the dance being performed with much clashing of swords and shields in the town-center square in front of the Koza Hanı every Saturday afternoon. Won't be there on Saturday? Never mind, as you will be able to watch the dancers on video in the museum instead.

TOFAŞ Bursa Anadolu Arabaları Müzesi (TOFAŞ Bursa Museum of Anatolian Carriages)

Even if you've never thought the history of transport would rock your boat it's well worth following the signs from Setbaşı in search of this excellent small museum, housed in a redundant silk-processing factory, which shows off a variety of the sort of old carts that used to be used not just to move people from place to place but also to carry logs and other industrial produce. Like the City Museum, it's a state-of-the-art museum, beautifully presented and with all sorts of information and old photographs to put the exhibits in context. Right at the end it comes right up to date by showing off a few old cars and one brand-new one that has been completely covered in graffiti -- an art exhibit on wheels.

Afterwards it is well worth taking a turn around the lovely grounds, then rounding off your visit with a meal in the stylish Fayton Cafe in the grounds.

Cuckoo clocks - Bursa Clock Museum

Saat Müzesi (Clock Museum)

Newly opened in the grounds right beside the carriage museum (and accessible on the same admission ticket) is a stunning Clock Museum, housed in what was originally the Umurbey Hamamı (Turkish bath). Once again, the subject matter might seem of very niche interest. However, once you've stepped over the threshold you'll probably be knocked sideways by the quality of the display and by the information provided on the huge variety of forms that time-keeping devices have taken over the years. Best of all must be the room full of cuckoo clocks, an astonishing thing to find in a hamam. If only they could have arranged for them all to work again just imagine what a wonderful sight -- and sound --- it would have made.

Afterwards you should take a quick look at the early 15th-century Umurbey Cami (mosque) to which the hamam once belonged. Its portico incorporates many pieces of old Roman masonry, testifying to how long this part of town has been settled.

Türk ve İslam Eserleri Müzesi (Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts)

For what seemed like forever the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts housed in the medrese (school) of the Yeşil Cami had been closed for restoration, and I doubt that I was the only person who assumed it would never open again. So hoorah that it has actually done so even though the layout of the exhibits inside (mainly the sort of ethnographic bits and bobs that would have been housed upstairs in the Archeology Museum elsewhere) show no sign of having been upgraded to meet modern expectations in terms of display or information. No matter -- the early 15th-century building itself is very fine, with turquoise tiles around most of the windows, which was not something that it had been possible to appreciate for some years either.

Osmanlı Evi (Ottoman House Museum)

The main reason to visit the Muradiye suburb of Bursa is the Muradiye complex from which it takes its name, which has a fine mosque surrounded by the tombs of early Ottoman princes. Ringing the small park in front of the mosque there are, however, a number of other minor attractions, amongst them a restored Ottoman house that is open without much fanfare to the public. It's worth a quick look to admire its open-sided verandahs and lovely painted rooms, although absolutely no information is provided to help you get more out of a visit.

Bursa Arkeoloji Müzesi (Bursa Archeological Museum)

In sharp contrast to the City Museum is the much older and more traditional Archeological Museum, which occupies a lovely location in the Kültür Park off the road to Çekirge but suffers from the same failings as its equals all around Turkey, namely a paucity of hard facts about the exhibits on show, many of them from the days when Bursa was the Roman Prusa ad Olympum. As is so often the case, some of the finest artifacts are the ones on display not inside the building but in the grounds outside.

Karagöz Museum

If you're heading out to the hotels and hamams of the Çekirge suburb your eyes will be drawn to a colorful building on the left-hand side of the road that houses the Karagöz Museum. Karagöz is the Turkish take on shadow puppetry and Bursa lays claim to it as its own, hence this museum, which started life as a private collection before becoming a municipality-run celebration of the leather puppets and the men who made them. It's of rather specialist interest although those with children might find it a godsend. Admission is free, which is always a plus.

Orman Müzesi (Forestry Museum)

If you're stopping to take a look at the Karagöz Museum you might also want to pause at another much-overlooked collection on the same side of the road. The Forestry Museum is once again of rather specialist interest although it does tell the sad story of a bear called Yumak who was orphaned as a cub by hunters, then reared as a pet on Uludağ until the sad day that he injured a child and had to be put to sleep. But the main reason to come here really is to appreciate the fine 19th-century wooden mansion, the Saatçı Köskü, that houses it. Better even than the interior, which boasts some fine painted ceilings and wooden details, is the little summerhouse in the grounds. Although you can't go inside it, you can peer in through the windows to appreciate its own magnificent painted ceiling.

Merinos Tekstil Sanayi Müzesi (Merinos Textile Industry Museum)

Until recently Bursa was home to the huge state-owned Merinos textile factory, which had opened in 1938. In 2004, the factory closed, leaving the buildings redundant. In a sign that Turkey is belatedly catching on to the appeal of industrial-heritage tourism this has now been reopened as a museum that traces the production of textiles right through from the rearing of the sheep that provided the wool to the production of the final items. There is a certain poignancy about a visit, as it's impossible not to notice the way in which sheds that once provided work for up to 17,500 people can now be supervised as visitor attractions by perhaps half a dozen individuals. A new museum celebrating the role of immigration to the story of Bursa was about to open upstairs when I visited.

Afterwards you can stroll in the lovely park that surrounds the museum and appreciate the beauty of the new Merinos Atatürk Conference Center, which opened here in 2009.

Keywords: Bursa , museums

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_museum-city-bursa_365632.html

The 10 best castles in Turkey

2015-08-24T07:00:00.000-04:00

The 10 best castles in Turkey

Mamure Castle (Photo: Pat Yale)

Flick through brochures offering holidays to Turkey and the impression you'll get is of a country perfect for sunbathing, a country where you can float over the azure sea in a graceful wooden yacht, a country dotted with the ruins of countless ancient civilizations.
What you don't very often get, however, is any idea that this is also a country that is littered with the remains of battered castles, castles that bear silent witness to Anatolia's often turbulent past.

Yet, there are parts of Turkey where almost every hilltop is crowned with shattered masonry, often placed there in defiance of any obvious means of reaching it. Castles are always the mainstays of frontier regions and it's no different in Turkey; you'll find the majority of the castles fringing the perimeters of the country, along the Aegean coast, for example, and in its fiercely contested southeastern and northeastern corners.

There are so many ruined castles in Turkey that homing in on just 10 of them is tricky. Everyone will have their own favorite. A word of warning for castle lovers, though: Over the last decade castles have proved particularly susceptible to the sort of slapdash “restoration” that robs them of their precious sense of the past. Two particular victims are the huge castle that crowns the hill above Bayburt and the once-fairytale castle hidden in the forests of Zil, near Çamlıhemşin.

Castle of St. Peter (Museum of Underwater Archaeology)

Pressed to name the very finest castle in Turkey I'd have to plump for the enormous one that looms over the harbor in Bodrum. Not only is this an impressive piece of multi-towered engineering but it has a fascinating story to tell as well, since much of the masonry from which it was built was pilfered from the ruins of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the great tomb of the Carian king Mausolus that had been one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The castle was built in the early 15th century by the Christian Knights Hospitaller, who wanted it to protect their holdings on the nearby island of Rhodes. They continued to reinforce it right up until 1522, when Sultan Süleyman I "the Magnificent" seized both Rhodes and Bodrum and promptly built a mosque inside the castle.

The castle was restored in the 1960s. Since 1986, it has housed a museum of underwater archeology that is one of the finest museums in all of Turkey. Highlights include the remains of the Uluburun, the earliest shipwreck ever excavated -- which is believed to have sunk as long ago as the 14th century B.C. -- and the bones of a Carian princess whose features have been painstakingly reconstructed by experts from Manchester University. The views from the ramparts are simply spectacular.

Rumeli Hisarı

Even if your travels never take you further than İstanbul you can still visit one truly remarkable castle with a particularly venerable history: the “Fortress of Europe” that stands on the shores of the Bosporus in the suburb named after it. Constructed in 1452, Sultan Mehmed II “the Conqueror” used this castle as his base for his successful assault on Constantinople in 1453. It was built at the narrowest point on the strait immediately across from the older “Fortress of Asia” at Anadolu Hisarı, which was constructed in 1394 by his great-grandfather, Sultan Bayezid I, as a base for his own unsuccessful assault on the city. Together the two castles enabled Mehmed to control traffic along the strait and thus prevent food and reinforcements from reaching the besieged Byzantines.

Rumeli Hisarı was restored in 1953 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of Mehmed's achievement. You can take a look around the interior, although there's little in the way of interpretation -- a missed opportunity in terms of telling the story of the siege.

Bozcaada Castle

Just as the Castle of St. Peter dominates Bodrum's harbor, so the magnificent castle at Bozcaada dominates the island's much smaller harbor, greeting visitors as they step ashore after crossing with the ferry. There the comparison ends, however, because you can normally only admire this castle from the outside -- except perhaps on school holidays when the gates may reluctantly swing open.

The story of Bozcaada Castle could be that of virtually any castle in Turkey, with its origins trailing back to early Byzantine times. Later, Venetian and then Genoese traders were permitted to reinforce it, before finally in the 16th century when the Ottomans moved in to make it their own.

Çeşme Castle

Originally built by the Genoese then rebuilt by Sultan Bayezid II in 1508, the castle at Çeşme, beyond İzmir, also faces the harbor, although its erstwhile dominance of its surroundings is not as obvious as in Bodrum or Bozcaada because it is more hemmed in by modern development. This is another castle that has been turned into a museum and as you wander round the ramparts admiring the views you will also be able to take a look at the finds from the archeological site of Erythrae on the Karaburun Peninsula, as well as in an exhibition devoted to the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, during the course of which almost the entire Ottoman fleet was destroyed off the coast of Çeşme.

Mamure Castle

Currently closed for restoration, the massive castle at Mamure is a splendid edifice with 39 towers and a vast moat sitting right on the seashore east of Anamur on the Mediterranean coast. It owes its 13th-century origins to the rulers of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, but the site had probably been fortified since Roman times. In 1308, it was seized by Mehmet I of Karaman, who stamped his mark on the building by adding a mosque to it.

Kızkalesi

Visitors to the seaside resort of Kızkalesi, near Silifke on the Mediterranean coast, can have the pleasure of sunbathing in the shadow of one enormous castle while gazing out over the sea to another smaller one, Maiden's Castle. Maiden's Castle gave its name to the town and stands in splendid isolation on an offshore island. Originally, the two castles were linked by a causeway, parts of which still survive underwater.

The Kızkalesi castles were originally the handiwork of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, who had them built in the late 11th century as protection against the Crusaders. Needless to say, there's a fanciful story about a princess marooned on the castle on the island for her own protection, who is nonetheless killed by a bite from a snake delivered in a basket of fruit. Sound familiar? It's the same story told about Kızkulesi (Maiden's Tower) in İstanbul.

Yılankale

Heading north and east from Adana, you move into what might well be branded "Castle Country," with every hilltop bristling with fortifications. Right beside the main highway from Adana to Osmaniye, you'll see the impressive remains of Toprakkale (Earth Castle), which dates back to the 13th century. Unfortunately, the main road makes it hard to access this castle. Luckily the almost identical Yılankale (Snake Castle), just off the road to Kadırlı, is much easier to get to with a road running right up to the castle. Surprise, surprise -- it's currently closed for restoration.

Kozan

Northeast of Adana, the forgotten town of Kozan was once Sis, the capital of the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. Here the rulers built a castle so high up on a craggy rock that it's almost impossible to imagine how one is to get up to it -- let alone how it could ever have been built there. Fortunately, a new road runs right up to the foot of the castle. To be honest, there's not a great deal to see inside and climbing around in the ruins is potentially dangerous so you might want to save yourself the effort and just admire it in awe-struck wonder from a distance.

Gaziantep

These days Gaziantep may be best known for the wonderful mosaics in the Zeugma Museum -- and for its baklava, of course -- but it also boasts another treasure in the shape of its magnificent castle, a cut-down version of the one in Aleppo that stands on an artificial mound immediately behind the old bazaar. The site is believed to have been fortified since Roman times, with the Byzantine Emperor Justinian rebuilding a castle on the site. The Seljuks are thought to have constructed the current version with its monumental walls. Theoretically, you can go inside to visit the Panorama Museum, which celebrates the city's fight against French occupation in 1920. Unfortunately, the drawbridge into the castle collapsed last year, so it's currently closed for restoration.

Şebinkarahisar

These days many people visit Antep and admire its imposing castle. The same can hardly be said of Şebinkarahisar, a forgotten small town inland from Giresun on the Black Sea where an enormous castle with walls almost 1,000 meters long straggles along a plateau high above the houses. By now, you won't be surprised to learn that it owes its genesis to Emperor Justinian; its ruinous condition is largely due to an earthquake of 1939. The castle was probably given its name -- which means Alum Black Castle -- to distinguish it from Opium Black Castle (Afyonkarahisar) way over to the west.

Also worth visiting: Hoşap Kalesi, Afyonkarahisar, Silifke Kalesi, Softa Kalesi, Ardanuç Kalesi.

Keywords: castles , Turkey

source:http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_the-10-best-castles-in-turkey_352740.html

Seeking Egypt in İstanbul -- a forgotten heritage

2015-08-17T07:00:00.000-04:00

Seeking Egypt in İstanbul -- a forgotten heritage

Emirgan Korusu (Photo: Sunday's Zaman, Mustafa Kirazlı)

Diplomatic relations between Turkey and Egypt may be at a low point right now but there was a time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the effective rulers of Egypt felt so at home in the heart of the Ottoman Empire that they decorated what was then Constantinople (now Istanbul) with many fine buildings, some of which still survive today.
Egypt first became part of the expanding Ottoman Empire in 1517 when it was captured by Sultan Selim I. Sheer distance from the capital meant, however, that it always held on to a degree of autonomy. Then, in 1787, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt. Amongst the troops sent to drive him out again was one Mehmed Ali Paşa (1770-1849), the son of a merchant from Kavala in what is now Thracian Greece, hence the epithet “Kavalalı" by which his dynasty came to be known. By 1841, Mehmed Ali Paşa had made such a mark on Egypt that Sultan Abdülaziz agreed that his descendants should continue to rule it as governors.

It was not always an easy relationship since Mehmed Ali sometimes attempted to expand his sphere of influence, at one point marching an army right into the heart of Anatolia. On the other hand, he was a keen believer in all things Ottoman and did a lot to Turkify Egyptian culture, which had until then remained strongly Mamluk in feel. At the same time, some of his descendants took a particular shine to Constantinople, regularly abandoning the heat of the Nile Valley in summer for the relative cool of their homes on the shores of the Bosporus.

Kavalalı Mehmed Ali Paşa was succeeded by his grandson, Abbas Hilmi Paşa, who governed until 1854, and then by his son, Said Paşa, who ruled until 1863. Said Paşa's son, İsmail Paşa, increased the power of the dynasty until it became semi-independent; in 1867 he was given the title of khedive, which was most readily translated into English as viceroy. The high point of İsmail's period in power came in 1869 with the opening of the Suez Canal, but by then Egypt was virtually bankrupt, and in 1879, he was forced to abdicate in favor of his son, Tevfik Paşa. Things in Egypt went from bad to worse and from 1882 onwards the British became its effective rulers despite its continued theoretical subordination to the sultan via the khedive.

In 1892, Tevfik Paşa was succeeded as khedive by his son, Abbas Hilmi Paşa, who traveled to Constantinople to be invested as khedive by Sultan Abdülhamid II. In 1914, he was replaced in office by his uncle, Hüseyin Kamil Paşa, but from then onwards Egypt was completely under the control of the British, the 500-year-old link with Constantinople finally severed.

Dotted about İstanbul there are many reminders of the interlinked history of Egypt and the Ottoman Empire. The full story is told in “From the Shores of the Nile to the Bosphorus,” published by the İstanbul Research Institute.

Sakıp Sabancı Museum (Atlı Köşkü, Prenses İffet Hasan Köşkü)

Visitors to the Sakıp Sabancı Museum at Emirgan will find themselves unwittingly walking around a building that was commissioned by a member of the Kavalalı dynasty in the shape of Prince Mehmed Ali Hasan, who commissioned Italian architect Eduardo de Nari to build a new house on the site of his childhood home in 1925. The prince never got to live in it himself but instead allowed his party-loving aunt, Princess İffet Hasan, to move in. In 1951, the mansion was sold to Ömer Sabancı and was eventually converted into a museum.

Khedive's Villa (Hidiv Kasrı)

If you stand on the terrace of Sakıp Sabancı Museum and gaze across the Bosphorus you will see, rising out of the last remaining stretches of woodland, a tall, square tower. This is attached to the gorgeous Khedive's Villa, built for Abbas Hilmi Paşa in 1907 to replace an earlier palace (now lost) on the shores of the Bosporus at Çubuklu. A magnificent example of Neo-Renaissance-style architecture on the outside and Art Nouveau on the inside, it was designed by an architect whose name is uncertain. The most probable scenario is that Italian architect Delfo Seminati designed the annexes while Italian architect Antonio Lasciac was responsible for the main building.

Now converted into a restaurant in lovely grounds that are at their best during the Tulip Festival in late April, the villa still boasts Art Nouveau tiles in the bathrooms, wonderful marquetry and splendid metalwork.

Egyptian Consulate (Valide Paşa Yalı, Hıdiva Sarayı)

Right beside the Bosporus at Bebek and visible from the Khedive's Villa is a huge mansion that had been built five years earlier for Abbas Hilmi's mother, Emine Hanım. Recently completely restored, it is İstanbul's finest example of Art Nouveau architecture, so it's a shame that its use as a consulate means that few people get to see the interior. You can, however, admire the typically curvaceous windows set into turrets from the road outside. Once again, its buildership is disputed with Raimondo d'Aronco and Antonio Lasciac in the frontline as probable but not certain architects.

Egyptian Apartment Block (Mısır Apartmanı)

Passed daily by thousands of visitors is a 19th-century mansion block on İstiklal Street, Mısır Apartmanı, that houses a super-trendy restaurant called 360, as well as many small art galleries. When Abbas Hilmi Paşa visited Constantinople in the winter, it was to this mansion -- designed in 1910 by Armenian architect Hovsep Aznavuryan -- which he would retreat. After his death it was divided into separate apartments but remained a very popular piece of real estate, home at different times to Mehmet Akif Ersoy, the man behind the Turkish national anthem; Hollywood actress Virginia Bruce, who was married to a Turk; and Atatürk's dentist.

Said Halim Paşa Yalısı (Aslan Yalı)

Beside the Bosporus at Yeniköy stands a fine reconstructed yalı (waterside mansion) designed by Petraki Adamanti in 1878 for Abdülhalim Paşa, a son of Mehmed Ali Paşa. It eventually became home to his own son, Said Halim Paşa (1864-1921), who served as grand vizier from 1913 to 1917 and was therefore partly responsible for the decision to take the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the German side. The yalı now serves as an upscale wedding and entertainments venue.

Emirgan Korusu (Emirgan Woods)

Sultan Abdülaziz had a love-hate relationship with İsmail Paşa, but eventually allowed him to end his exile from Egypt in Emirgan, where he constructed several waterside mansions, all since lost. Instead, we have the khedive to thank for the three pavilions -- Pembe (Pink), Beyaz (White) and Sarı (Yellow) Köşkleri -- that survive as café-restaurants in the woods just inland. All have been extensively restored or rebuilt.

Heybeliada

The most prominent of the Egyptian rulers may have hankered after homes on the shores of the Bosporus (and may also have been responsible for many of the moonlight parties held on the water) but some of them also took a liking to Heybeliada, the second largest of the Princes' Islands. It was here between 1897 and 1899 that Aznavuryan designed the most overtly Egyptian of all the buildings paid for by the Kavalalı dynasty in the shape of Abbas Halim Paşa Köşkleri, a group of three separate structures in Egyptian Revival style that featured pylons modeled on those of Ancient Egypt and lotus-headed capitals. Sadly, the selamlık (area designated for men) was demolished in 1945, leaving only the gateposts adorned with lotuses that face onto Abbas Paşa Street. The wooden haremlik (area designated for women) and servants' quarters still survive in private hands, although they were designed in style that is more prosaic.

In 1911, Abbas Hilmi Paşa also paid for the renovation of the gate leading into the island's Muslim Cemetery. It still stands today, although there is nothing specifically Egyptian about the design.

Zeynep Kamıl Hastanesi (Zeynep Kamıl Hospital)

In Üsküdar, the hospital that still bears the name of the couple who founded it as the city's first private charitable institution is yet another reminder of the Kavalalı dynasty. Zeynep Hanım (1826-84) was a daughter of Mehmed Ali Paşa and married Yusuf Kamıl Paşa, who was briefly grand vizier to Sultan Abdülaziz in 1863. Together they founded the hospital in 1862, although it wasn't completed until 1882; their mausoleum can still be seen in the grounds today.

Also linked to the Kavalalı dynasty: Üsküdar Fenai Ali Efendi Tekke; Yenikapı Mevlevihanesi; Aksaray Oğlanlar Tekke; Beykoz Kasrı; Prenses Rukiye Halim Yalısı, Kanlıça; and the ruins of Büyük Halim Paşa Yalı (Süngerli Köşk), Baltalimanı.

Losses include Abbas Halim Paşa Köşkü at Yakacık, burnt down in 1993; Mustafa Fazıl Paşa Köşkü, demolished in 1942; Zeynep Kamıl Konağı, Beyazıt, burnt down in 1942; Prenses İffet Hasan Konaği, Gümüşsuyu, demolished after 1944; Büyük Halim Paşa Yalı (Zeynep Kamil Hanım Yalı), demolished in 1928; Hıdiv İsmail Paşa Yalı, Emirgan, demolished in 1927; and İbrahim Paşa Yalı, Emirgan, demolished.

Keywords: Egypt , Istanbul

Source: http://www.todayszaman.com/travel_seeking-egypt-in-istanbul-a-forgotten-heritage_366144.html