Februay 7 – 14, 2020

“If earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.”

• Napolean Bonaparte

Our time in the Middle East is drawing to a close. We looked around for the best “must go” vacation left in the area.  After discussing with several people, the resounding answer was – Turkey.  From the initial review it didn’t appear February was the best time. Not going at the best time seemed much better than not going at all, and in the hindsight of the coronavirus travel restrictions I think our decision was nothing less than brilliant.  We had seven days to work with.  Turkey is a large and varied country – I think you could easily fill a month or more and never see anything twice.  Our time was limited though, so I put my complete trust in my travel advisor (Lynn) to come up with the best possible itinerary for that time.  We settled on two full days in the Cappadocia region in the south-central part of the country, with the remaining time in Istanbul.

Istanbul is arguably the most international city in the world.  It is literally the only major world city that sits in two continents, straddling Europe and Asia on the Bosporus Strait. It is rife with the influences of bygone empires and far-flung international powers seeking to curry favor. I’ll start off with some facts, figures, and trivia about Turkey.

• Turkey has a population of about 83 million people (18^th). It is a young country, with almost a quarter of the population age 14 or younger. The largest city is Istanbul with 15 million people, the capital is Ankara.
• Turkey is moderately wealthy with a GDP (PPP) of about $29,000 per capita, good for a global ranking of 52^nd out of ~185 countries (absolute number varies by source).
• Few world leaders in modern times have had a greater impact on their country than Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He led Turkey out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following WWI, and after eliminating the meddling of western powers, implemented a secular government in 1923 in a heavily Muslim country that includes many western ideas and philosophies. The current president, Erdogan, has enacted measures to undermine some of those policies.
• Turkey is about 80% Sunni Muslim and 16% Shia Muslim, with the remainder a mix of other religions. Despite a long and rich history in Turkey, Christianity is now practiced by less than 0.5% of the population after being as high as 17% early in the last century. This reduction is due in part to a forced migration between Greece and Turkey a century ago. More on that later.
• Ethnically, the country is about 70% Turkish, 20% Kurdish, and the rest a mix of Arabs, Greeks, and others.  The story of the Kurds is an interesting one worthy of separate research.
• Saint Nicholas (aka Santa Claus) was born in Patara, Turkey in 270 AD.
• Ottomans in Turkey popularized the tulip and exported them to Europe. It is the national flower.
• Greek mathematicians were employed for the design of the massive dome over the Hagia Sophia, employing sophisticated calculations that avoided the use of irrational numbers to construct a dome over such a large space.
• Oil wrestling is the national sport, where men are lathered in olive oil wrestle under the hot sun.  Camel wrestling is also popular.
• Turks are the highest per capita consumers of tea in the world at about 3kg annually per person.
• Turkey is the largest producer of hazelnuts, producing about 500,000 tons in 2019.
• In the past, women could divorce their husbands if they were not provided enough coffee.
• The currency is the Turkish lira, worth about 16₵ at the time of this trip.

We applied for our Turkish visas online at www.evisa.gov.tr. We have gotten quite comfortable with this process. Our visas arrived in email in less than a day. At $41.10 for a pair of 90-day multiple entry visas, these were among the cheaper visas as well. We cashed in some airline miles and picked up our round-trip tickets from Abu Dhabi to Istanbul for $335 total, an easy five-hour flight a single time zone away. After considering the logistics from the Istanbul airport to our hotel, Lynn determined it was best to immediately connect to Cappadocia for our two day stay there, so when we arrived, we worked our way across the new modern terminal to our connecting flight with Turkish Airlines to Nevsehir Airport in the Cappadocia region of south-central Turkey.  Round-trip tickets for this 1.5-hour flight cost another $152 for the pair.  As I walked through the airport, I noticed abayas were very infrequent in this Muslim country. Hajibs are more frequent, though not a majority and of greater variety and colors than what I see in the UAE.  Attire in general is typical western fashions. I notice such things.

A light snow fell as we landed at Nevsehir Airport.  We found our hotel transport – this is always an anxious moment – and loaded up into the shuttle van. We drove through the falling snow as we approached our destination of the small town of Goreme (pop. 2000). By the time we arrived at our hotel, Sultan Cave Suites, ($111/night), several inches had fallen.  We hadn’t anticipated this, but it was an interesting change to our desert life.  Our hotel was one of many in the area that took advantage of rooms carved into the soft stone of the area by past civilizations to create modern, comfortable rooms with unique character. After checking in, we walked around for a while in the fresh snow and gazed out across the town.  This was going to be special.

The Cappadocia region is a popular tourist destination owing to its distinctive landscape. Lynn arranged for a Kelebek Travel tour for each day we were there @ 35€ each ($76.62/day). This was a little pricey compared to what we usually spend, but it included a hotel pickup, a small group, good lunch, knowledgeable tour guide, and we didn’t have to drive in the snow in unfamiliar territory.  This was one of the occasions where we were best served by a tour.

Our first tour (the “Green Tour” – modified due to the snowy roads) started off through a landscape covered with a deep layer of new fallen snow.  Our first stop was an underground city at Kaymakli, one of over 200 underground cities in the region. Understanding these cities requires some knowledge of the geology. Three volcanoes blanketed the Cappadocian region in a layer of volcanic ash and lava 150 meters deep about 50 million years ago. The ash compressed into soft stone know as tuff. The stone was easily worked, a feature identified as much as 4000 years ago by the Hittites. With limited timber in the region, the tuff stone is the only readily available construction material.  It was either easily excavated to create underground rooms or carved out in blocks to use for construction. When exposed to air the soft stone hardens, a desirable feature for either application.

Kaymakli is one of the largest underground cities in the region, with capacity for as many as 5000 people.  Early Christians vastly expanded earlier carvings and created the city, comprised of eight layers of rooms dug over 40 meters underground with stables, kitchens, living quarters, churches, cisterns, and ventilation shafts. The city was not occupied full time but was maintained readily available for occupation whenever refuge from Roman authorities, Arabs, or others threatened them. Large stones could be rolled into place over openings to the cave that sealed them in where they could be completely self-reliant for extended periods. I’ve had the experience of staying submerged on a submarine for a long time, still, it’s hard to conceive of the difficulty of living underground with simple oil lamps to penetrate the darkness enough to conduct daily affairs in such close quarters with so many people. Tunnel networks several kilometers long connected other nearby cities.

We left Kaymakli and headed toward Pigeon Valley on the way to Uchisar. Our first stop was at a local jewelry store.  Stopping at local shops is a common feature of many tours.  Sometimes you can learn interesting information if you aren’t too jaded by the sales pitch.  This one was not a hard sell, and I did learn an interesting piece of trivia. Some of the first turquoise was found in Turkey. They sent it to France for identification, where it was dubbed turquoise for “Turkish Quartz”. Sometimes I just stick with a good story and don’t try to research it too much. 

Across the street from the jewelry store was a spot called Pigeon Valley. Countless pigeon nests have been carved into the soft tuff stone throughout the region – this valley just has a very high number.  Pigeons have been raised throughout the region for centuries for two reasons – one, for food, and two, for fertilizer.  Much of the soil in the area is poor, and the pigeon guano was an important fertilizer until being replaced by commercial products late in the 20^th century.  Pigeon egg whites were also used to bind with paint used to paint frescoes.

The observation deck for the valley also contained a tree decorated with dozens of evil eye amulets, small glass beads with a blue and white background intended to protect the wearer against the “evil eye”, where a curse is transferred through an envious glare. The concept dates back thousands of years and spans many cultures. The malicious glare is cast on someone blessed in some way to transfer a curse that would undo their blessing.

Lunch was a special treat at a place called the Old Greek House. This was a vintage combination restaurant-hotel serving traditional Ottoman dishes – beef and chicken simmered with vegetables and seasonings in clay dishes, lima beans, salads, and of course, a sweet pastry for dessert.  The Turks like their sweets.  The hotel upstairs had a fascinating high ceiling painted with peeling, bright colors, with fading frescoes on the walls, a Turkish rug on a wood floor, and massive throw pillows on the floor and big easy chairs for resting. I thought it looked straight out of a movie set.  We didn’t stay there but that would have been an experience.

We took a stroll around the town square of nearby Mustafapasa after lunch, stopping in at the 17th century Church of St Helena and Constantinople. This church dates from 1729 and is another example of Muslim tolerance of Christian landmarks.  We learned of the forced population exchange between Turkey and Greece in 1923. The movement of 1.6 million people was mutually agreed on between Greece and Turkey. It was not based on language or ethnicity, but purely on religious identity. Over 1.2 million Greek Orthodox Turks were moved to Greece, while 400,000 Muslims were moved from the Balkans to Turkey.  Both countries felt this movement was in the best interest of all, but the movement left a deep scar on many.

We huddled together around a fire in the covered patio of a local shop to warm up with a cup of Turkish coffee. This robust drink came in a small cup holding just a few ounces, with grounds making up at least half of the cup.  The storekeeper read our fortunes from the coffee grounds. The grounds are swirled with the remnants of the coffee, then turned over on a platter and the grounds reveal your fortune.  The fortune is generally vague enough (akin to astrology readings) to amaze you with the accuracy.  We had a good time, and these moments with locals are my favorite. 

Our last stops of the day were to see variations of “fairy chimneys” including the Mother-Father-daughter group at Urgup and nearby Love Valley (the chimneys appear as large phalluses to some) just to the west.  What is a fairy chimney? The volcanic eruptions of the past resulted in layers of basalt in the ash sediment fields. Over the millennia, the softer tuff layers eroded from the weather, but the basalt stones resisted the erosion, resulting in columns or cones with the basalt as a cap. These appear to be isolated pinnacles or projections from the ground. They form a dramatic landscape, and have helped make Cappadocia a tourist mecca, with hot air balloons being one of the must do events for every tourist.  The weather for our trip made this impossible, but the snow created its own special landscape.

We came back to our hotel for the night. A brilliant full moon shone down on the snow-covered town. It was quite a sight. We enjoyed more local fare for dinner – Lynn with a clay dish of simmered tomatoes, garlic, and onion and I with a local pasta and meat sauce with yogurt.  A local bottle of wine and fresh baked bread completed the meal.  At $24, this was a good deal. Turkey has a modest wine industry known for dark red wines, in keeping with their tradition of strong coffee and teas steeped for hours.

We woke up the next morning to a clear blue sky. The air had a bite to it: -13°C, (8°F). The snow crunched like stepping on Styrofoam as we worked our way to breakfast, reminiscent of our Michigan winters. Our agenda for the day was the “Red tour” with Kelebek Travel Tours with another small group.  We re-visited Love Valley, which had a completely different perspective in the bright blue morning compared to the overcast snow showers of the day before.  We drove by fields of fruit trees and vineyards with vines at ground level to help protect their moisture in the hot, dry summers. Our guide described the term “bread under the snow”, meaning the melting winter snow drives grain seed into the soil, where they germinate in the spring and get a start on the hot dry months ahead.

We visited Pasabagi (“Monks Valley”), a small park with some of the best mushroom capped fairy chimneys in the region, including some carved for use as churches. This was followed by a tour of Zelve Valley Open Air Museum.  Zelve Valley was used as a monastic retreat from the 9^th through the 13^th centuries, with Christians and Muslim living in harmony.  Churches were mixed in with private dwellings and pigeon nesting walls. Some of the valley remained inhabited as recently as the 1950s.

Our time in Cappadocia came to a close. We took a short flight back to Istanbul, then about a 45 minute ride (100 € for transfer both ways) to our Hotel Ibraham Pasha ($92/night), splendidly located just a block west of the Hippodrome in the heart of the cultural district in the European section of Istanbul. We left the bitter cold of Cappadocia and looked forward to a new experience.

The Hippodrome was a sporting and social center of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. Today it is part of a square named Sultanahmet Meydanı (Sultanahmet Square), containing the heart of Old Istanbul – the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Basilica Cistern, and Topkapi Palace. Like many places we visit, an Egyptian obelisk had been moved here to add some culture, in this case brought by the Roman Emperor Theodosius in the 4^th century. Very little of the Hippodrome structure remains, but the obelisk has stood the test of time quite well.

Lynn bought an Istanbul Welcome Card for our visit.  This comes in many varieties. The one she chose for us cost 70€ for both of us.  This particular card got us access to the Basilica Cistern, Topkapi Palace, and the Hagia Sophia.  We could meet our guide at any of multiple times each day, get express access to the facility, and have a brief guided tour before being left to roam on our own.  That is the perfect arrangement to me.  We learned a lesson in France about not having express access to popular sites. 

A boat ride from the Golden Horn up the Bosporus was our agenda for the morning. We enjoyed our first stroll across the old city to get to the boat launch, working our way through the Grand Bazaar to get there.  The Grand Bazaar is a fascinating place. One of the oldest and largest covered bazaars in the world, its 4000 shops cover 61 streets. The core of the bazaar was completed in 1461 by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror.  Almost anything a person could want is there, from coffee to carpet, Bitcoins to beans, leather to lamps.  Everyone was ready to make a deal but weren’t nearly as aggressive as Egypt. I rarely learn more than a few words on our travels, but I picked up a little Turkish here. “Tesekur Ederim” is Turkish for “Thank you” and “Where are you from” is Turkish for “I want to sell you a carpet”. 

We purchased tickets for our cruise for 25 lira each, about $4 for a 90-minute cruise. The temperature was cool but comfortable. As we passed the bridge, I noticed the hundreds of fishermen lining the bridge and the shoreline. Grizzled old men with long poles, and buckets for their catch. We cruised up the coast, watching the seagulls swarm around the wake of the boat with the Turkish flag blowing in the breeze. We passed government buildings, historical landmarks, and shopping centers. I enjoyed watching the locals and other tourists on the cruise as much as I enjoyed the landscape passing by.

We walked through Spice Bazaar on our way to lunch when we returned (one of several trips through both the Spice and Grand Bazaars). This landmark was originally completed in 1664 and served as the pharmacy of the Ottoman Empire for many years.  An important pillar of the Silk Road trade, over 100 shops still sell herbs, spices, baklava, Turkish Delights, nuts, tea, coffee, etc.

As we walked down the street looking for a place to eat, I noticed two separate ladies sitting on the ground and sorting through Kentucky Fried Chicken trash bags for scraps to eat.  We didn’t see much of this. In each case, it was heartwarming to see a young man approach them and give them money. One of the Five Pillars of Islam is almsgiving. As Istanbul is heavily Muslim, I wondered if this is what I was witnessing.

We settled on a diner for lunch. Lynn had a Turkish pizza and I had Iskender Doner, the first of several times we would have this. Doner, shawarma, and gyro are all very similar, with doner of Turkish origin, shawarma in the Middle East, and gyro in Greece with variations in the meat and spices and all made from thinly slicing meat stacked on a spit and cooked it on a rotisserie. Iskander Doner was invented in northwest Turkey in the 19^th century Ottoman Empire. The dish is thinly sliced lamb served on top of strips of pita bread and covered with a hot tomato sauce, melted sheep butter, yogurt, and grilled peppers.  Yum!

A light drizzle fell as we started the next day at our first stop, the Blue Mosque. This was built in 1616 and remains a functioning mosque. It is free to the public but requires all appropriate respect given (removing shoes, modest dress, and restricted access to certain areas by non-Muslim). A truly spectacular building but with heavy reconstruction in progress during our visit.

We continued across the Sultanahmet Square. Steam and smoke drifted up from push carts selling roasted corn and chestnuts, common snacks for sell by many vendors. Motor scooters that have been very common on many of our trips were almost absent here. Our next stop was Basilica Cistern, one of dozens of cisterns buried beneath the city as a fresh water supply during long hot summers in ancient times. The cistern was built in the 6^th century by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I using some 7000 slaves and holds 80,000 m³ of water – a whopping 21 million gallons! This was one of two cisterns we visited, the other being the Serifiye Cistern. This smaller cistern was only rediscovered in 2010 and is now used for rotating art exhibits and small classical concerts, the enclosure apparently being well suited for acoustics.  We certainly enjoyed our stroll through the cistern enjoying the exhibit and the soothing background music.

After lunch where Lynn tried the Iskender Doner and I tried another popular dish, grilled meatballs, we headed for the spectacular Hagia Sofia.  Along with the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace, this is one of the centerpieces of historic Istanbul. It was built as an Eastern Orthodox Cathedral in 537, and, except for a period in the 1200s when it was converted into a Roman Catholic Cathedral, remained so until 1453 when the Ottomans conquered Constantinople and converted to a mosque. It was the largest cathedral in the world for almost 1000 years until the Seville Cathedral was completed in 1520.

Where the Blue Mosque remains a functioning mosque, Hagia Sophia was reopened as a secular museum by President Ataturk in 1935. The central cathedral is a mammoth opening. The Ottomans defaced or destroyed many of the Christian symbols as did the Crusaders, but several impressive mosaics remain. Adjoining Ottoman tombs feature beautiful tilework, calligraphy and paintings. Fires and earthquakes have damaged the building over the years but each time it has been restored to a place of grandeur, often ranking as the most visited place in all of Turkey.

The Topkapi Palace was on our agenda for the next day.  This was the central seat of power for the Ottoman dynasty from the 15^th to the 19^th century. This is a virtual city unto itself, covering approximately 150 acres with everything needed to sustain about 4,000 people inside its fortified walls during the peak of Ottoman power. Four courtyards lie inside the Imperial Gate, and contain gardens, treasury, weapons depot, art galleries, library, kitchen, sleeping quarters (including a separate one for the Royal Harem), mosques, baths, doctors chambers, and everything else needed for daily life. Istanbul’s location on the crossroads between east and west is obvious from the collection of fine porcelain from both China and Europe.

We enjoyed all our meals in Turkey and this night was a special one. We visited the Khorosani Kebabhouse, one recommended by our hotel. Lynn tried the Iskender doner again – seriously, try this if you get a chance – and I opted for mussel stuffed squid. Both were spectacular and served in clay dishes we had become accustomed to. The bread served with the meal is known as lavas, or “balloon bread”. A thin layer of dough is cooked in a wood fired oven for about a minute, where it balloons up to a thin crispy air-filled loaf.  The owner took me back to watch the process – he was quite proud. We also had beer and wine with our dinner for a total of 331 lira, about $54. Beer and wine are readily available in restaurants, in fact Turkey has a modest beer and wine industry. Restaurants will sell for people to carry out, but markets selling alcohol were rare in this Muslim country.

For the evening we went to the Sirkeci Train Station, the eastern terminus of the Orient Express that ran between Paris and Istanbul from 1883 until 1977. Besides just wanting to see the train station, tonight’s special attraction was the Whirling Dervishes. Tickets cost 200 lira, about $29 for both of us. I knew the term Whirling Dervishes but that was about it. The whirling process is a form of physically active mediation by the Mevlevi order of Sufi, a mysticism-oriented variant of Islam over 700 years old. The presentation of about an hour was an actual meditation service as part of Sema, a worship ceremony where the Dervishes whirl in silence with many symbolic gestures demonstrating their focus in abandoning all personal desires in search of focusing on God. About 50 people watched the show, which was done mostly in silence with a few Mevlevi elders playing music on simple instruments in the background.

Our last day in Turkey was a mild sunny day, making me think perhaps the timing for our trip was not so bad. I imagined the summer sun with the crowds could be quite taxing.  We drifted through the bazaar once again on our way to the Galata Tower, passing through the textile and garment section with each block giving way to a different specialty. Suits and ties gave way to bras and underwear, women’s wear, and by children’s clothes.  A cheerful senior citizen spread his shoeshine gear on a street corner and was quick to share his sunny disposition as he shined shoes for the passers’ by.

The Galata tower was built in 1348 to replace an older Byzantine tower. At 67 meters it was the highest point in the city when it was built and affords a nice view across the Golden Horn to the old city, with the Bosporus to the east. Our tickets to climb the tower cost 90 lira for both of us, about $13. We pushed our way around the viewing deck on the top of the tower, snapping a few panoramas and enduring the others taking selfies. We stopped in a café at the pinnacle and enjoyed a Turkish tea. We came down from the tower and visited Karakoy Gulluoglu. This is famous as the first baklava store in Istanbul, opened in 1949 by a family with a history of making top quality baklava for 200 years. We purchased a sample platter since we didn’t really know one type from another in a store with dozens of types to choose from, as well as some more tea (I read Turks drink ten cups of tea a day on average. Good thing Turkish tea is low caffeine).

Our last afternoon was leisurely. We picked up some ceramic bowls for souvenirs and spent some time on our hotel rooftop terrace in the pleasant afternoon sun, watching the ships in the Sea of Marmara wait their turn to enter the Strait of Bosporus.  Our last dinner was on a rooftop restaurant looking over the Bosporus to the Asian side of the city.

We spent a week in Turkey. You could easily spend more, and each trip we take we learn which places we might like to explore at a more leisurely pace in the future. Turkey is one of those countries. Thanks in part to using some of our airline miles, this was one of our cheapest trips to date – $2420 for all airfare, shuttles, hotels, meals, tours, souvenirs, etc.