Worth the Drive {Kuşadasi Day 2}

Today we were part of another tour. The attractions are spread out around Kuşadasi, very unlike Istanbul and Cappadocia, and today we travelled hours and hours to get to one. We got our first glimps of Pamukkale at its base, when we stopped for lunch and to dip our fingers in the mineral water.

Pamukkale is a Turkish word that means “cotton castle” and you can see why that is fitting (although a Canadian would have named it perma-snow). The white cotton-candy like stuff behind me is caused by supersaturated calcium carbonate hot-spring water precipitating out over the mountain side. On top of the mountain, the results are these beautiful travertines

Clearly we had a lovely time splashing around in the water, but it wasn’t as warm as we could wish. Luckily, up around the ruins of Hierapolis, the hot waters had been collected in an antique pool. In the Roman Empire period, Hierapolis was a health centre visited by thousands of people who bathed in and drank the waters, believing it had healing properties. We tried it, it tasted nasty.

We spent the rest of our time here soaking in the pool, which has temperatures of  36-57 °C. It was like swimming in Perrier, the effervescent waters would form bubbles all over our skin and it was glorious gliding over ancient submerged marble columns.

We spent 6 hours in a bus and only 3 hours at the site, but it was totally worth it to visit this miraculous place.

 

Sunshine and Surprises {Kuşadasi Day 1}

We had a late night flight out of the Cappadocia region, and although we were sad to leave that beautiful place, we were also very excited to get away from the cold and join the Sun on the coast!

We couldn’t see much of Kuşadasi in the dark, but it certainly felt nice and warm. We could almost sense the sea. This morning we started early and joined a group tour that first took us up the mountains to the House of the Virgin Mary.

The visit held no religious meaning for me (I am a Secular Humanist) but the mountainside was beautiful, full of colour and fresh air. And if I didn’t light a friggin’ candle my Catholic grandmother would have literally killed me.

The next, and much more anticipated, stop on our tour was Ephesus: an ancient Greek, and later Roman, city that once housed a population of more than 250,000 in the 1st century BC. It was incredible.

This is me, blinking on Curetes Street. We saw partiality re-built ruins of fountains, monuments, statues, houses, and shops lining a street which had lanes for horses and people. The street was complete with gutters and columns that once held up a roof to protect man and beast from sun and rain.

Why yes. Yes, that is exactly what you are looking at. Ancient *marble!* communal toilets. Underneath the seats water was running for a constant flush, which seems like remarkably advanced technology.  In front of the seats fresh water was also running along the gutter so that users could dip a sponge-on-a-stick to wipe themselves! More eco-friendly than TP, but unless you’re the guy on the first seat, kinda gross. That was actually the best seat in the house, reserved for people of high stature.

Our tour guide considered himself a comedian and told us lots of funny stories. I question their integrity. Apparently, in the winter the marble would understandably get cold, so the gentry would have slaves sit on their seat all day to keep it warm. This was considered a great job for a slave. He also told us that the pond in the centre of the toilet room held bullfrogs to mask the sounds emerging from the patrons! So yeah …

The pluming system of the city must have been astounding . Toilets and fountains and bathhouses oh my! There was terracotta every where, some pipes still intact in the ground.

An absolutely breathtaking sight (and flight of stairs) was the Odeon. Used for government and theatre, the Odeon was constructed in the 2nd century A.D and had capacity for 1500 spectators.  Even under-reconstruction it was a sight to behold, looking down on the giant stage that would have been the hub of the great city.

The road you see in the above picture is Harbour Street, and would have ended at a port on the Aegean. Now the ocean is kilometres away, pushed back by silt from the mountains which land-locked Ephesus while burying it.

Probably the most recognizable sight in city is the Library of Celsus. This is the most beautiful structure in Ephesus. It was built in 117 A.D. as a monumental tomb for Gaius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus. The grave of Celsus was beneath the ground floor, and covered with a statue of Athena, the goddess of the wisdom.

More than 12,000 scrolls and manuscripts were kept in cupboards in niches on the double thick walls of the building that protected them from the extremes of temperature and humidity. It was the third richest library in ancient times after the Alexandra and Pergamum.

It was awe-inspiring, visiting this uncovered ancient city that was a nursery for democracy and civilization. But probably the most memorable thing that happened on our tour was that we stopped at a “Leather Making Factory” which was really just a way to get us to buy leather goods … which we did.

But before we entered the sales floor, we were treated to a “fashion show”, also known as a sales pitch, showcasing said leather products. Of course, Liam was asked to take part in said fashion show, dragged backstage, and forced to dawn this little number:

I think he makes a sexy model don’t you?

 

Familiar Paths {Cappadocia Day 3}

So after speeding through on our ATVs and soaring above in a Hot Air Balloon, we thought it was about time we see Cappadocia on foot at a nice leisurely pace.

We booked a hiking tour that visited now familiar places; Rose Valley, Pasabag, and Uchisar. Our tour guide was the sweetest thing, she knew all about the history of the land and its peoples, loved answering our questions, and had an absolute passion for her culture. We learned a lot and took many more photos.

Our tour also included a visit to Kaymakli Underground City. The troglodyte cave-cities of Cappadocia were excavated in the Hittite times, and expanded over the centuries as various marauding armies traversed Central Anatolia in search of captives and plunder. There are 36 underground cities in Cappadocia and Kaymakli is the widest.

The city has low, narrow and sloping passages that go down 8 floors below earth, however only to top 4 are open to the public. We saw the stables, storage rooms, kitchens, church, and wine-making/grape-squishing room, which are all orientated around a  ventilation shaft that keeps everything fresh and breezy. A good thing too, because otherwise you would feel like you were being buried alive! It is very dark and narrow down there, we were literally crawling in tunnels from room to room. It’s amazing that people lives here for as long as they did, using the caves as a hiding place where life could go on. Lights were always carried with a person, so that an intruder wouldn’t be able to follow a light lit path, and gigantic heavy stone doors were carved that could only be rolled away from the inside.

Over and Under {Cappadocia Day 2}

We woke up EARLY this morning to have another amazing experience in this beautiful land. We dragged ourselves out of bed before the crack of dawn first-call-to-prayer for nothing less than a sunrise Hot Air Balloon Ride!

Going up in a hot air balloon has been a bucket list (check!) item of mine for a long time and Cappadocia makes almost every “Best Places To” list out there. Go ahead, Google it. So although this was a big splurge on the budget, we thought it was worth doing in someplace with a legendary landscape.

It totally was.

We were very lucky to go at all because the weather has been windy recently and flights cancelled for the past two days. A calm morning meant that the skies were packed with balloons, which added to the magic.

We booked with Butterfly Balloons and they were absolutely fantastic. Everything was organised and professional, and Mike our pilot was brilliant. We met up with our fellow travellers from Canada and had a quadrant of the basket all to our selves. Butterfly restricts the number of people it takes up so that everyone gets a great view. Unlike some other companies …

It was so peaceful up there, floating over gorgeous valleys and rock formations. Mike was as knowledgeable about the history as the geography of the land and was very entertaining.  Sometimes we were high up in the clouds (catching a wind) and you couldn’t see a foot in front of you -it was like being in limbo. Other times we were flying so low we could have touched the trees. There aren’t many more enjoyable ways to pass an hour, it was lovely, and when we landed we celebrated with cake and champagne!

We were delivered back to our hotel in time for breakfast and to plan the rest of our day. It was decided that we take ourselves over to the Göreme Open Air Museum. The nucleus of an area that is a UNESCO World Heritage site, the museum is a vast monastic complex composed of refectory monasteries placed side-by-side, each with its own fantastic church. Here we saw the finest of the rock-cut churches and their beautiful frescoes with colours so bright it is hard to believe they are from the 11th century (you’re not allowed to take pictures of many of them to keep them that way).

We had a nice afternoon wandering around the caves, viewing churches, kitchens, and graves. It is hard to imagine how peopled lived in these places, but a lot has eroded away. It’s a miracle so much is left for us to make guesses on. It was a very special place to visit and certainly the most unique museum I have ever been to.

Getting up early meant a nap was necessary, poor Liam practically had to carry me home from the museum. I felt a lot better after a little shuteye and we ended up eating with our friends in a backpackers bar and met a lot of cool people.

Related articles

• Time of My Life {Cappadocia Day 1} (tixeertne.wordpress.com)

 

Time of My Life {Cappadocia Day 1}

Our flight and transfer out to Göreme went smoothly  and although we lost about half a day travelling  we made the most of it with a quick, late breakfast in the hotel and then a 4 hour private ATV tour out in the country side.

Those where the most amazing 4 hours of my life!

I’m not exaggerating, it was even better than skydiving.  The landscape was breathtaking, so different and varied that at the same time I was feeling like an alien world, I was learning to appreciate how incredibly awesome this one is.

I can’t describe the beauty of it to you I’m sorry, I wish I could put it into words.

I would turn my head one way and see strikingly coloured hills, then look the other way down into a lovely grape-vine covered valley. Then I would remember that I was driving an ATV and had to pay attention! It was that distracting. Every moment I wanted to look right, left, up, down, stop to take pictures, yet keep going to see more.

Our tour guide was a young man who spoke very little English and was mostly preoccupied with not getting dirty -later he told us he had a date tonight. We picked out helmets and without much more instruction than pointing to the gas and breaks, we were on our way. No history stories, no geography lessons -we will get those later- his job was to show us the land, and boy did he ever!

Once he figured out Liam and I had less than the prudent amount of caution and sense, we left the trails and headed for the dunes. Dunes! Our guide was doing wheelies and jumps and we were trying to stay alive! Navigating narrow earth bridges, banks, bumps, and full-out jumps was so exhilarating. Once I learned to trust my accelerator over my break, even I got a bit of ‘air’ on those dunes.

The off-roading portions of our tour were interrupted by incredible sights and towns we visited.  We left our rides and our guide to explore villages with cave houses that were inhabited until to 60s, ancient cave churches, and panoramic hiking trials. We stopped at Sunset Point to have a tea in a little wood-stove powered hut overlooking the fairy chimneys of Love Valley.

If I had to pick a ‘highlight’ of the most amazing 4 hours of my life, it would be the drive up to Uchisar Castle. Situated on the highest point of Cappadocia, the carved-in-stone citadel was lived in up until the 1950s and commands the best view of the region. The drive through Uchisar town was unbelievable. Here I was, roaring through the cobble stone streets of a quiet little town, whizzing past surprised locals and scattering chickens. It felt like a movie or a video game. It felt like a dream. As we wound our way up to the top, I had a near-tears moment when it dawned on me how incredibly lucky I was to be in full health and vigour, in an amazing place, doing something so freakin’ cool, and with someone I loved to enjoy it with.

For half of the tour we both felt like it was going to end any second, because isn’t that how things that are to too good to be true end? But it went on and on and just got better and better. When we finally did get back we were sure it had been much more than 4 hours, but no we were right on time. We thanked our guide hugely and gave him a big tip. Hopefully he is splurging on his date!

Besides one little mishap where I flipped my vehicle over on myself (I’m fine) it was a perfect first day in Cappadocia. Can it even get better than this?

Now we are waiting for friends and going to take in some Turkish culture with a Whirling Dervishes ceremony. Then to bed! We have another big day tomorrow.

Land and Sea {Istanbul Day 3}

Today we were part of a half-day tour that stared with a bus ride and ended on a boat. The first stop on our “guided tour” was some unguided free time in the Egyptian Spice market. I was wary at first because our brief venture into the Grand Bazaar the day prior had been absolutely overwhelming.  But unlike the literal tourist trap/labyrinth that is the Bazaar, the market is used by locals so prices, layout, and vendors are much more friendly.

We made a few small purchases we were very happy with, and then re-grouped with the tour for our cruise along the Bosporus.  It was a chilly ride out there, but seeing the city from the water, which is such a gigantic part of it’s history, was well worth the cool winds.

Most impressive was the Rumelian Castle. Built over 550 years ago, the fortress was situated at the narrowest point of the Bosphorus strait  in order to control the sea traffic.

After our boat cruise, we got our new friends the tour guides to drop us off outside yet another amazing structure in the Istanbul skyline; Süleymaniye Mosque. Again the design of Sinian the super-architect, Süleymaniye was a gorgeous building to photograph and provided a wonderfully serene place to sit on a lush carpet and take-in the contemplative quiet while a halo of lights glow softly above our heads.

The rest of our last day in Istanbul was spent finding our own ‘sights’. We headed down to the water and spent some time watching the boats and oddities. We wandered through narrow streets, past what seemed like endless restaurants, shops, and hotels.  We played in a ‘fitness park’ where ‘exercise’  machines are provided for the benefit public health and for the delight of tourists. We circled the Hippodrome, sat by a fountain, and watched the sun set behind the Blue Mosque.

Tomorrow the sun will rise (ohmygod I’m so cheesy)  on the next stage of our adventure. We are heading into the middle of Turkey, to the rural lands of Cappadocia!

Constant Sights {Istanbul Day 2}

Our second day in Istanbul consisted of another round of sightseeing. What strikes me about this city is how close everything is. Everywhere you look there is some ancient wonder, all just steps away.

Today we visited Topkapı Palace; the residence of the Ottoman Sultans for about 400 years, 500 years ago.  The opulence of the palace is everywhere, dripping from the painted dome ceilings and ivory-and-tortoise-shell covered walls. It is a breathtakingly beautiful place and you can imagine royalty walking the gardens and lounging in the halls. The best treasures (clothing, jewellery, weapons, and priceless gifts) are indoors guarded behind glass. Picture taking is prohibited but I got some nice shots of the open areas.

Close by the Palace is the Archaeology Museum, which we also visited. The museum is a cluster of buildings, which means we got thoroughly drenched in the down-poor that seamed to pick up again every time we were ready to building hop. Rain on smooth stone is probably the most treacherous thing ever. I’m not going to lie, we became pretty history-fatigued and had a hard time caring about all the old pieces of junk artifacts. But the highlights of the museum were thrilling and totally worth the cold, wet, tiered visit.

tomb of Alexander the Great

The Kadesh Peace Treaty: World’s Oldest Peace Treaty

Asclepius, god of medicine, and his snake entwined staff

I thought this stone head looked JUST like Liam!

The Highlights and Lows {Istanbul Day 1}

So our first full day here in Istanbul was packed full of going over the most famous sights and landmarks. When traveling you should always prioritize activities in case something comes up to prevent you from carrying out your well thought-out minute-by-minute plan. I’m not the only one who travels this way right?

First up was the Hagia Sophia, an old Byzantine church (now museum) of gigantic proportions and dating back to the mid-6th century. Everything inside is wondrous, from the 184 ft dome, to the mosaics of Jesus posing with Constantine and his wife, to the Viking-era graffiti etched into the marble balcony railing. Here are some of my favourite shots from inside.

Next we went underground to the Basilica Cistern, which used to store 100 000 tones of water brought from a forest 12 miles away. There were access vents in the Hagia Sophia and it was an important source of fresh water for the city. Apart from being an amazing example of Byzantine engineering, the cistern also features two late Roman Medusa-head columns. It is a creepy and beautiful spot.

Finally, we took in the Blue Mosque, an active Islam place of worship. We went in right after prayers, had to take our shoes off -which seemed like a bit much considering visitors are only allowed in the back section. But then we got inside and saw the beautiful lush carpet we were all walking on. It was nothing to the stunning ceilings and breath taking chandeliers. A very peaceful place regardless of the crowds and the fact that my headscarf kept shamefully slipping off.

Liam and I also visited a 300 year old Haman (a Turkish bath), which was incredible and needs its own post at some point when I have time to write it.

To finish the day we grabbed dinner in a place with a backgammon board and water-pipe at every table. We were disinclined to take pictures as there were lots of locals around and we didn’t want to appear touristy. It is every tourist’s dream to get “the authentic” experience and be mistaken for a local. In the end I blew our cover (which was probably nonexistent anyway) by becoming sick from the tobacco and running out of there pale as a sheet and leaving a characteristically giant tourist tip. In the fresh air of the street I immediately started to feel better and was able to properly boast about winning most of the backgammon games and go over the plan for Day 2.

We made it!

After 19 hours of traveling through three countries and time zones, we made it to Istanbul Turkey! We are very very tired, and have only had time/energy to glance around our hotel’s rooftop terrace and get some dinner.

Here is our view:

And here was our food:

The bread, oh the bread:

We kept it simple tonight and ordered kebab plates. The food was delicious, here is me enjoying it with a beautiful landmark behind me.

We dined with the Aya Sofya and plan on visiting her tomorrow.

So this is a short one but I hope to post a lot more from here in Turkey. For now though I go to sleep. Sweet sweet sleep.

Gobble Gobble {BBQ Turkey Legs}

I love summer barbecuing but get tired of hot dogs and hamburgers pretty quick. Not the bubby (boyfriend/hubby)  he could eat hot dogs everyday. He is eating one right now. Lucky for me, I’m in charge of what gets cooked around here, I’m the kitchen boss. So when thinking about what to BBQ, I try to think outside the bun and recently decided on turkey.

Typically this giant bird is only consumed at holidays when an army of family comes over to try to help you eat it / take home the leftovers. But you can buy pieces of turkey at the groceries store, wrapped up ready to go in super convenient packages.  I bought a set of drumsticks, which I never get to eat, because my dad has claimed both of them, every holiday, for my entire life, and on into infinity.

suck it dad, this is MY drumstick

The first step is to create a brine for your turkey legs. Lay them in a dish deeper then the drumsticks and one cup at a time, cover the turkey with water, keeping track of how many cups you use. For every 2 cups of water add 1 tablespoon of salt. I used 7 cups of water and added 3.5 tbs of salt. Let the turkey sit in the brine in the fridge for at least a couple of hours, you could even do this the night before.

Turkey’ s are ocean lovers, brine helps bring out their natural capricious flavours

Because I wanted a quick and dirty mid-week dinner, without the hassle of mixing up a sauce and dealing with drippy BBQ flare ups, I used a dry rub to season the bird. Sprinkle the following spices all over your turkey and rub it in to the meat:

• Black pepper
• Cayenne pepper
• Garlic powder
• Celery seed
• Thyme

Place on the grill on a low setting for about 45 minutes, turning every 10 min or so. The skin should be nice and crispy and the juices run clear when you sick a knife into it. Now its time to eat turkey on the deck!

I paired this with homemade iced tea and a delicious Quinoa Salad from Karen at The Art of Doing Stuff. To cook the quinoa Karen uses “immersion method”, which works but  involves an extra draining step. I use the “ratio method” which states for every 1/2 cup of quinoa : 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil together, turn to low and cover, simmer for 15 minuets, then fluff with a fork and you are ready to go.