The Turkish Bath

 We went to one of the oldest hamam’s in Istanbul ….1475! The price of admission was hideous for a bath without massage… $50. 

At first, the ladies take you to dressing room where they give you a towel, a sarong, and a thong underpants along with rubber slippers. Then you were escorted into the actual room. 

Remember the thong? Well Jenny and Taunya thought it was a facemask of some sort and were wearing around their necks. Hilarious, don’t you think?

There, marble bowls without drains can be filled and one can wash oneself. The attendant filled up bowls, but no soap no wash towel, only water. I went into another room and found some soap and a scrubber…but it seems these were for the attendants…so she went and got us soap and washcloth. 

I made every attempt to use the water in my marble bowl to clean myself (think how hard to clean up without drain) and then went to the ‘bath’ part…a warm marble slab. We lounged for an hour or so, went back to our dressing rooms, dethroned and destined and sat down in the front lounge. There we played with kittens, and drank tea and ate pastries.

About the Hammam

Entering the hammam

The hammam cats, mother and child

Entering the hammam

Taunya practicing acupressure on kittty.

Ayvalik on the Aegean

 We took a bus about four hours north to the city. It was mentioned in our guidebook as a stopping off point to some of the ruins, and as a Turkish tourist destination. First, Turkish buses are fun, they have stewards and they serve hot drinks and packaged cookies. In case you don’t remember, buses are less smooth than airplanes so it is quite the job pouring boiling hot water into little cups and passing them out to passengers.

We arrived late, so went straight to bed and woke up to an amazing breakfast served outside right next to the Aegean.  The hotel was literally on the water, so you could look down at the fishes while eating. And the breakfast was fabulous, my favorite on the trip, kind of a Greek style breakfast with cheese, olives, vegetables, pepper spread (ayvar), fry bread, jam, and butter. We had a big pot of Turkish tea to wash it down.

Sunset view of our breakfast nook.

Me feeding cheese to an aggressive but very cute kitten.

Also, at breakfast we had the kittens, some of which would climb up onto your lap to beg for leftovers. We got quite attached to our kittens after three days.

Once we started exploring, the town surprised us. By walking straight perpendicular to the seashore we encountered a warren of ancient narrow streets many filled with shops. We spent both days exploring. There were hundreds of coffee, shops, and restaurants, to the local tourists along with shop selling olive oil and food.

We all bought a few souvenirs, prices being dramatically lower than in other places we visited.

Narrow street with Aegean view.

A house in ruin. There were several of these, made me feel at home!

Cute kitten on chair.

Ephesus, the artemision, Church of St. John

 The Temple of Artemis, sadly, is a ruinous pile of rubble. There was a feeble attempt to rebuild a column, but it looks like the workers were drinking raki as they worked.

The crooked column. Originally the temple had 127 columns. 

This is the entire very much neglected site.

This area is prone to earthquakes and religious vandalism, poor Artemis didn’t stand a chance.

Here is an image of Artemis, god of the hunt, the forest, the animals, and childbirth. Those are bull testicles.

The ruins of Ephesus were incredible, truly deserving a place in the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The site is immense, with hundreds of objects worthy of inspection. It is unclear how much restoration is happening currently, but there are acres of marble pieces waiting to be pieced together.

Sun peeking through ruin.

A tile mosaic from inside what appeared to be a wealthy Roman housing complex.

Another room from the showing complex.

A set of columns. Note the rubble all around.

This is the famous library.

The archaeological museum is also quite wondrous, showing many artifacts retrieved from the site. 

Okay if you look carefully, there’s a garden gnome in the freize.

Socrates.

This sculpture seemed out of place, unclear its background.

So St. John, we think the apostle and friend to Mary (Jesus’ mom) is buried at the site of St. John’s Basilica. It was built in the 6th century by Justinian (Ayasofia, etc.) and it is huge. I was truly shocked at the immensity of the ruins. It is said that much of it was built using rubble from the temple of Artemis.

A view of the church innards. It seems to be designed in the shape of a cross and has an atrium that resembles a cloister. 

Capitols (sp) in waiting…

A workman?

A bit of floor mosaic. The workmanship is less than what we saw at Ephesus…

There is also a castle up the hill from the Basilica, not so exciting, but probably welcome during an invasion.

Ayasofia and Other Mosques

 Throngs of tourists surround the mosque, wait in line to get tickets, wait in line to enter. We got “Byzantined” by the ticket seller who sold us an addin without explaining. Taunya called it a stupid task.

As non Muslims, we can only enter the balcony from which you can see the main floor. The ancient, gold-encased mosaics are stunning and cover hugs areas. Apparently the Muslims painted over some original Christian motifs because they depicted naked angels.

Ayasofia, side view.

Entering the mosque 

Full mosque view

Detail of angel in upper corner

Original mosaic  

Viking grafitti on the railing of balcony.

The cistern, also called The Basilica, is a big attraction. Built by Justinian, it has been featured in movies like From Russia with Love. It was designed for underground water storage.

Medusa sitting upside down in the water.

A nice view with yellow lighting.

A rare view without people. 

The cistern is a HUGE attraction judging by the long lines and high prices. Yes, it’s cool, but never again!

Cappadocia

 

Cave hotel in Goreme

World heritage site bedroom.

It was another slog to get here: planes, busses, autos, but what a pleasant surprise to live in our hobbit home. 

Two bedrooms carved into a world heritage site. Below is a photo of the rock from which our home is carved.

Unfortunately I was sick so spent much of day one in our cozy cave, but on day two we got up early to visit an underground cave:

A cross-section rendering of Kaymakli.

No one is certain how old these caves are…At one point the early Christians his in Cappadocia’s caves but also other peoples used them for protection.

A stone door closing off one of the caves.

Taunya posing in an underground passage.

These caves were primarily used for grain storage, which explains why there were many mills for grinding grain. Wine was also produced and stored here.

Although we arrived at 8:30, there were multiple tour groups from various countries in the caves making me feel very claustrophobic. Fortunately the groups move fast (many more sites to see!)

 Overall, love this place. Although a tourist place, no giant busses trying to run us over and no touts pushing rug stores or restaurants. 

This cave had multiple rooms..,

Millstone.

We also went to an “outdoor park” containing multiple churches carved between the 9th and 11th centuries.

Outside of Nevir Church dating 11th century

Arrive Istanbul

 Traveling is treacherous and exhausting, but worth it. My flight on Turkish air departed Newark at 12:30 AM. I am usually in bed by nine! For safety sake, I drove up at 5 PM and by 8:30 was through security and at the gate. Honestly, it wasn’t bad hanging around the airport for three hours. I can’t handle the stress anymore so the old lady early arrival works just fine for me. Thank you very much.

Turkish Airlnes had totally different boarding procedures than any airline I had traveled thus far, which was amusing and efficient. There were a ton of ground crew, which is really lovely. I ended up sitting next to a sweet couple, American born Pakistani descent. I must say speaking with your fellow companions, makes the trip a lot more pleasant. Any more, because seats are so close together on airplanes I tend not to interact with my seat mates, so this was a really pleasant surprise..

By the way, the food on Turkish Airlines was great. And steerage class you still got metal cutlery and everything was very tasty.

Getting through immigration was a breeze, finding my ride, not so easy and it took a really long time to drive into town. Staying in the middle of everything, a block from Haya Sofia. Our guest house has a rooftop with a sweet view.

Got out for a bit looking for Turkish money. Everything here is quoted in Euro but need lira for small purchases. Lots of tourists! Hotel Esans is right next to Haya Sofia. Up  the hill beyond Haya Sofia are lots and lots of friendly men who would love you to check out their carpet shop. I felt so popular!!!!

Passed an Isiah-type mural depicting Turkish themes, checked out two hammams (one advertising famous clients) and petted a few cats.

Ayasofya

Finally got some cash, $150.