LEAH'S Request

We have returned to Istanbul, added Andrew to the email list, and, although we did a lot of touring, there is so much more to do, just on the European side of Istanbul, let alone the Asia side.

This is the exist for Hagia Sofia, the 6th Century church the was Christendom's most important before becoming a mosque in the 15th Century. Church, Mosque, now Museum.

Shopper's delight: The Grand Bazaar,covered housing 4000 shops; begun earlier as the Spice Market.

In the ancient Roman Hippodrome, a 3,500 year-old obelisk was brought from Egypt in 390 Before Christ.

Notice something familiar? The shape of the entrance-way, here to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, and its similarity to the entrance to the Sultanan, the way-stations for ancient caravans on the Silk Road in the middle of Turkey's high dessert.

Topkapi, the medieval palace of Ottoman sultans. I remember seeing this shape of tower in Nimburk, now Czech Republic. Helpful in timing the period of this construction.

You want opulence? This is opulence. This is also the entrance to the sultan's consultant's minister's chamber. The list of who's who and what's what is on the side panel. Inside the chamber, the sultan's window overlooked the minister's chamber, was obscured for the sultan to hide behind and watch and listen to the various ministry's debates. Nobody knew if he were present or not. Anything that the sultan heard or observed he didn't agree with, well...85% of the ministers were executed at one time or another. I guess an Ottoman ministerial position was high risk for high reward; which gave rise to high intrigue in palace politics.

We return to Gallipoli, the sight of Chuchill's Naval disaster during WW I, to open a second front as the German's were pushing towards Moscow. Tsar Nicholas II was becoming worried and wanted the Allies to apply pressure to Germany's Southern flank as the Western Front was now a stalemate. As it turns out of course, the Tsar had more to worry about from the Bolsheviks than the Germans. 

Churchill was Minister of the Royal Navy and thought, and was advised, and there was a consensus on this, that the Turks would run and hide as a combined naval force of battleships steamed up the Dardanelles towards the Straits of Bosporus and Istanbul. Fail; three battleships sunk the first day. Then the military consensus thought a land campaign would be more successful and the Aussies and New Zealanders were landed at the shores of Gallipoli. A 100,000 dead later, the land force was withdrawn. The area now known by Aussies & Kiwis as Anzac, celebrated April 25. Two years later, the Imperial Axis surrendered, Allied warships sailed again the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, through the Straits of Bosporus into Istanbul without firing a shot.

 The sultan became a puppet of the Allies, eventually dethroned by a charismatic former Ottoman General who called himself Ataturk. Ataturk had made a name for himself, rising from low ranking military status to become a lieutenant colorant, then holding at bay the combined Allied force at Gallipoli. He became Turkey's non-elected president for life until his death in 1938. He abolished the monarchy, provided no role for religion in the political structure, adopted women's suffrage, replaced Arabic writing for Western Characters, abolished all religious schools: i.e., Madras, establish universal public education, prohibited the wearing of headscarves in public educational facilities and made Turkish the official language.

Turkey had been a part of the Imperial Axis during WW I. Turkey was "neutral" during WW II. Following the Soviet Union's establishing and Iron Curtain, Turkey became a member of NATO as the keystone in preventing the Soviet Union from reaching across the Black Sea to control Middle Eastern oil, and hence the West's economic survival, during the Cold War. 

I pause in today's narrative for the pleasant side of our trip: Kathy of course and our cuisine. Kathy stands on the European side of the Dardanelles at a restaurant were we had another, in a long list of authentic Turkish meals. Each meal along the way was different, although the salad dressing aboard the gullets (82 foot sail boats), made with sour pomegranate juice, olive oil and spices was absolutely the piece de resistance.

I conclude today's travelog, leaving the family begging for more.

You want boats? I give you boats.

High atop a volcanic island, a view of our two ships, sail furled, wait for our return. We have climbed 250 meters to find four Christian churches, at progressive elevations built over a thousand years by monks. Each church in turn represented a catastrophe of earthquakes, pirates & drought. The island was abandoned, the deceased were buried in the now dry cisterns, relics and icons transported to some far distant places, partial painted murals withstand the heat and dryness. The Little Ice Age with its atmospheric low humidity, responsible in part for the European Dark Ages, has global impact: you are there.

Our ship was boarded by the Turkish Coast Guard looking for... found a family of Turks,  Gringos and all paperwork in order. Up anchor, secure the flukes and off we go.

As river silt has made an estuary over the last 3500 years or so, we cruise in 28 footers amongst the tidal basin, grasses, reeds and creatures who inhabit this type of environment, logger head turtles (sorry, pics show fins and not much else). This is the location for the partial filming of "African Queen" starring Katheryn Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart.

A skeleton of a new boat in the making. Planking to be added. Interior "Spartan."

A glimpse of a before and after woodworking boat project.

In the opening photo, Kathy stands atop an island, the angle looking down upon our ships. Now a view of the acropolis (enlargement of photo to see) as we sail off and look back.

An exclamation point to our journey; from Istanbul to Ankara via Gallipoli, Troy, Izmir, Antalya, Konya & Cappadocia. Good voyage & bon appetit.

Are we there yet?

Archaeology, digging around in the dirt to sift through eons of accumulated rubble, produces images of ancient Romans in Myra and the Church of Saint Nicholas; yes, that's right, the coal baring priest who rewards and punishes children according to their behavior. St. Nicholas is also the patron Saint of prisoners and merchants. Can you tell the difference?

Rome was not built in a day and in its far flung empire, the needs of the people were addressed. Here an aqueduct bringing snowmelt to town.

Friends Romans Countrymen, lend me your ears.

A merchant. In her left hand, a cigarette. Bowls and trinkets authentically produced in Turkey.

 
 From the coast and its towns and cities that hug the water's edge, we head inland. To do so we must climb steep mountains where the snowfields begin at 5000 feet and the tree line ends at 10,000. We have found the Western portion of the Silk Road whose other end lies East of modern day Pakistan.

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The Silk Road caravans were vulnerable to plundering so every 15 miles or so were built fortresses where merchant and animals could spend the night to gather under one roof. In the dessert high plains a city of Konya was the birth place of a  Madras and the Whirling Dirvishes. In such a revamped way station, we saw a performance.For our caravan, we continued  East across the fertile dessert through a rain storm until reaching our cave dwelling in Cappadocia, late into the evening just in time for dinner to be over.Following the morning call to prayer, we aroused to the city out our window and the beginnings of the cave dwelling Christians, also repatriated to Greece some fifty years ago. Caves had no running water, sewer, nor adequate flu ventilation for their underground fires. Early deaths and high infant mortality were the norm.And for those of you who do not live in a cave, you too can deliver a respiratory burden 50 times that of cigarette smoking and comparable to living 100 meters below ground in oil lamp lit quarters, reeking of fire and waste water and be safe from your enemies whom you rarely get out to see.

C

Rewind to Istanbul

Turkey, a country of 65 million is Islamic except the 100,000 Christians. Those churches built after the Roman Emperor Justinian became Christian and during the subsequent Byzantine era were either converted to mosques or destroyed. Those former Christian buildings still standing are now museums.

The Blue Mosque is in use daily with the call to prayer 5 times a day beginning at 4:15 AM and last call at 9:15 PM. The words of the Imam are repeated for the congregation by a chanting choir stationed opposite the Imam. This choir is in leu of today's amplification systems.

The more the minarets, the closer to royalty one gets.

The Romans were here also with their pantheon of pagan gods and goddess; their statures properly defaced (noses cut off) as images of god are forbidden. 

Fortresses along the Bosporus Straits guard the distances between Asia and Europe. 

A quaint village at the bottom of a steep drop to the water's edge was where we ate and slept the night. We were in the steps of St. Paul the apostle who walked these stones proselytizing. We walked down the cobbled road in the night, flashlights ablaze. The back wall of our room dated to a thousand years before Christ. The following morning, a small van took us up to our bus, high on an overhanging cliff.

What could be more appropriate than a boat cruise on the Eastern side of the Mediterranean and the mountainous Turkish coast. Kathy sits on the forward lounge. 

Aft, under the blue Bimini an open lounge area, perfect for before dinner cocktails and night time sleeping. I was  the only one who slept out every night; stars, moon, no bugs. Fish cavorting did arouse me once or twice.

A three person crew manned the 82 footer; winches supplied the power except when one of the anchor flukes caught the restraining bowsprit cable and would have banged away at the hull if not repositioned and secured.

We sailed away to a lost/ghost city, abandoned when the Greeks were repatriated to Greece 50 years ago. The dwellings were not inhabited by the local Turks as they believed the Greeks had left a curse upon the houses which would in turn descend upon themselves.

A Greek Orthodox Church is abandoned in this ghost town, not converted to a mosque, nor a museum for the same reasons: curses.

We conclude this portion of the evening's narrative with a scene of idyllic Mediterranean beauty: turquoise waters, waves gently lapping upon a sandy shore.

9000 years of History

Istanbul, a city of antiquity, terminus for the Orient Express, the divide between Europe and Asia, and the choke point for Central Asia commerce. A city known as Constantinople prior to the Ottoman monarchy, which was ended November 1922 by Ataturk and the emergence of the Turkish Republic. Great religions passed this way.

Gallipoli and Anzak.

Troy, always a walled city, breached by many including the Greeks 1400 BC.

From one acropolis atop a mountain accessible by a cable tram to another acropolis, also mountain top now frequented by goats and herders.

The journey is not complete as told in pictures. What comes in order: Hagrus Sophia in Istanbul now a museum and not an Orthodox Church.
A memorial at Gallipoli to the WW I Aussies and New Zealanders now commemorated as Anzak.
Troy, 6 cities uncovered with @ 36 on the site over 4000 years.
Pergamum a major Hellenistic power 300 years before Christ.
A black ram on our 8 km hike to 400 meters above sea level to see Lydea, a Greco-Roman acropolis showing the strains of age and recurrent earthquakes; keystones marking the path of the propagated  concussion wave..

A cistern built to collect rain water in this arid land. Goat herders replace soldiers and priests, gods and goddess.
Our mountain descent was treacherous with small flat rocks skidding over one another requiring concentration for each foot fall.

At the end, the cold Mediterranean cools the body heat accumulated over the past 4 hours. Dinner aboard ship, as delicious as each and every one was, can wait. Swimming in the Georgian Bay or so it seemed.

Our next step is amongst more ruins of times and places lost and found again and again. Walled cities built upon river banks at their junction to the sea needing to be built and rebuilt after earthquakes and the silting of rivers. Troy stands on ground now 7 miles from the sea.

Lunch made as it has been for millennium, next to a wood fire during the heat of the day; head scarf not optional.

Second century Christians fled to this high and mountainous interior Turkish dessert along the Silk Road to tunnel homes and shops, storage and churches and only left 50 years ago when they were expatriated to Greece, leaving behind hundreds of generations of digging in the volcanic ash now firm enough through which to tunnel, yet soft enough for the wind and water to erode, leaving these fluted landscape.

These were small people, their tunnel runways are low, narrow and one duck walks about 50 feet to enter various rooms.

Various animals can be seen on these stone "farms." Flights of fancy accompany an early morning hot air ballon ride. I, thankful to be here to write as we missed a high tension transmission line strung between two pylons across a valley. I was ever so slightly leaning out of the basket, saw the top power cable, told our captain who continuously blasted all four burners and we slowly cleared the line by four inches. "We jump up" says the captain; and so we did.

A geologist on our tour helped distinguish rock that have meaning, and other rock which are just, rocks. Gokhan Ozagacli our archaeologist, Ph.D from Texas Tech, guide, interpreter, gave 3 weeks of history, politics who made ruins come alive and relevant, within context of 9000 years. Animated and posed here in the Museum of Antiquity in Ankara, Turkey.