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.
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