April 30 - First week in England.
My flight from Turkey was uneventful; both Heathrow and the freeway to Milton-Keynes were uncrowded and stress-free. I was also treated to three days of beautiful sunny weather before more typical April weather set in on Thursday. I spent Monday and Tuesday in Milton-Keynes getting settled in the room I am renting from Joy, learning my way around M-K, and meeting with Lynne about the project (it will be another adventure in itself, as we work to connect our similar-yet-different approaches to metaphors and stories). Joy's house is quite nice, with a lovely back yard that includes a glassed-in sun porch overlooking a large koi pond (but alas, no place to set up a BBQ or eat a meal during nice weather. As the weather turns summery I will miss our wonderful patio in Portland more and more.)
Milton-Keynes is an odd town, a New Jersey style "New Town" built around several centuries-old villages, in a way that the existing villages are incorporated into the fabric of the town - yet the city center is itself a huge covered shopping mall. There is a network of bicycle, horse, and pedestrian paths that in principle provides a way to get anywhere in the city with very little interaction with automobiles. My first two forays were frustrating - the paths wind around in a way that is hard to follow, and the signs are often unhelpful - for example, when the path crosses a named surface street they don't tell you the name of the street, and the signs often point toward a location that is meaningful only if you know the city well (and is either not shown on the map or difficult to find). On each of my first three exploratory trips, one on foot, the other two on a bicycle Joy is providing for me, I ended up going at least half again the actual distance because of detours and double-backs. The fourth trip, walking to the train station for the trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, was more successful, since I finally realized that navigation is by village names, and a sign informs you each time you cross into a new village. The villages are roughly square, about 1 km to the side, separated by arterials that run more or less straight, from northwest to southeast ("verticals") and southwest to northeast (horizontals). Once I figured this out, I realized I need to write down, not a sequence of street names, but rather a sequence of neighborhood names to guide me on my trips. So the walk to the train station went smoothly and took a bit under an hour. Three or more trips around town and I will probably get it figured out.
I also realized that lacking a map of England (we have one that LaJean was supposed to bring, and I haven't found a bookstore yet from which I can buy one) cost me some money on my trip to Stratford. The train I took passes through Coventry to Birmingham, where I changed to a milk train back to Stratford. I did not realize how close Stratford is to Coventry. Since I want to visit Kenilworth Castle on the way back, and it is between Stratford and Coventry, I will take a bus to Kenilworth, park my luggage in the castle's cloak room (I hope they have one!) then take another bus on to Coventry, thus writing off the first leg of my return ticket.
The first couple of days in Stratford have been very interesting. I am staying in a very comfortable, although smallish, room in the Penryn House B&B, close to a mile walk from the center of town. Again because they don't bother putting signs on the main streets, getting to the B&B required a combination of guesswork, hope, and a bit of doubling back. The landlady compensated by providing me tea and some very nice cakes when I checked in. After checking in I toured Anne Hathaway's Cottage, then walked back into town and toured a couple of other houses associated with Shakespeare, including the house where he was born. Unfortunately they do not allow photographs inside, although they don't put up many signs about it and I did take one before a guard told me not to take any more. They also do not provide any really good photos of the interiors that you can buy - or I would have bought some. All of the houses are interesting - dark wood, and constant reminders of how much shorter people were in those days. I enjoyed all of them. I also enjoyed, yesterday and today, stopping in at a couple of 400 year old pubs - the Windmill, licensed in 1600, is the oldest in Stratford that has been in continuous operation. I do have a picture of its interior, and a picture of me in another pub, in an even older building.
On Wednesday night I saw a superb performance of King Lear. The actor who played Lear was spell-binding. Regan and Goneril were also very well-done; both came across with exactly the right sort of oily seductiveness. The performance got a warm but not enthusiastic ovation, but in Portland it would have earned a standing ovation. Different standards of comparison. I was less than enthusiastic about the staging - more of the time-shifting, with most (but not all) the costumes World War I vintage, and the backdrop based on a run-down factory or metal shop, with a bank of broken windows in the background, steel girders, and industrial-grade florescent lights. I hope that fad runs its course and they get back to staging Shakespeare in the eras in which the action supposedly happens. Although it wasn't as distracting as some I've seen recently, like one we saw in Ashland a couple of years ago, where the "Duke this" and "King" and other royalty titles, and the threats of execution, positively jarred with the 1920s jazz era setting.
Today I toured Warwick Castle. It was fun, but a bit much - they have converted it into a theme park, with costumed actors everywhere, and multi-media presentations. The cost of admission reflected that - ordinarily 19 pounds, 13 for me with a senior discount, plus 8 more for the dungeon. Sort of a continual Renaissance Faire. I most enjoyed the unconstrained, unguided, and mostly actor free tour of the family quarters and ceremonial halls. One actor, in the ceremonial hall, I did enjoy chatting with; he said he was one of the descendants of the family. A 1920s "weekend party" setup was kind of fun. (Complete with some dummies in period dress and some live actors playing people who might have been invited to a weekend party in the 1920s.) The castle was actually the family home until the 1970s when it was sold, probably because it was getting far too expensive to keep up. They did allow pictures here - the fellow I talked with in the ceremonial hall said they had put coatings on everything to protect them from light and flashbulbs. But the dungeon tour, which cost me an extra 8 pounds, was just a gussied-up Halloween "house of horrors" show, with a Black Plague room, a torture room, a court room, and an execution chamber. I think it might have been fun but they crammed 20 of us into one tour, so unless you were standing in front you couldn't see or experience much. I considered it mostly a waste of $12 and 40 minutes of my time. I really prefer seeing these places at my own pace, guided by my own imagination. It was no surprise when I later learned that the castle is operated by a commercial entertainment company - it _is_ a theme park.
It started raining about the time I finished the tour - fortunately I came equipped with my portable umbrella. It was too late to visit Kenilworth, so I decided to head back to Stratford. In the town square was a cart selling curry - they were out of rice so gave me curried chicken on a baked potato, something I'd never heard of before. It was quite good, more like a slightly curry flavored chicken stew than anything, but warming in the drizzle.
Eric Jensen came to meet me for dinner and the first 2/3 of Romeo and Juliet, before he left to catch a series of trains back home. We enjoyed a nice visit; he and his partner Sam will meet me in London on Sunday. He was in the vicinity to interview for a job in Sociology at U. of Warwick, apparently UK's 2nd ranked Sociology dept. - he later told me he got the job, which is no surprise. He is doing extremely well.
I was not as impressed by Romeo and Juliet as I was by Lear - none of the actors seemed as dynamic, or as convincing; the two dukes seemed almost stiff. The nurse, played by an African-Brit with creole mannerisms, was great, and Mercutio (Romeo's friend who gets stabbed by Juliet's cousin Tybalt in a rather unsportsmanlike and opportunistic way) was great. Otherwise, many of the actors seemed to be just reading their lines, except for Romeo, who over-acted. The director put most of the cast in period costume, but had Romeo and Juliet in modern casual dress and the Capulets in black leather with high-tech switchblades like the heavies in a modern fantasy-punk movie. That was a jarring note: Tybalt came across as a treacherous, villainous bully, a person Juliet would not likely have loved enough to be emotionally torn by his death, and the feud seemed more like "victims vs. oppressors" than the more morally equal balance that, in my view, is necessary for the play to work. The director also used bursts of fire, to symbolize passion I suppose, but that also gave it rather too much of a flavor of cheap hollywood special effects, and actually distracted from the passion the language and the acting is supposed to project - perhaps that is part of the reason that the portrayals of both Romeo and Juliet seemed at once overdone and strangely tepid to me. Having Romeo wheel around stage on a modern bicycle was, really, a bit much. I enjoyed the evening but I have seen many versions of the play that seemed more convincing. In sum, King Lear was one of the best versions I've seen, but Romeo and Juliet was mediocre. They bused in a ton of high school students to see Romeo and Juliet, though, so it got a much more enthusiastic response than Lear got the night before.
April 30
Today I pulled my stuff together and took a bus to Kenilworth - taking my time, since I had been told by many people that there isn't much there; a judgment that turned out to be quite erroneous - I spent about 2.5 hours there and could happily have spent 4. Even in the town itself people seemed quite lukewarm toward the castle - and on one of the few occasions in my experience, I got very poor help from a librarian (the library doubles as tourist information center), who told me rather vaguely to just follow the road around, leaving out the crucial detail of taking a right turn a few hundred yards down the hill. I ended up in an obvious residential area, accosted a woman delivering pamphlets, who had to think for a minute and consult her own map, doubled back, found the turn I had missed, with no "Castle Road" sign. I found the sign another hundred yards beyond the intersection, in the middle of a long block. Grump! The British are really challenged about road signs.
Once I finally reached the castle, I was immediately impressed. The castle walls are mostly gone, with just a few badly ruined stretches and the lower half of the entry towers. The stables are intact, and now house a tea shop and exhibition hall with a really good display on the history of the castle. The central hall, used until recently as a residence, is still intact, and has had exhibits of how it looked when Elizabeth I visited. The original castle is in ruins - very picturesque ruins, where I spent the greater part of an hour taking photos and understanding why Sir Walter Scott was impressed enough to write a novel about it. (Got to re-read that book!) To me, the way it was romanticized in literature adds greatly to the interest and value in visiting the place. Not long after I arrived it started the same sporadic drip that it did yesterday afternoon, although not until near the end of the visit did it rain enough to justify putting up my umbrella. The clouds actually helped evoke the historical mood of the place. It dates back to the 11th century, has figured centrally in much of English history since. It underwent two long sieges, each time yielding only after the point of near starvation had been reached; figured in the romance between Robert Dudley and Elizabeth, was finally captured, used for a while, then rendered militarily useless by Cromwell's forces. There were only a few other visitors, so it was easy to let my own imagination run. I am familiar with most of the history, but it would be fun to reread it and visit the place again.
It is interesting and a bit dismaying that so many people told me there isn't much there. If I had only one day to spend in the area, knowing what I know now, I would definitely spend it at Kenilworth rather than Warwick, Kenilworth where there is only a couple of tents to interfere with your own free imagination. I guess on the other hand if I were touring England with a couple of restive pre-teens with little knowledge of or interest in history, I might opt for the vastly more "entertaining" theme park to get them out of my hair for a day or so.
I have been ruminating since before I left Turkey about history, in the light of the various historical places I have visited. In Asia, especially Nepal and India, the history I saw has very little to do with me or my culture - only the peripheral relationship from the introduction of watered-down Buddhism and Hinduism during the last half of the last century. It was interesting but did not really speak to my own life or culture. In England, every time I have visited I have felt the history strongly as _my_ history, history that contributed to what my culture is and who I am. In Turkey it was an interesting in-between. Most of the events, including the battlefields and castles, are part of the Story of the West, dating from well before the Greeks and extending through to the eventual conquest of Byzantium by the Ottoman Empire. But the story is told from the Ottoman perspective: Battles I grew up learning as tragic defeats are perceived as glorious victories. Even the historic Christian churches, some dating to only a century or two after Christ, were converted to Mosques. It is vaguely disorienting - in a positive way. I felt my perspective repeatedly, continuously, wrenched. That also happened to a lesser extent in other Asian countries, but the Hindu and Animist cultures, in particular, are so very different, so very alien that it did not have the kind of personal immediacy it had in the Greek / Roman / Byzantine / Ottoman empire, with its final layering of (still not fully realized) secularism cultivated by Ataturk (whose image is still everywhere in Istanbul). Don't get me wrong - I am no fan of the crusaders, and consider most of the crusades as little removed from genocide and pillage. But I still think of the fall of Constantinople as a tragic ending, and it is very enlightening to spend 3 weeks visiting historical sites in a country with a shared history but radically different perspective - the victory of Islam as a glorious beginning. (And indeed, considering what Muslim scholars and mathematicians accomplished while Europeans were struggling vainly to hold on to some shadow of the knowledge of the Greeks and Romans, it _was_ a beginning of a glorious age.) It has actually contributed to greater appreciation of England with our shared history.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
April 25, Turkey - the extra week.
It took me much of the day Sunday to get over the shock of having our plans for Ireland so radically revised - at least three hours of that was spent canceling reservations for cars, rooms, and the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead; the rest I spent finishing up organizing and uploading pictures, and then finishing a book about political talk that proved quite interesting. It was actually a pretty nice day but I didn't feel like going out.
Monday was a promising day and I knew I needed to get out of the apartment, so I took a ferry to Buyukada, the largest of the Princes' Islands, off the Asian coast of Istanbul. They allow no motorized vehicles other than emergency vehicles, so it is a walker's dream. The ferry ride was nice, and might have been quite scenic, except for the dense mist, not quite fog, that kept the visibility down to a couple of miles and prevented the day from quite realizing its potential.
There is a smallish mostly tourist-oriented town, lots of cafes and doo-dad shops. I had lunch in one of these - ordered mussels and a mixed salad. The salad was excellent; the mussels consisted of 12 big globs of batter, arranged 3 each on 4 kabob spits and deep-fried; upon close investigation each held a mussel about the size of a navy bean. I asked for the bill and the waiter brought a huge mug of beer - I didn't think that a good way to start a vigorous hike so insisted on the bill.
The island has a large hill with two peaks separated by a ridge. I walked up the highest one first; there is a restaurant and viewing area on top - again, its potential was restricted by the continuing mists. Other than that it was quite a pleasant day for a walk - cool enough that walking vigorously up a steep hill did not overheat me, but warm enough to sit at the top for a while, eat my cimit, and gaze at what view there was. Then I walked back down, crossed the saddle, and took a fork in the road that led me around the crown of the other hilltop. My original plan was to stay until 5, but I realized I was going to be back in town well in time for the 3:00 ferry, and I didn't have much inclination to spend two hours messing around tourist shops, so I decided on the ferry. I had a good vigorous walk, almost two full hours, and it was altogether a pleasant day, that did much to restore my mood and help me regain equilibrium.
During the walk I decided I had gone overboard in cancelling reservations, so when I got back I e-mailed the places in Stratford and London to reinstate the reservations as singles. I will probably schedule a visit to Wales for later, maybe in late May.
Monday it was raining when I got up, but I had already decided to spend the day revising an article I submitted to Metaphor and Symbol back in January. The rain stopped well before noon so I went out to get some stuff from the supermarket - I hoped to get some coffee from Starbucks' (the coffee packages in the market are labeled only in Turkish so it is impossible to know what I'm getting). Unfortunately, Starbuck's carries only whole bean, and (language barrier again) I didn't know how to ask if they could grind it. I may end up just buying a small packet of the ground coffee; at least I can use it to keep the too-finely ground coffee I brought with me from clogging my portable gold filter. (I am really tired of powdered coffee.)
April 23
Yesterday and today were both beautiful days. Yesterday I took a long walk back to the castle and took a couple more pictures, then circled back to the apartment by a more direct route. It was probably a total of about 12 miles but it felt really good to get out and do some vigorous walking, and I felt I had a much better feeling about Istanbul. In the evening I went to a restaurant I had noticed on the street on the way home, and had a wonderful salad and the best meat kabobs I have had since I've been in Turkey. Done medium (still very juicy) and perfectly seasoned. I think I will go back to the same place tonight.
This morning I had breakfast and headed out, back to the Topkapi Palace area to take some more photos of the Blue Mosque, ideally with less street furniture clutter. Unfortunately I didn't get off quite as early as I'd hoped and didn't reach the area until about 8:30, so the tourist busses (and tourists) were already out in force. Still, I was able to get a few uncluttered photos, although some still suffer badly from parallax. After that I toured the famous Byzantine era Basilica Cistern, which I had bypassed the first time. I was glad I did - it is a big underground cavern, with rows of supporting columns, including two standing on heads of Medusa; they had installed small lamps at the bottom of each and the effect is quite spectacular. I had resisted it, and once I was inside, I wanted to resist the colored lights at the bottom of each column and the soft electronic music in the background, but it actually all worked very well. I was lucky I think to be there before any of the big tours arrived - there weren't over a dozen other people down there when I was, no chattering or any of that stuff that comes with big groups (and, alas, often with tour guides who feel they are being paid to talk whether there is anything worth saying or not.) I will upload a few of the pictures, along with a picture of some of the carp that inhabit the cistern.
I also toured the Hippodrome, most of which is pretty well gone, but there remain three obilisks. While I was sitting near the Egyptian obilisk contemplating it, about the 15th guide-book peddler came and stood exactly in my way to try to sell me one. I finally snapped, and told him curtly "I'm just trying to sit here and look at the obilisk. Please leave me alone." He asked where I was from in a surly tone, and I told him, and he moved on. I think that is what I find most annoying about the peddlers, touts, hustlers etc. - it seems like if you want to just stroll or sit and chill out and soak in the atmosphere of a place they just won't let you alone.
I also went to another mosque, Rustem Pasa, that is famous for its tiles, and they are indeed quite nice - I will upload a picture or two. It was extremely difficult to find - the guidebook identifies the street it's on, doesn't mention that the street changes names partway, and doesn't give a scale on the map, so it is hard to know if you've gone too far. I finally did find it, and enjoyed it once I did. Finally I gave in and went to tour Dolmahce Palace, since the guide-books praise it so highly. My initial decision to pass it by was correct. As I expected, it is mostly just a long series of rooms filled with over-the-top expensive furnishings, huge Baccarat crystal chandeliers, parquet floors, etc - how the obscenely rich and powerful live. Many of the rooms are impressively huge - several of them would hold our house, yard, and garage with room to spare. They are probably best compared to a basketball arena. The one thing I really wanted to see, the Crystal Pavilion, was closed, I think for cleaning. It cost 15 Lira for a 45 minute tour, which I felt was a huge waste of money as well as time. I think anyone interested in antiques would find it quite interesting.
Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can find my way to Yedicule Hisari, the Fortress of the Seven Towers, near the southern end of the old city wall.
April 24.
Today was a really nice day - I wore my pullover for about 20 minutes then carried it tied around my waist the rest of the day. Yedicule turned out to be quite easy to reach - a bus from Taksim took me there in about a half hour, so I was there before 9:00. They let me in a bit early, and I had the luxury of being the only one there for nearly an hour, when a half dozen others showed up. The light was quite good for photography and I took far too many to upload. The fortress began with a triumphal arch built in the 4th Century by Theodosius I; Theodosius II built the city wall, and worked the arch into the wall, added for towers, and built the original fort. Mehmet the Conqueror added three more towers. The fortress was used for defense, then as a treasure house, finally as a prison. It stands quite near the very end of the city wall; I took some pictures of the last half mile or so of wall and the towers that anchor the wall beside the Sea of Marmara, and also some pictures of the wall stretching out toward the north, over 6 km to the Golden Horn.
My guidebook said you could walk the wall, and one of the other sights I wished to visit, Chora Church (Kariye Muzesi), is very near the wall about 3 miles distant, so I decided to give it a try. After about a half mile I discovered that walking on the wall was not workable - not only is the path rough and broken, but there are abrupt terminations, sometimes in places where the government has constructed similes of the old wall. Fortunately for my planned walk, there is a wide, well paved walking path outside the wall, that as far as I can tell goes nearly the whole way. When I figured I had gone about 2.5 miles I saw a huge mosque or church about a half mile ahead of me, on the inside of the wall, so I headed for it. Unfortunately, the direct path led through a huge construction zone that is completely fenced in, so I had to double back nearly a half mile, cross back to the outside of the wall, and continue. I ran into a Turkish college student who wanted to practice his English; he walked with me back to the gate under the wall, then onward to about the area of the mosque, talking. He left me there, but I quickly realized that was not the right place. It took me nearly 30 minutes longer to find the church, but finally, using the Turkish name, I found a fruit seller willing not merely to sell me a banana but also able to show me the way.
The church was built in the 11th century; the decorations were added in the 14th century, funded by Theodore Metachites, a high ranking official of the empire; one of the mosaics shows him offering the church to Christ. Many of the mosaics are partially destroyed, but what remains is very beautiful. I was lucky to be able to dodge the 3 or 4 large tour groups that came through while I was there and spend some time contemplating and photographing the mosaics. Flash is of course not allowed, so some of my pictures did not come out well, but I will upload a sample of the ones that did. If one really wanted to spend some time contemplating the mosaics, it would be advisable to arrive at 9 sharp, when the museum opens; it is enough out of the way that the big groups probably don't show up until close to ten.
I had spent all the time I wanted in the church, and it wasn't even two, so I decided to make my way back to the old city area and visit the one additional place I had missed before that I wanted to see, the mosaic tile or palace floor museum. This museum, which actually runs under the street of an ancient shopping arcade, displays tile mosaics dating from as early as the era of the Emperor Constantine, who founded Constantinople and built the first palace on this site; it was expaned and added to over the century, and the floors were covered with beautiful mosaics. I took several pictures and will upload some of the best.
Finished with touring, I bought some roasted chestnuts and sat on the grass in the hippodrome area, watching the tourists and watching and listening to a marching band of some sort that came through the area. Eventually I got on the tram and headed back toward home, stopping along the way to get a haircut (that came with a very nice head, neck, and shoulder massage, all for 20 TL, about $13.) He even trimmed hairs from my ears and nose - something I've never experienced at a barber before! I went back to what has become my favorite Turkish restaurant; this time I ordered chicken wings. They were excellent; the guy who knows some English and usually helps me order was not there though, so I ended up with a tomato and cucumber salad rather than the mixed salad I've had before - still very good. The bill this time was 13.5 lira, about $9. It is interesting that the meal I enjoyed least was the most expensive by a large margin.
Sunday I am spending mostly resting and packing for the flight to London. I started booking train reservations in England but discovered two things: You save a lot by booking ahead; the farther ahead the more you save, and there is a senior discount card worth savings of about 1/3, but it is available to international travelers only in person. So I booked trains to and from Stratford upon Avon but will wait to book tickets into London and back until I can get the discount card on Monday. It is a relaxing day, a chance to upload my final photos from Turkey and maybe get a few hours writing done.
This unplanned extra week in Istanbul was a bit stressful at first, just because of the change in plans, but it turned out to be quite pleasant. I had some rest days, got some work done, and saw some historic sites I would have missed otherwise. I enjoyed my three weeks in Turkey, much more because of Aybuke's generous hospitality. It would be pleasant to return later in the spring and spend more time in rural areas to the south and east.
Monday was a promising day and I knew I needed to get out of the apartment, so I took a ferry to Buyukada, the largest of the Princes' Islands, off the Asian coast of Istanbul. They allow no motorized vehicles other than emergency vehicles, so it is a walker's dream. The ferry ride was nice, and might have been quite scenic, except for the dense mist, not quite fog, that kept the visibility down to a couple of miles and prevented the day from quite realizing its potential.
There is a smallish mostly tourist-oriented town, lots of cafes and doo-dad shops. I had lunch in one of these - ordered mussels and a mixed salad. The salad was excellent; the mussels consisted of 12 big globs of batter, arranged 3 each on 4 kabob spits and deep-fried; upon close investigation each held a mussel about the size of a navy bean. I asked for the bill and the waiter brought a huge mug of beer - I didn't think that a good way to start a vigorous hike so insisted on the bill.
The island has a large hill with two peaks separated by a ridge. I walked up the highest one first; there is a restaurant and viewing area on top - again, its potential was restricted by the continuing mists. Other than that it was quite a pleasant day for a walk - cool enough that walking vigorously up a steep hill did not overheat me, but warm enough to sit at the top for a while, eat my cimit, and gaze at what view there was. Then I walked back down, crossed the saddle, and took a fork in the road that led me around the crown of the other hilltop. My original plan was to stay until 5, but I realized I was going to be back in town well in time for the 3:00 ferry, and I didn't have much inclination to spend two hours messing around tourist shops, so I decided on the ferry. I had a good vigorous walk, almost two full hours, and it was altogether a pleasant day, that did much to restore my mood and help me regain equilibrium.
During the walk I decided I had gone overboard in cancelling reservations, so when I got back I e-mailed the places in Stratford and London to reinstate the reservations as singles. I will probably schedule a visit to Wales for later, maybe in late May.
Monday it was raining when I got up, but I had already decided to spend the day revising an article I submitted to Metaphor and Symbol back in January. The rain stopped well before noon so I went out to get some stuff from the supermarket - I hoped to get some coffee from Starbucks' (the coffee packages in the market are labeled only in Turkish so it is impossible to know what I'm getting). Unfortunately, Starbuck's carries only whole bean, and (language barrier again) I didn't know how to ask if they could grind it. I may end up just buying a small packet of the ground coffee; at least I can use it to keep the too-finely ground coffee I brought with me from clogging my portable gold filter. (I am really tired of powdered coffee.)
April 23
Yesterday and today were both beautiful days. Yesterday I took a long walk back to the castle and took a couple more pictures, then circled back to the apartment by a more direct route. It was probably a total of about 12 miles but it felt really good to get out and do some vigorous walking, and I felt I had a much better feeling about Istanbul. In the evening I went to a restaurant I had noticed on the street on the way home, and had a wonderful salad and the best meat kabobs I have had since I've been in Turkey. Done medium (still very juicy) and perfectly seasoned. I think I will go back to the same place tonight.
This morning I had breakfast and headed out, back to the Topkapi Palace area to take some more photos of the Blue Mosque, ideally with less street furniture clutter. Unfortunately I didn't get off quite as early as I'd hoped and didn't reach the area until about 8:30, so the tourist busses (and tourists) were already out in force. Still, I was able to get a few uncluttered photos, although some still suffer badly from parallax. After that I toured the famous Byzantine era Basilica Cistern, which I had bypassed the first time. I was glad I did - it is a big underground cavern, with rows of supporting columns, including two standing on heads of Medusa; they had installed small lamps at the bottom of each and the effect is quite spectacular. I had resisted it, and once I was inside, I wanted to resist the colored lights at the bottom of each column and the soft electronic music in the background, but it actually all worked very well. I was lucky I think to be there before any of the big tours arrived - there weren't over a dozen other people down there when I was, no chattering or any of that stuff that comes with big groups (and, alas, often with tour guides who feel they are being paid to talk whether there is anything worth saying or not.) I will upload a few of the pictures, along with a picture of some of the carp that inhabit the cistern.
I also toured the Hippodrome, most of which is pretty well gone, but there remain three obilisks. While I was sitting near the Egyptian obilisk contemplating it, about the 15th guide-book peddler came and stood exactly in my way to try to sell me one. I finally snapped, and told him curtly "I'm just trying to sit here and look at the obilisk. Please leave me alone." He asked where I was from in a surly tone, and I told him, and he moved on. I think that is what I find most annoying about the peddlers, touts, hustlers etc. - it seems like if you want to just stroll or sit and chill out and soak in the atmosphere of a place they just won't let you alone.
I also went to another mosque, Rustem Pasa, that is famous for its tiles, and they are indeed quite nice - I will upload a picture or two. It was extremely difficult to find - the guidebook identifies the street it's on, doesn't mention that the street changes names partway, and doesn't give a scale on the map, so it is hard to know if you've gone too far. I finally did find it, and enjoyed it once I did. Finally I gave in and went to tour Dolmahce Palace, since the guide-books praise it so highly. My initial decision to pass it by was correct. As I expected, it is mostly just a long series of rooms filled with over-the-top expensive furnishings, huge Baccarat crystal chandeliers, parquet floors, etc - how the obscenely rich and powerful live. Many of the rooms are impressively huge - several of them would hold our house, yard, and garage with room to spare. They are probably best compared to a basketball arena. The one thing I really wanted to see, the Crystal Pavilion, was closed, I think for cleaning. It cost 15 Lira for a 45 minute tour, which I felt was a huge waste of money as well as time. I think anyone interested in antiques would find it quite interesting.
Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can find my way to Yedicule Hisari, the Fortress of the Seven Towers, near the southern end of the old city wall.
April 24.
Today was a really nice day - I wore my pullover for about 20 minutes then carried it tied around my waist the rest of the day. Yedicule turned out to be quite easy to reach - a bus from Taksim took me there in about a half hour, so I was there before 9:00. They let me in a bit early, and I had the luxury of being the only one there for nearly an hour, when a half dozen others showed up. The light was quite good for photography and I took far too many to upload. The fortress began with a triumphal arch built in the 4th Century by Theodosius I; Theodosius II built the city wall, and worked the arch into the wall, added for towers, and built the original fort. Mehmet the Conqueror added three more towers. The fortress was used for defense, then as a treasure house, finally as a prison. It stands quite near the very end of the city wall; I took some pictures of the last half mile or so of wall and the towers that anchor the wall beside the Sea of Marmara, and also some pictures of the wall stretching out toward the north, over 6 km to the Golden Horn.
My guidebook said you could walk the wall, and one of the other sights I wished to visit, Chora Church (Kariye Muzesi), is very near the wall about 3 miles distant, so I decided to give it a try. After about a half mile I discovered that walking on the wall was not workable - not only is the path rough and broken, but there are abrupt terminations, sometimes in places where the government has constructed similes of the old wall. Fortunately for my planned walk, there is a wide, well paved walking path outside the wall, that as far as I can tell goes nearly the whole way. When I figured I had gone about 2.5 miles I saw a huge mosque or church about a half mile ahead of me, on the inside of the wall, so I headed for it. Unfortunately, the direct path led through a huge construction zone that is completely fenced in, so I had to double back nearly a half mile, cross back to the outside of the wall, and continue. I ran into a Turkish college student who wanted to practice his English; he walked with me back to the gate under the wall, then onward to about the area of the mosque, talking. He left me there, but I quickly realized that was not the right place. It took me nearly 30 minutes longer to find the church, but finally, using the Turkish name, I found a fruit seller willing not merely to sell me a banana but also able to show me the way.
The church was built in the 11th century; the decorations were added in the 14th century, funded by Theodore Metachites, a high ranking official of the empire; one of the mosaics shows him offering the church to Christ. Many of the mosaics are partially destroyed, but what remains is very beautiful. I was lucky to be able to dodge the 3 or 4 large tour groups that came through while I was there and spend some time contemplating and photographing the mosaics. Flash is of course not allowed, so some of my pictures did not come out well, but I will upload a sample of the ones that did. If one really wanted to spend some time contemplating the mosaics, it would be advisable to arrive at 9 sharp, when the museum opens; it is enough out of the way that the big groups probably don't show up until close to ten.
I had spent all the time I wanted in the church, and it wasn't even two, so I decided to make my way back to the old city area and visit the one additional place I had missed before that I wanted to see, the mosaic tile or palace floor museum. This museum, which actually runs under the street of an ancient shopping arcade, displays tile mosaics dating from as early as the era of the Emperor Constantine, who founded Constantinople and built the first palace on this site; it was expaned and added to over the century, and the floors were covered with beautiful mosaics. I took several pictures and will upload some of the best.
Finished with touring, I bought some roasted chestnuts and sat on the grass in the hippodrome area, watching the tourists and watching and listening to a marching band of some sort that came through the area. Eventually I got on the tram and headed back toward home, stopping along the way to get a haircut (that came with a very nice head, neck, and shoulder massage, all for 20 TL, about $13.) He even trimmed hairs from my ears and nose - something I've never experienced at a barber before! I went back to what has become my favorite Turkish restaurant; this time I ordered chicken wings. They were excellent; the guy who knows some English and usually helps me order was not there though, so I ended up with a tomato and cucumber salad rather than the mixed salad I've had before - still very good. The bill this time was 13.5 lira, about $9. It is interesting that the meal I enjoyed least was the most expensive by a large margin.
Sunday I am spending mostly resting and packing for the flight to London. I started booking train reservations in England but discovered two things: You save a lot by booking ahead; the farther ahead the more you save, and there is a senior discount card worth savings of about 1/3, but it is available to international travelers only in person. So I booked trains to and from Stratford upon Avon but will wait to book tickets into London and back until I can get the discount card on Monday. It is a relaxing day, a chance to upload my final photos from Turkey and maybe get a few hours writing done.
This unplanned extra week in Istanbul was a bit stressful at first, just because of the change in plans, but it turned out to be quite pleasant. I had some rest days, got some work done, and saw some historic sites I would have missed otherwise. I enjoyed my three weeks in Turkey, much more because of Aybuke's generous hospitality. It would be pleasant to return later in the spring and spend more time in rural areas to the south and east.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Istanbul, April 18
I had a great "last night" in Istanbul - walked with Aybuke and one of her friends to visit the castle I saw from the boat (and added several pictures of it) then walked back along a really lovely waterfront promenade, stopped for seafood at one restaurant, then stopped for a dessert waffle (covered with chocolate and several kinds of fresh fruit); weather very nice after showers earlier in the day.
Unfortunately, when I awoke this morning and logged onto my computer I discovered that it was not my last night in Istanbul - my flight to Dublin had been cancelled, as had LaJean's flight. She just asked for a refund and elected to stay home, so unfortunately I will not see her for a couple of months. I checked flight availability and, assuming the ash cloud clears, the earliest I can get to the British Isles is next Thursday to Dublin or Saturday to UK - both business class (several hundred more). I decided to try telephoning a ticket agent before booking either fight, but will probably take whatever I can get to London and be glad of it. Fortunately, Aybuke seems okay with me hanging out in her apartment for another week! I have most of the files I need for my work on my laptop, and this is a pretty comfortable place to work, so that's what I will have to do. I'll probably do a bit more sight-seeing, but I'm beginning to feel the itch to get some work done. I feel so lucky that I am stranded here in a comfortable place in stead of in some in-between airport somewhere like so many are.
It is an interesting experience; puts me in mind of novels I've read about people caught up in wars, revolutions, and various kinds of natural disasters. Wish I were reading about it instead of living it. It brings forcefully to mind a sense of our helplessness before the random forces of geology and weather - as well as of history etc. Istanbul, with its 2000+ years of intense history, is a good place to be having these reflections.
A few hours later... After listening to bouncy music on "hold" for a half hour I finally made contact with a harried (but very polite) ticket sales agent who rebooked me on a late evening flight to London Heathrow for next Sunday. No extra charge; my esteem for Turkish Airways just went up several notches. Lucky Aybuke, she gets to have me underfoot for another week. I am so incredibly grateful that I'm not camping out on an army cot in some airport in between! Now if that ash cloud will just cooperate by quietly going away... So I am finishing up my photoblog from yesterday, finishing a book I began 3 weeks ago that I need to cite, preparing to restore a sense of "normal" by getting some work done next week. Another test of my basic attitude of flexibility, I guess.
Unfortunately, when I awoke this morning and logged onto my computer I discovered that it was not my last night in Istanbul - my flight to Dublin had been cancelled, as had LaJean's flight. She just asked for a refund and elected to stay home, so unfortunately I will not see her for a couple of months. I checked flight availability and, assuming the ash cloud clears, the earliest I can get to the British Isles is next Thursday to Dublin or Saturday to UK - both business class (several hundred more). I decided to try telephoning a ticket agent before booking either fight, but will probably take whatever I can get to London and be glad of it. Fortunately, Aybuke seems okay with me hanging out in her apartment for another week! I have most of the files I need for my work on my laptop, and this is a pretty comfortable place to work, so that's what I will have to do. I'll probably do a bit more sight-seeing, but I'm beginning to feel the itch to get some work done. I feel so lucky that I am stranded here in a comfortable place in stead of in some in-between airport somewhere like so many are.
It is an interesting experience; puts me in mind of novels I've read about people caught up in wars, revolutions, and various kinds of natural disasters. Wish I were reading about it instead of living it. It brings forcefully to mind a sense of our helplessness before the random forces of geology and weather - as well as of history etc. Istanbul, with its 2000+ years of intense history, is a good place to be having these reflections.
A few hours later... After listening to bouncy music on "hold" for a half hour I finally made contact with a harried (but very polite) ticket sales agent who rebooked me on a late evening flight to London Heathrow for next Sunday. No extra charge; my esteem for Turkish Airways just went up several notches. Lucky Aybuke, she gets to have me underfoot for another week. I am so incredibly grateful that I'm not camping out on an army cot in some airport in between! Now if that ash cloud will just cooperate by quietly going away... So I am finishing up my photoblog from yesterday, finishing a book I began 3 weeks ago that I need to cite, preparing to restore a sense of "normal" by getting some work done next week. Another test of my basic attitude of flexibility, I guess.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
April 17, Turkey
Yesterday I spent the day taking a boat tour of the Bosphorus - 1.5 hours along the European shore, ending at a small village on the Asian shore very near the Black Sea (clearly visible just a couple of kilometers away), with 3 hours to explore the ruins of an ancient castle on the hill above and have a (slightly overpriced) sea-food lunch before returning. The skies started out rather thick with mist and smog, but it cleared up by noon and turned into a beautiful spring afternoon. Aybuke had warned me to take warm clothes, so I had my fleece jacket as well as my other jacket - I needed both of them for the last half hour of the outbound trip and the first half hour in-bound, when the chill wind from off the Black Sea was on us. The light was not very good for photos, but I took a few of mosques and a couple of neighborhoods along the shoreline, and several of a castle on the European shore, which Aybuke will take me to this afternoon, as well as several of the ruined castle near the Black Sea.
Yesterday I was quite concerned that the Iceland volcano might interfere with LaJean's plans to join me in Ireland, but yesterday Dublin reopened their airports to flights from the U.S. and it looks like I will be seeing her tomorrow after all. I have my fingers crossed! Today I am spending the morning packing and putting everything in order while Aybuke takes the first part of her drivers' license test, then we will go out for a sight-seeing walk, probably I will take a few more photos, then it will be to bed somewhat early, in preparation for tomorrow's flight to Dublin.
Yesterday I was quite concerned that the Iceland volcano might interfere with LaJean's plans to join me in Ireland, but yesterday Dublin reopened their airports to flights from the U.S. and it looks like I will be seeing her tomorrow after all. I have my fingers crossed! Today I am spending the morning packing and putting everything in order while Aybuke takes the first part of her drivers' license test, then we will go out for a sight-seeing walk, probably I will take a few more photos, then it will be to bed somewhat early, in preparation for tomorrow's flight to Dublin.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
April 13, Pamukkale and Hierapolis.
The innkeeper arranged a tour for me to Pamukkale, famous for its calcium springs, and Hierapolis, a city located above the springs that dates to pre-Roman times, was destroyed by earthquakes and rebuilt several times. At 80TL (about $50), including lunch and admissions, it seemed pretty reaqsonable. A taxi picked me up, took me to the tour company office, where I and two other clients were loaded on a narrow little mini-bus, two seats along the left and one along the right; total capacity about 20 persons; very narrow seats with little leg-room and no place to put bags, water bottles, jackets, etc. except on one's lap. We went to another B&B where we picked up enough other passengers that the bus was almost full. It was a full 3 hours to the destination; we picked up our tour guide along the way, then stopped at a road stop (which did not sell cimits, the little rolls I like - and I had neglected to pick any up before leaving.) The other passengers included people from the U.S. and Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and Europe; nice people, although the layout of the bus did not allow for much socializing. The weather was heavily overcast and cool when we set out, although it cleared not long after noon.
When we reached the destination, we first stopped at a resort restaurant for a buffet meal. I started with salad (excellent) and soup (totally tasteless - after about 1/3 of a bowl I gave up on it), then had some bulgar wheat and a bit of fairly good chicken, with a beer. Dessert looked interesting, but the three small ones I tried were fairly tasteless, so I gave up on them as well.
After lunch we drove back up the road to an entry gate that led directly into the Hierapolis necropolis (graveyard, basically), which was lined with tombs, many half destroyed by the many earthquakes, representing several styles of tomb architecture; I took a number of pictures here. Then we entered the remains of the city itself, which was very interesting. The guide told us that until recently the site was not protected, and people were in the habit of just pulling in with a truck and carting off whole truckloads of marble, which more or less completed the destruction started by the earthquakes. Still, there were enough partial structures standing to give a very good sense of what the city was like in its prime, during the years immediately before and after conversion of the empire to Christianity. Among the many interesting sights: two gates, one Roman era and one Byzantine, parts of several fountains, remnants of the agora, a large theater built into the side of a hill, and the remains of a church built over St. Stephen's tomb.
The guide more or less hurried us through the initial part of the tour, although he provided good information about everything we saw - but by lagging behind then hurrying to catch up I was able to get most of the photos I wanted. Part of his constraints - he had three groups; several wanted to swim for an hour in the mineral water pool (at 25 TL, over $15, it seemed a bit steep to me, but I'm not all that enthusiastic about swimming). Another group wanted to spend a lot of time at the mineral springs, where the springs have formed spectacular terraces. Most of these are startlingly white, since they are formed of pure calcite, but about 50 years ago, private companies were allowed to built luxury hotels above the springs and capture the water for their swimming pools; the result was that the terraces quickly turned brownish-grey, as a result of weathering (about half are still this color). A few years ago the hotels were forced to close, and now the water flows down over the terraces again, but the guide said it would take 150 years for the area to renew itself to its original state.
More interesting to me were the ruins above the springs. I climbed up toward the theater, passing some interesting ruins of a nymphaem and a plutonium, then climbed to the top of the theater itself, which affords a great view out over the lower parts of the city ruins as well as across the plains below. Then I continued up the road that passes by the stadium passed through and along the ruins of the old city wall, climbed up a trail to St Stephen's Martyrium, still very impressive even in its ruined state. Below the Martyrium is another ruined structure, with signs warning of its danger; I believe this is the old cave that still emits poison gas (and has apparently done in several incautious tourists). The guide said it was once used to "cure" demented patients - if, I suppose, they survived the cure. I took some pictures but, of course, stayed well away.
I found a trail nearby that led across the hill to a couple of other Roman era structures, down through the area that used to be the agora, but now has only a handful of marble columns and steps to provide hints of what it was once like, then retraced the route we had taken earlier in the day, more slowly, and taking time to wait out the huge tour groups so as to capture some of the pictures I had missed earlier - and to retake others in a late afternoon light.
The guidebook describes Hierapolis in a way that sounds like it isn't much, but for my money it is about as big, and about as well-preserved, as the better known Ephesus. The calcium springs area is worth looking at, and I took a couple of pictures that are pretty interesting, but there was no question in my mind about spending as much time as possible exploring the ruins of the ancient city. I only wish I had had a couple of days, so as to stay overnight in the region and also visit the nearbuy (a couiple of hours) Aphroditopolis with its marble temples.
It was a great day but it ended in an exhausting way. The guide had allowed two options for meeting back up, either at the necropolis gate or at the restaurant at the bottom of the calcite terraces where we had had lunch. We hung around for about 15 minutes after the appointed time to be sure everyone was there who wanted to be picked up there. Then we drove back toward the restaurant, and encountered a police barricade - earlier they had had a bicycle race there; I don''t know if the barricade was connected with that or not. In any event, the guide had to walk a hundred or two hundred meters to the restaurant to bring the others back. Then, he had promised two members of the group that he would drop them at the bus station to go on to their next town without returning to Selcuk - and it took about 20 minutes to find our way around the barricaded streets. We finally headed back to Selcuk about 5. The guide explained how we would be let off, then left us an hour out of town. However, the driver switched plans on us, and his English was not good enough to explain - he pulled into a tourist area, turned off the engine, and said, "Selcuk. Different bus." We were suspicious of it, since the guide had said nothing about changing busses; when the other bus came that driver spoke a bit better English, but it still wasn't clear what was happening, since half the tour members, whom I thought were also staying in Selcuk, stayed on the bus.
One of the other tourists talked with the other driver and said it was okay, that the original bus was going off to a different town before returning to Selcuk, a detour of about 25 km. I was still suspicious, but the bus did go to Selcuk. When we entered Selcuk, well after 8, we turned off the highway about 3 short blocks from my B&B, and I made the mistake of not asking to be let off there. They stopped a few blocks on in front of another guest house, then the driver took me around about half the town before stopping, in a street on the back side of Alihan's - I had to walk just as far as if I had got off with the others, but got there about 20 minutes later. I was pretty ticked, and very glad I did not contribute to the tip for the guide. I felt much better after a bit of food and a glass of beer. The tour was quite good, actually, but getting there and back was rather too much of a hassle.
This morning, April 15, I got up early, as usual. After breakfast I toured the small but interesting museum, that includes several items from the ":slope houses" in Ephesus. There was no-one there to sell tickets either when I arrived or whgen I left; they let me tour the place without paying. After that I walked back up to the castle above St. Jean's, and a couple of entrepreneurial little boys showed me a way to climb through the fence, so I got to see the castle after all, albeit rather illegally. The older boy asked for 10 lira each, but I gave him only 10 and said he'd have to share. I probably should have given him only 5, but it was rather interesting.
The trip back to the airport was much easier then the trip from the airport - I actually had a seat, and the schedule is such that I only arrived an hour and a half ahead of my flight, maybe a little extra, but not a long wait really.
When we reached the destination, we first stopped at a resort restaurant for a buffet meal. I started with salad (excellent) and soup (totally tasteless - after about 1/3 of a bowl I gave up on it), then had some bulgar wheat and a bit of fairly good chicken, with a beer. Dessert looked interesting, but the three small ones I tried were fairly tasteless, so I gave up on them as well.
After lunch we drove back up the road to an entry gate that led directly into the Hierapolis necropolis (graveyard, basically), which was lined with tombs, many half destroyed by the many earthquakes, representing several styles of tomb architecture; I took a number of pictures here. Then we entered the remains of the city itself, which was very interesting. The guide told us that until recently the site was not protected, and people were in the habit of just pulling in with a truck and carting off whole truckloads of marble, which more or less completed the destruction started by the earthquakes. Still, there were enough partial structures standing to give a very good sense of what the city was like in its prime, during the years immediately before and after conversion of the empire to Christianity. Among the many interesting sights: two gates, one Roman era and one Byzantine, parts of several fountains, remnants of the agora, a large theater built into the side of a hill, and the remains of a church built over St. Stephen's tomb.
The guide more or less hurried us through the initial part of the tour, although he provided good information about everything we saw - but by lagging behind then hurrying to catch up I was able to get most of the photos I wanted. Part of his constraints - he had three groups; several wanted to swim for an hour in the mineral water pool (at 25 TL, over $15, it seemed a bit steep to me, but I'm not all that enthusiastic about swimming). Another group wanted to spend a lot of time at the mineral springs, where the springs have formed spectacular terraces. Most of these are startlingly white, since they are formed of pure calcite, but about 50 years ago, private companies were allowed to built luxury hotels above the springs and capture the water for their swimming pools; the result was that the terraces quickly turned brownish-grey, as a result of weathering (about half are still this color). A few years ago the hotels were forced to close, and now the water flows down over the terraces again, but the guide said it would take 150 years for the area to renew itself to its original state.
More interesting to me were the ruins above the springs. I climbed up toward the theater, passing some interesting ruins of a nymphaem and a plutonium, then climbed to the top of the theater itself, which affords a great view out over the lower parts of the city ruins as well as across the plains below. Then I continued up the road that passes by the stadium passed through and along the ruins of the old city wall, climbed up a trail to St Stephen's Martyrium, still very impressive even in its ruined state. Below the Martyrium is another ruined structure, with signs warning of its danger; I believe this is the old cave that still emits poison gas (and has apparently done in several incautious tourists). The guide said it was once used to "cure" demented patients - if, I suppose, they survived the cure. I took some pictures but, of course, stayed well away.
I found a trail nearby that led across the hill to a couple of other Roman era structures, down through the area that used to be the agora, but now has only a handful of marble columns and steps to provide hints of what it was once like, then retraced the route we had taken earlier in the day, more slowly, and taking time to wait out the huge tour groups so as to capture some of the pictures I had missed earlier - and to retake others in a late afternoon light.
The guidebook describes Hierapolis in a way that sounds like it isn't much, but for my money it is about as big, and about as well-preserved, as the better known Ephesus. The calcium springs area is worth looking at, and I took a couple of pictures that are pretty interesting, but there was no question in my mind about spending as much time as possible exploring the ruins of the ancient city. I only wish I had had a couple of days, so as to stay overnight in the region and also visit the nearbuy (a couiple of hours) Aphroditopolis with its marble temples.
It was a great day but it ended in an exhausting way. The guide had allowed two options for meeting back up, either at the necropolis gate or at the restaurant at the bottom of the calcite terraces where we had had lunch. We hung around for about 15 minutes after the appointed time to be sure everyone was there who wanted to be picked up there. Then we drove back toward the restaurant, and encountered a police barricade - earlier they had had a bicycle race there; I don''t know if the barricade was connected with that or not. In any event, the guide had to walk a hundred or two hundred meters to the restaurant to bring the others back. Then, he had promised two members of the group that he would drop them at the bus station to go on to their next town without returning to Selcuk - and it took about 20 minutes to find our way around the barricaded streets. We finally headed back to Selcuk about 5. The guide explained how we would be let off, then left us an hour out of town. However, the driver switched plans on us, and his English was not good enough to explain - he pulled into a tourist area, turned off the engine, and said, "Selcuk. Different bus." We were suspicious of it, since the guide had said nothing about changing busses; when the other bus came that driver spoke a bit better English, but it still wasn't clear what was happening, since half the tour members, whom I thought were also staying in Selcuk, stayed on the bus.
One of the other tourists talked with the other driver and said it was okay, that the original bus was going off to a different town before returning to Selcuk, a detour of about 25 km. I was still suspicious, but the bus did go to Selcuk. When we entered Selcuk, well after 8, we turned off the highway about 3 short blocks from my B&B, and I made the mistake of not asking to be let off there. They stopped a few blocks on in front of another guest house, then the driver took me around about half the town before stopping, in a street on the back side of Alihan's - I had to walk just as far as if I had got off with the others, but got there about 20 minutes later. I was pretty ticked, and very glad I did not contribute to the tip for the guide. I felt much better after a bit of food and a glass of beer. The tour was quite good, actually, but getting there and back was rather too much of a hassle.
This morning, April 15, I got up early, as usual. After breakfast I toured the small but interesting museum, that includes several items from the ":slope houses" in Ephesus. There was no-one there to sell tickets either when I arrived or whgen I left; they let me tour the place without paying. After that I walked back up to the castle above St. Jean's, and a couple of entrepreneurial little boys showed me a way to climb through the fence, so I got to see the castle after all, albeit rather illegally. The older boy asked for 10 lira each, but I gave him only 10 and said he'd have to share. I probably should have given him only 5, but it was rather interesting.
The trip back to the airport was much easier then the trip from the airport - I actually had a seat, and the schedule is such that I only arrived an hour and a half ahead of my flight, maybe a little extra, but not a long wait really.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
April 12, Selchuk and Ephesus.
Today I walked over before breakfast to near the train station where I picked up a couple of the little donut-shaped rolls I like (hard, covered with sesame seeds) to take for lunch. I emptied out my big day pack so I could put water and a jacket in it, had a nice Turkish breakfast - feta cheese, olives, sliced tomato, orange, apple, carrot, and cucumber, bread, and a boiled egg. Then I walked to Ephesus - about a 20 minute walk along a really nice pedestrian / bike path that parallels the highway. It was a pleasant day, already warm enough when I got there that I took off my jacket and put it inside the pack.
The ruins are not as well preserved as the Lonely Planet description implies, but it is large enough that I found it easy to spend 5 hours there, and was glad I had brought some food and water. The accessible ruins are mainly spread out along a main street that runs from the crest of a hill down to a "harbor way," lined with pillars, that leads to what was once the harbor, but silted in to the point that it is now open fields, a good kilometer or more from the coast. To one side, near the lower entry where I entered, is the ruins of the Church of St. Mary - I returned here at the end of my visit to take a picture of the eastern end once the sun was high enough not to spoil the shot. Then I began the long walk uphill, beginning with the enormous amphitheater at the bottom of the hill. (There is another, smaller amphitheater near the top.) By now, the large tour groups were out in force, so in order to get decent photographs I had to spend a lot of time waiting for one group to move on, then grab a couple of photos before the next group came in. A very annoying habit of tour guides: With a very few exceptions they seem to like to stand, and position their listening flock, directly smack in the center of the attractions they are talking about - so independent visitors can not get near it much less get a photograph of it until they have finished their long-winded spiels. A few, more courteous, tour guides stand off to the side of the attraction to talk about it, then leave it to the group members to look at it and photograph it on their own.
Immediately after the amphitheater is the forum and the two story library, both very impressive. Moving up the hill is a series of fountains, a public bath, a huge public toilet (that had constantly running water for sanitation), and on the right side a large area of wealthy persons' houses that has been covered over to protect it from weather while a team of archaeologists pieces it back together. Admission to this was a separate and rather steep 15 TL, about $10 US, but after touring it I considered it well worth it: It was interesting to see the reconstruction project itself, and there were several really good floor mosaics and wall paintings.
I left Ephesus about 1:30, and instead of going straight back to Selcuk, I followed a sign to the "Grotto of the Seven Sleepers." this was fenced in and more or less closed, but I was able to get several interesting pictures. The basic story is seven young men who (in the Christian version) went into a mountain cave to pray during the time when the Romans were persecuting Christians, then awoke several decades later after the empire had adopted Christianity, and died praising God. There is a slightly different Muslim version. A church was built over the cave complex, and has since fallen into ruins, with the help of earthquakes.
Fortunately, I found a dirt road across the fields to the main highway so I did not have to walk all the way back to the entry of Ephesus, then back to Selcuk. I went back to the hotel, dumped my pack, then walked back to the road that led to the Temple of Artimis, once named one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, but now only a single large column standing in the middle of a marshy field outside of town, with a stork nest atop the column. It was worth visiting but required a lot of imagination.
On the way back to town, I followed the highway from Ephesus past the intersection and, as I had hoped, found a market area, with shops that sold fruit as well as other goods, and was able to pick up some bananas and oranges for breakfast and to take with me on the tour to Pamukkale.
The ruins are not as well preserved as the Lonely Planet description implies, but it is large enough that I found it easy to spend 5 hours there, and was glad I had brought some food and water. The accessible ruins are mainly spread out along a main street that runs from the crest of a hill down to a "harbor way," lined with pillars, that leads to what was once the harbor, but silted in to the point that it is now open fields, a good kilometer or more from the coast. To one side, near the lower entry where I entered, is the ruins of the Church of St. Mary - I returned here at the end of my visit to take a picture of the eastern end once the sun was high enough not to spoil the shot. Then I began the long walk uphill, beginning with the enormous amphitheater at the bottom of the hill. (There is another, smaller amphitheater near the top.) By now, the large tour groups were out in force, so in order to get decent photographs I had to spend a lot of time waiting for one group to move on, then grab a couple of photos before the next group came in. A very annoying habit of tour guides: With a very few exceptions they seem to like to stand, and position their listening flock, directly smack in the center of the attractions they are talking about - so independent visitors can not get near it much less get a photograph of it until they have finished their long-winded spiels. A few, more courteous, tour guides stand off to the side of the attraction to talk about it, then leave it to the group members to look at it and photograph it on their own.
Immediately after the amphitheater is the forum and the two story library, both very impressive. Moving up the hill is a series of fountains, a public bath, a huge public toilet (that had constantly running water for sanitation), and on the right side a large area of wealthy persons' houses that has been covered over to protect it from weather while a team of archaeologists pieces it back together. Admission to this was a separate and rather steep 15 TL, about $10 US, but after touring it I considered it well worth it: It was interesting to see the reconstruction project itself, and there were several really good floor mosaics and wall paintings.
I left Ephesus about 1:30, and instead of going straight back to Selcuk, I followed a sign to the "Grotto of the Seven Sleepers." this was fenced in and more or less closed, but I was able to get several interesting pictures. The basic story is seven young men who (in the Christian version) went into a mountain cave to pray during the time when the Romans were persecuting Christians, then awoke several decades later after the empire had adopted Christianity, and died praising God. There is a slightly different Muslim version. A church was built over the cave complex, and has since fallen into ruins, with the help of earthquakes.
Fortunately, I found a dirt road across the fields to the main highway so I did not have to walk all the way back to the entry of Ephesus, then back to Selcuk. I went back to the hotel, dumped my pack, then walked back to the road that led to the Temple of Artimis, once named one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world, but now only a single large column standing in the middle of a marshy field outside of town, with a stork nest atop the column. It was worth visiting but required a lot of imagination.
On the way back to town, I followed the highway from Ephesus past the intersection and, as I had hoped, found a market area, with shops that sold fruit as well as other goods, and was able to pick up some bananas and oranges for breakfast and to take with me on the tour to Pamukkale.
Monday, April 12, 2010
April 12, Selcuk
The rest of the trip to Selcuk was uneventful, except for the 3 hour wait for a train at the airport station, and the lack of any printed time-table or even signs on the platform to tell you for sure which train to get on! I had to ask advice of a couple of other travellers to be sure I was getting on the right train, and when I got on it was jammed with people, so I ended up standing the whole way, a bit less than an hour, with my backpack on. I was able to brace myself against a corner so it wasn't too bad but I didn't see much of the countryside.
Selcuk is itself a small town with signs of its history in the form of a ruined viaduct right in front of the train station, and the ruins of the Basilica of St. Jean, built in the 4th century to honor the youngest of the 12 apostles, then wrecked by an earthquake and rebuilt even larger and grander - converted to a mosque, and ruined by another earthquake. As soon as I checked in to the B&B I walked back up and toured the ruins, very nice in the late afternoon light, and only a couple tour groups plus a scattering of other individuals; I managed to get several photos that I will upload later. Unfortunately I lost my memory card reader in Edirne so will have to get another one before I can upload anything new.
Above the basilica, on the very top of a hill overlooking Selcuk, is a huge old castle. Unfortunately, it is apparently very unstable and they have it closed while doing some repairs to keep the walls from falling on a tourist. They won't let you within a couple hundred meters of it.
After touring the basilica I walked back into town hoping to find a place to buy some fresh fruit and maybe a cenit, the little donut shaped bread rolls, to take with me to Ephesus, but real estate is apparently too valuable for that: In addition to the dozens of carpet and souvenir shops, restaurants, etc., I found several little shops selling soft drinks, beer, and junk food, but no fruit, no Turkish street food. After I get back from Ephesus I will walk to the other side of the station and see if the residents side of town has anything.
Selcuk is itself a small town with signs of its history in the form of a ruined viaduct right in front of the train station, and the ruins of the Basilica of St. Jean, built in the 4th century to honor the youngest of the 12 apostles, then wrecked by an earthquake and rebuilt even larger and grander - converted to a mosque, and ruined by another earthquake. As soon as I checked in to the B&B I walked back up and toured the ruins, very nice in the late afternoon light, and only a couple tour groups plus a scattering of other individuals; I managed to get several photos that I will upload later. Unfortunately I lost my memory card reader in Edirne so will have to get another one before I can upload anything new.
Above the basilica, on the very top of a hill overlooking Selcuk, is a huge old castle. Unfortunately, it is apparently very unstable and they have it closed while doing some repairs to keep the walls from falling on a tourist. They won't let you within a couple hundred meters of it.
After touring the basilica I walked back into town hoping to find a place to buy some fresh fruit and maybe a cenit, the little donut shaped bread rolls, to take with me to Ephesus, but real estate is apparently too valuable for that: In addition to the dozens of carpet and souvenir shops, restaurants, etc., I found several little shops selling soft drinks, beer, and junk food, but no fruit, no Turkish street food. After I get back from Ephesus I will walk to the other side of the station and see if the residents side of town has anything.
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