Istanbul 3

Our last day! Allie and I spent the day shopping then pampering ourselves. We first went to The Grand Bazaar, the historic indoor shopping compound. It is enormous and so much fun to explore, even though the prices are high because they are aimed at tourists. After a few hours of wandering, we grabbed a pide for lunch (flatbread kind of like a pizza) then made our way to the Egyptian spice market. It is also a bit overwhelming but it smells like saffron.

We walked back towards our neighborhood but took our time wandering in and out of shops and had a delightful afternoon.

I loved the ceilings in the bazaar.

Magical Turkish lanterns on display.

After bringing home our treasures, we regrouped then Allie and I went back to the old town where we had a Turkish bath at an ancient hammam. I didn't really know what to expect and feared it might be dumb and touristy, but no, it was awesome! It was a super nice and relaxing way to end our time in the city. We put a finishing touch on our trip by going to The Four Seasons' rooftop bar for a glass of wine. When we walked in, we were the only ones there to enjoy a glorious view of the Hagia Sophia.

As it turned cold, our waiter gave us a snuggie to stay warm! Haha so cozy.

And that's how we conclude our trip! We head home tomorrow, in just a few hours really. As Allie and I recapped the trip together, we both noted that this has been one of our favorite trips ever. We also congratulated our awesome vacation planning skills, because there is nothing that we would have done differently. Turkey is an incredible country with a lot of variety, and I'm so glad we had the opportunity to explore it together.

Istanbul 2

We love Istanbul. We are staying in an apartment in a bohemian, hipster neighborhood (cihangir) filled with cafés and stray cats amidst the narrow cobblestone alleys that zig zag up and down the hills. It's nice to have our own place and not be in a hotel at this point in the trip. Yesterday we used the washing machine, which was a little more of an adventure than we bargained for. The buttons were in Turkish, so to figure out how to set the cycle and turn it on, I yelled out Turkish words and spelled them to Allie who was in the next room typing them in to google translate because there was no wifi signal in front of the washer haha!

 

You can see how we could have gotten confused.

Today was a sightseeing extravaganza. We started by grabbing a museum pass and making a quick trip to the Archaeological Museum. Then we went to Topkapi Palace, home of the Ottoman sultans. It was crazy opulent. Our favorite places were the living quarters of the royal family, the massive kitchen, and a hall of the palace clocks and watches. Surprisingly cool.

 Allie and I would be okay with working from this office.

We then went to the Hagia Sophia, and 7th grade me in world history class was nerding out. It is incredible and massive, and I loved it. Pictures can't do it justice.

A basilica during Justinian times (built 5th century AD), it was later converted to a mosque, but the ancient mosaics of Christian figures remain.

We took a break for a kebab lunch, then went to the Basilica Cistern, a contemporary of the Hagia Sophia. It was lost for several centuries and refound in the 16th century after some citizens noted that if they dropped a bucket into a hole below their basement, it came back with water and sometimes fish! Haha. It was fully restored within the past 20 years, and it is magical.

A surprising highlight.

We next walked down the hippodrome (walkway previously home to chariot races, marked by obelisks) to the Blue Mosque. This is another massive mosque but it stands out due to its perfect geometry of seemingly stacked domes and walls of beautiful tiles, often in blue.

 

We left this area of the city by taking the tram then the old funicular, the second oldest subway in the world (after the London Underground) to get to Istikal Caddesi, a pedestrian street closer to our neighborhood. We got some Turkish Delight, a famous sweet. It was good, but not as perfect as a melt-in-your-mouth version we were served on our blue cruise. We were so spoiled.

 

Piles of Turkish Delight. 

We ended the day by getting dinner at a trendy cafe in our neighborhood and recounting some of the funny moments from out trip. Like the time on the blue cruise that Allie was stung by a tiny jellyfish (we all were--they're all over), and she screamed "JELLYFISH!!!" so loudly on an otherwise perfectly quiet morning that it echoed across the cove!! The Aussie man on our cruise laughed sooooo hard and recounted it repeatedly; I think the incident may have been the highlight of his trip!

Istanbul 1

We started the day with a traditional Turkish breakfast that we have been feasting on almost every morning: bread, cheese, cucumber, tomatoes, egg, and pastry. The food has been fabulous. When we have a full meal, there is generally a salad (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, lemon/oil dressing), sometimes a lentil soup, sometimes a meze (appetizer, usually vegetable like eggplant or pepper), and a meat dish. We have had fish (sea bass and calamari on the boat especially awesome), chicken (kebab or casserole), lamb (same), mince meat (as in the "swooning imam" in which it is stuffed in eggplant), and beef. This morning, I tried some of Franz's marmite, which is an Australia/New Zealand tradition (almost the same as Vegemite). It was... yeasty. One taste was plenty. Franz has also been teaching us some handy New Zealand slang: numpty (dummy), jandals (flip flops), dag (person who's a real character, especially when drunk), winging (whining), a crack-up (funny person), stunner (said if you took a good picture), and he taught us how to properly pronounce New Zealand, in case we want to impersonate kiwis.

Allie, Franz, and I departed our hotel (and the ADORABLE westie puppy we kept threatening to take with us) after breakfast, and took the train from Selcuk to Izmir. There, we took a quick flight to Istanbul. After arriving, we said goodbye to our new friend, who leaves for Australia tomorrow.

 Allie and I made our way to the trendy Beyoglu area, where we are staying in Istanbul. We next walked to Galata Tower, which has an awesome 360 degree view of the city. 

From there, we crossed the Galata Bridge, which transported us to the oldest part of the city. 

With some free time, we went to the mosque of suleyman the magnificent, which is enormous and stunning. 

We continued to get our bearings by taking a ferry that goes up the Bosphorus Strait, the body of water connecting the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and then the Mediterranean. Allie and I laughed about our romantic sunset boat ride together, but seriously it was beautiful.

Ephesus

Allie, Franz (our kiwi friend from the blue cruise), and I continued on today by traveling to Selcuk, a moderate sized city near the beautiful ruins of Ephesus. The city has been in existence for thousands of years but was at its prime at the height of the Roman Empire in the first and second centuries AD. It was the second largest city in the empire at a max population of about 250,000, measured be estimating the size of its amphitheater (25k) to be about 10% of the city population.

The city is only about 15-20% excavated, but what has been discovered is a real treasure. There are marble avenues lined by columns, Roman baths, temples, affluent homes (with frescas, likely preserved by an earthquake that sealed them), and the ultimate jewel, the library of Celsus, the third largest in the ancient world. The Egyptians were so jealous of this library, they stopped exporting papyrus for scrolls. Instead, the Romans developed parchment paper and invented books!

The three of us meandered (fun fact: word comes from the winding river that led from Ephesus to the Aegean Sea!) through the ruins for several hours listening to a Rick Steves audio tour that we had downloaded earlier in the day. We all pretended to perform in the amphitheater and took jumping pics on the harbor street.

Me and Franz, flying. Amphitheater behind us.

Me and Allie at the Temple of Hadrian

The remains of the incredible Library of Celsus, 125 AD

A view of the massive ruins, library in the background.

We are staying in Selcuk tonight then heading to Istanbul tomorrow!

Pamukkale

Yesterday we reluctantly finished our blue cruise with a final swim and journey back to the harbor of Fethiye. Allie and I along with our new kiwi friend Franz next took a bus to Pamukkale, an inland town known for exactly two things: a startlingly white mountain and a city of ruins that sits atop it, hierapolis.

Because we arrived late in the day, our hotel manager kindly drove us to the top where we first explored the ruins. A highlight was a beautifully preserved roman amphitheater about 2000 years old and a walk down the main street leading into town. There are natural hot springs, so it has been a tourist town since inception. It had also been touted for the healing ability of the springs. There is, however, a large necropolis with hundreds of sarcophagi, ironically placing into question the true medicinal benefit of the springs.

Just as the sun was setting, we made our way to the cotton castle (the Turkish meaning of Pamukkale). The shocking white formation is from the spring waters super saturated with calcium carbonate, which leaves calcite deposits upon interacting with carbon dioxide in the air. Basically, it's a Tums mountain. The appearance is so weird. It looks like snow, but it is warm from the hot springs. We were fortunate to arrive late in the day because the tourist crowd had thinned out, and the sunset was beautiful against this bizarre backdrop.

A line of people marches down the path alongside travertine pools.

Playing in the pools. 

The walk was textured with layers of deposits, in some places hard and rather exfoliating and in others warm and soft.

Dancing against the sunset with reflection in the natural pools.

Mediterranean Boat Cruise

In the past 4 days, Allie and I have been totally spoiled by a vacation-within-a-vacation. We spent 4 days and 3 nights on a Turkish goulet, a 25 meter long boat (has capabilities of being a sailboat, but generally too large to sail). We were on the boat with 10 other passengers including Americans, Aussies, and one kiwi. We had a really fun group! The captain and first mate/chef are both Turkish. Our captain loves animals and hiking so he made sure to lead us to both. Here's how our days went:

- wake up

- swim off side of boat

- breakfast (awesome)

- drive boat to new locale

- hike (view, ruins, visit with human or animal friend)

- swim back to boat

- lunch (awesome)

- lounge, read

- drive boat to new locale and stay for the night

- lounge, swim, read, play games

- dinner (awesome)

- wine

- sleep under the stars on the deck!

Sunrise on day 3, our alarm clock.

That's my boat!

My favorite hike

Sunset on our last night

The Lycian Way

Last night, Allie and I boarded a Knight Bus from volcanic Cappadocia, and after 13 hours, we woke up on the Mediterranean coast in Fethiye! It's a beautiful harbor town.

Today we took the dolmus (public van ride) up into the mountains lining the coast to Kabak (honestly, kind of on accident), where we had coffee and cheese pancakes in this yogi retreat town. We then hiked partly on the Lycian Way, an ancient road turned backpacker Mecca, back to Faralya. It is from this town that we turned our sights to the coast. We hiked down 350 meters (1150 feet, or as the fitbit tells us, 90 stories!) to a beach at the base of Butterfly Valley! A central clearing is framed on both sides by the Cliffs of Insanity, and opens out onto the beautiful turquoise sea. It was magical.

From the top:

  

At the bottom:

 

Tomorrow we leave for a 4-day blue cruise on a Turkish goulet! Not sure about the internet situation, but I'm pretty doubtful.

Cappadocia 3: Tattooine

Allie and I spent another full day touring the volcanic region of Cappadocia. The cool rock formations result from lava covered by hardened volcanic ash covered sometimes by more lava, leading to mushroom shapes.

We first went to the castle of Uchisar, first occupied by the Hittite people around 2000 BC who carved it out using iron tools. The small windows were for shooting arrows at their enemies and the large windows were for pouring out hot oil. People are not allowed inside because it is too full of booby traps to be safe!

Next we went to a former cave monastery of Goreme. Early Christians hid from the Romans here in the first century AD. There are frescas here from around 1100. It was in use until 1923, when secularism became the rule in Turkey.

In the afternoon, we went hiking around an area with mushroom shaped "chimneys" (rock formations).

Haha we obviously had fun posing with this crazy backdrop.

We stopped at a pottery workshop and weaving co-op. The Turkish rugs were beautiful, and it was great to see women working at the loom (where they are employed by the government and receive free health care, which most citizens do not have, as we were told by our guide), but I wasn't ready to spend hundreds to lug around a rug for the next week and a half, so I left rug-less.

We also visited "imagination valley," where if you just squint your eyes, you can make out a camel, a penguin, and other figures out of the irregularly shaped rocks. Allie and I were laughing because we had had practice with this last night. One of our waiters at dinner taught us how to make Turkish coffee and then read each other's fortunes out of the remnants left on the sides of one's mug. Allie sure has a great imagination so she was seeing dolphins, roses, boats, and other figures that fortunately portended a nice, happy future.

Tonight we board an overnight bus to Fethiye, the coast!

Cappadocia 2: moon landing

It seems like more than a day has past because Allie and I have been doing nonstop activities after our balloon ride early this morning. We joined up with a small tour this afternoon to see more of the sites.

We first saw Derinkuyu, an underground city that at its maximum housed 10,000 people seeking refuge from different warring or conquering groups sweeping through Turkey (Persians, Greeks). Allie and I laughed as I constantly stooped through the tiny tunnels and she, at barely 5', had to stoop approximately once.

We next saw a monastery, Selime, carved into the side of a mountain. It also gave us some great views of the landscape (which FYI inspired George Lucas' tatooine, though it was not filmed here). We could also see the 15 million year old volcano that spawned the bizarre rock formations.

Selime monastery

In the afternoon, we went for a hike through Ilhara Valley, a deep canyon with caves, especially cave churches, cut into both sides. We stopped along a few other valleys for more moonscape views on our way back to Goreme.

Cappadocia

Allie and I made it to the Istanbul airport and had a brief "Amazing Race" moment where we had to jog to our connecting domestic flight. Ultimately, we made it with time to spare. We flew right into the plateau region of Cappadocia. It is known for its bizarre, moonscape rock formations, some of which are idyllically called "fairy chimneys." I've been making up stories about Allie the tiny fairy since we arrived.

We are staying in the town of Goreme, which is built into a hillside with hotels and homes carved out of the stone. We are in one of the many "cave hotels." When we drove up at night, the hillside was alight, but otherwise all was dark. We decided to start our journey off this morning with a hot air balloon ride! We left the hotel at 4:10 am, which was really no problem due to the time change (and my working nights the past several days anyway), and rode into the darkness until we joined up with a massive group of tourists and were sorted into groups of 20.

Our first view of Turkey in the sunlight? An aerial view slowly coasting over valleys, rock formations, and a few small towns, not to mention the 80+ other balloons dotting the morning sky. Unreal.

Amsterdam to Istanbul

Allie and I are en route to Istanbul, and we have made it to Amsterdam!

Why residents make great travelers:
1. We are used to getting little to no sleep and switching from days to nights. Jet lag is just like a night float transition.
2. We are so used to eating whatever and whenever food is available. Airplane food tastes great!
3. Roll with the punches. Flight is delayed getting to the gate? Okay. We know what a real emergency is, and this isn't an emergency.
4. We are so so so happy to be on any vacation at all that any activity sounds amazing.
5. Endless stories to share. That flight goes by fast.
6. Our job is basically talking to strangers, so we make travel friends easily.
7. Did I mention that sleep part? Nap time.