TURKISH DELIGHT!

We arrived back in Istanbul and went straight to our hotel...the wonderful Crown Plaza OLD CITY ...where we always thought we were going when we first arrived from Canada. Most of us spent the afternoon at the Grand Bazaar...that is after we finally were able to navigate there. The bus had to take a very circuitous route as few streets can accommodate big buses and the traffic was wild...but its all part of the Istanbul experience.

We went for a farewell dinner at a wonderful fish restaurant down by the waterfront. Rashid had already met up with his next group....four lovely ladies from the United States who were in Turkey to take Rashid's Goddess Tour. Jose madea presentation to Rashid to thank him for his stellar work with us....and then the fun began....Jose danced to the music, Rashid sang with the musicians and much wine was consumed. It was a lovely way to end such a magnificent tour. Then back to the hotel for our 1 AM wake up call and 2 AM departure for the airport.

Jose's presentation to Rashid

Jose dancing

Various pictures from the celebration

I will make my last few entries to the Blog but wanted you to see some of the amazing Cappadocia landscape so here are a few photos from the area.

In this valley there are a number of rock formations in the shape of animals....the most distinctive is this rock shaped like a camel.

Below is a type of fairy chimney in the Zelve Valleywith three caps extending from a single body

An old cemetary in Cappadocia with the volcano in the distance

This is part of the Goerme Open Air Museum

A little carpet shopping to take your mind off of things

What an adventure this has been. We have been so blessed with a good group of travelers, a first rate guide and perfect traveling weather.

The last few days in Cappadocia have been a blur. So many mind boggling things to see and learn about. From the spectacular landscape to the Goerme Open Air museum with the Christian churches built into the rock formation. Its a testament to Byzantine life. There is an absolutely stunning fresco filled church here Karanlik Kilise (Dark Church). This is Turkey's Sistine Chapel. A remarkable work of art still preserved.

Its like a lunar landscape throughout Cappadocia. We were so fortunate to fly over it on our balloon ride. We flew over the fairy chimneys

Kaymakli is one of the famed underground cities of the Byzantine Christians. It goes 8 stories underground. We went down three levels and most of the group turned around as it required trekking down steep stairs and walking stooped over in the tunnels. Over 3000 people once lived in this city

We also went to watch carpet and ceramic making. Amazing works of art. Arts that are dying out given the extensive labour involved.

Jose hosted a farewell Happy Hour with Rashid and the group. Lots of laughs shared.

We are just about to land in Istanbul after a quick hour and a half flight from Kayseri.

I will post pictures tonight if possible

Rashid was able to get us a hotel in the Old City of Istanbul for our final night. Hard to believe we will be back at the Istanbul airport in less than 24 hours for our final flights to Canada. What an adventure this has been. How lucky we all are!
Catherine Tolton

Finally I was able to post balloon pictures. I added them to yesterday's entry if you want to view them

The 5:30 wake up call came painfully early. After a quick shower we crowded into the lobby where all the balloon companies were arriving to pick up their passengers. About 70 different balloons of about 24 people each were soon to be airborne. We went with Cappadocia Balloon and they were extraordinarily professional and safety conscious. Our pilot Serhan was extremely competent. The most dangerous part was the drive to the take off zone. Our driver raced through the narrow winding mountain roads to get us there. We hopped aboard and soon were airborne.

That is me in the basket about to lift off. You can see some of the many balloons already up in the air.

There is nothing like the take off of a balloon. The Earth just quietly drops away below you. The only sound is the quiet whoosh of the gas flames filling the balloon.

The sun was just rising as we rose up into the air.

Flying over Cappadocia is unbelievable. The terrain is filled with remarkable conical rock outcrops, called peri bacalari (fairy chimneys) which are the region's most famous and characteristic feature. These also resemble mushrooms or phalluses (yup even the guidebook acknowledges that) Scores of hidden chapels are carved into the rock

Below is the shadow of our balloon with on the cliffs with our group waving at it

Here is the group of 8 of us Ballooners along with Captain Serhan. We celebrated with a drink of "Cloud Nine" - a mix of Turkish champagne and cherry juice....very good

We said good bye this morning to our favourite hotel ....the Dedeman Otel in Konya.

Dedeman Konya

Mary innocently asked Rashid if he had heard of Catalhoyuk and if we would be any where near it. Turns out Rashid spent many years promoting and working on this important archaeological site. Catalhoyuk was originally settled approximately 9000 years ago during the Neolithic (new Stone Age). Once again Rashid worked his magic and viola....we went to Catalhoyuk this morning. Its about an hour outside of Konya.

Over the 1400 years this 13.5 hectares of land was occupied the town grew as people abandoned old houses, filled them in and built new ones on top creating a mound 21 metres high.

Here is one of the prime excavations where they found Neolithic wall paintings

Below is a reconstruction of one of their houses

The homes were entered from the roofs and the dead were buried under the floors to keep loved ones near. It was an amazing opportunity to explore the site with such a knowledgeable guide. The site was only discovered in the late 1950s by James Mellaart

Stopped for lunch across from the old camel rest stop or Caravanserai which we visited after lunch

This volcano is visible from Catalhoyuk and dominates the plains

Saw Whirling Dirvish ceremony tonight in Cappadocia. We are staying in the capital of Cappadocia region - Nevsehir

Having trouble adding photos as this hotel is not ideal....first time we have been over run with busloads of tourists...50 here from Seattle and a number from Japan and China so they are all using the internet and nothing is loading.

Have to get up at 4:30 for hot air ballooning in Capadoccia so that's all I can do tonight
....oh and Happy Halloween!

Arch of Domitan. Entrance

Necropolis _ largest ancient graveyard In Anatolia.

Theatre built in 200BC could seat 20,000

Pamukkale means "cotton castle" as that is what these white terraces look like. They are the spectacular white ravertine terraces at Hierapolis. The layers of white calcium carbonate built up in steps on the plateau.

The fields around the terraces and Hierapolis were strewn with delightful yellow crocuses

These young girls from Japan did not or could not read the signs saying you are forbidden to go into the water on the Pamullake terraces.

Driving across the Anatolian Plain today. Flanked by mountains on both sides. Lush autumn golds And burnt sienna. Loving all the falll colours. It has been a delightful surprise to discover this is a temperate enough zone to have an autumn. We have left behind the Aegean and Mediterranean and are now in a much colder zone. Back into long pants and sweaters. Still with glorious sunshine. We could not have asked for better weather throughout. Passing workers in the fields harvesting potatoes, marble quarries and sheep grazing.

We finished the day at the Sufi Shrine in Konya Fascinating stories about the whirling dirvishes and sufiism but I am too exhausted to go into tonight. This blogging business is hard work and I need my beauty sleep....and the happy hour vino is really kicking in......

Gerry at the Sufi Shrine

Sufii saying - Appear as you are or be as you appear

Our amazingly knowledgable guide Rasid Ergener

We arose to a glorious sunrise over the Aegean.

This is the view from my room in Bodrum (my second room.....the first faced a wall......)

More stream of consciousness as we travel by bus onto the Anatolian Plain.

Turkey is the same size as Texas. It borders Armenia, georgia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Greece, Syria, Iran and Iraq. It has shorelines on the Aegean, black Sea, Mediterranean, Maramar, Bosphorus, and the Dardenelles.

The average retirement age in Turkey is 38 for females and 43 for males if have worked 20 years female and 25 male

The crime rate is astonishingly low.

In Turkey the sale of alcoholic beverages is not banned as is required by Islam. (I can attest to its sale!). Raki is the most popular drink. Its the Turkish equivalent of pastis in France or Ouzo in Greece. It has a strong licorice taste. According to poet and connoisseur Ahmet Rasim, the first glass should be drunk fast in order to attain a "pleasant frame of mind".

Our guide Rashid ( an Economist with a Masters from yale and a doctorate from Oxford) writes poetry. Some lines include "One evening I will return to myself. I will meet you"
And

"The past is no more and the future could not be dreamed....
I dream of a self for myself. Hiding always a bit of my self."

Only 3 percent of Turkey is in Europe
Asia part is Anatolia. Land of mothers - Anatola.

Every little town or village has its mosques with a dome and minarets......just like the churches in. Europe

Solar panels and solar hot water heaters on every rooftop. Satellite dishes everywhere for TV.

Cemetaries are above ground tombs

Aphrodisias named after Aphrodite

Visited Aphrodisias midday. Travelled by groves of pomegrantes. Enjoying a delicious assortment of olives every day at breakfast. Far better tasting than any we get in Winnipeg.

National Geographic funded the excavatation of the Aphrodisias site. NG rated it as one of the top twenty excavations it has done in the world. Its a reamarkable site. Amazing scope we walked for two hours through the site

"We should save history as we cannot recreate history."

Tonight we stay in Pamukalle (Pronounced Pam-a-cal-lay). Just travelling through the beautiful gentle end of afternoon "Mediterranean" light that stirs my soul. Its so beautiful.

Sunset from our hotel at Pamukkale

Amazing! OMG! What a day we have had. We spent into out on the Aegean we had our own sailboat and crew from Bodrum.

In Turkey these big wooden sailboats are called Gulets. They are chartered for a week or so and people cruise to the various Greek and Turkish islands nearby. Kos is a three hour sail slightly north and west. Rhodes is a ( hour sail to the west.

The ship manager-captain was called Yilmaz Celik He has cruised these waters for years and has photos of himself with the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker and family and Jeremy Irons. He speaks English very well and he and his crew were awesome.

Yilmaz Ceklik

We went out to an island and dropped anchor three times to swim in the glorious turquoise waters......so very clear......you can see the schools of little fish swimming about in the water.

Georgia enjoying the sea

We were served drinks and allowed to bring our own bottles of wine too. Mid day we served a fabulous lunch with fresh sea bass grilled and numerous side dishes. Awesome! Our captain wants me to send him my pictures of him. He was quite charming to all of us. The water was 22 degrees celsius....so buoyant, and warm. We have been blessed with awesome weather throughout the trip

Carol and Mary enjoying the sail

Our Guide Dr. Rashid with Elsie

Didyma - Site of ancient Ionian shrine and the most renowned oracle of the Hellenic world, containing a temple and oracle of Apollo

Heading to Bodrum - the pleasure capital of Turkey. Its a port city on the Aegean - a party resort like Mykonos. The island of Rhodes is just offshore to the west of it.

Gerry photographing Georgia at Didyma

The Temple of Apollo

Young boy at Didyma

Ok this is getting very frustrating. The hotel internet for the last two nights has not had enough power to send photos or upload them to the blog. This is yet another attempt to send something from Ephesus

The Girls on the W.A.G. tour at Ephesus

The day finished at the Pine Bay Marina Resort in Kushadasi with a memorable sunset

Another full rich day in paradise. Spent most of our day touring the museum in Ephesus and primarily at the actual site of ancient Ephesus

First visited Archaeological museum in Iznik. Saw artifacts and photos of Camel wrestling.........

Expect the unexpected or it will not happen.......

I was blessed with a return to Ephesus which I had visited on a Greek cruise in 2006. A magical ancient site with remarkable preserved arches and buildings. The background in this photo is the Celus Library at Ephesus.

On the way to our hotel we stopped at a "leather art" shop
No not a weird place...... a couturier shop of the finest leather I have ever seen.....so soft and supple. Used by Armani and other designers. Eight members of our group purchased leather coats.....all extremely stylish

We spent the night on the Aegean at the Pine Bay Marina. A spectacular setting. But the hotel has seen better days for sure. Thank heavens for Elsie's Scotch!!

The internet did not work last night so I can't upload photos today. Just this one on my BB to prove I was actually here and not just ghost writing from Canada

This trip just keeps on getting more and more amazing. We drove through the countryside viewing fields of cotton, red peppers and groves of stone pines - where pinenuts come from.

Here are some impressions: Women working in the fields of cotton.......groves of olive trees......Gendarme in the countryside in the middle of nowhere gave our bus driver a ticket for 150 Turkish Lira (about 75 dollars) for going 4 km over the limit......roadside break and one of the best Starbucks I have ever seen....even had lavender growing outside the W.C......downhill from there.....strips of Outlet malls.....and very cosmopolitan malls way beyond anything I have seen in Canada anywhere.

Turkey is 99 percent Muslin and for that reason its unlikely to be allowed into the European Union despite trying for years.

Sanitation in the washrooms generally above Canadian standards with toilet seats with plastic sanitizer seats, motion controlled taps and paper towel dispensers.....also as we are heading more into Asia we do come across the squatter loos too.

We travelled to the Akropolis in Bergama - awesome place. Had to take a gondola up the mountain.

After exploring the Akropolis we had a local lunch and travelled to Pergamon, a Roman city where one of the first hospitals in the world was supposedly located. There is a carving of two serpents wrapped around a drinking cup - a modern symbol of the medical profession. Apparently this place helped perform healing wonders but people who were too sick, were not allowed in. Rashid, our marvellous tour guide is a walking encyclopedia of history and also of the religion and politics of Turkey. he has been very good to our group...trying hard to keep us all happy.

On the way out I met this vendor of pine nuts. Pine nuts come from the pine cones of the Stone Pine tree. Extracating the nuts from the pine cones is very labour intensive so its not surprising the astronomical cost of those nuts. The picture below shows the way the man had to work at the cones to produce the nuts.

The day concluded with a drive to Izmir with the sun setting on the Aegean to our right and the mountains on our left. Izmir is the third largest city in Turkey. We are staying right downtown near the promenade and the sea. Looking forward to our nightly happy hours hosted by Faye and Elsie (with her rapidly depleting) bottle of scotch. The end of another precious day here

Monday started with a wild ride into the far countryside west of Istanbul. The driver did not know how to find this place. After getting directions we heading down a narrow country road only to have a truck stop and tell us the bridge was out. That meant backing the bus up the road till we could turn around. The route we then took was one not designed for a huge bus. That guy deserves a medal. Twice I thought the rear wheel would go off the road on a switchback. At one point, in the middle of no where we saw all these dog kennels but right across the road where literally hundreds of wild dogs sleeping on the hillside and not looking well. No idea how you differentiate between the dogs who got a kennel and those that did not. All through that section we saw lots of wild dogs. We also saw lots of camp grounds. Each competing with its neighbour to entice you in but no one camping at this time of year.

A cheer went up when we finally reached the glass studio. Watched a couple of glass blowing demonstrations.

After our ferry crossing we reached Bursa. Its Turkey's fourth largest city, with a million people.

We went to see the Green Mosque which was closed as its under construction but did see the green Tomb across from it.

Just like in Istanbul there were a number of shops with tons of gaudy wedding dresses. They are all in a sleeveless, strapless style with tight waists and huge pouffy skirts with ruffles or frills. Its quite a juxta position to the garments women wear most of the time. Woman dress conservatively in long skirts and silk kerchiefs as head scarves. There are women in Burkas but our guide says they are mainly Arabs not Turks. So they are tourists like us. I have been very impressed with how friendly and nice the people are. In the streets and shops the vendors are not at all pushy and they have not been haggling over prices. It was quite different in Kusadasi when I was there in 2006. We go there tomorrow so I will see if its just a local phenomena or a cultural shift.

Our hotel last night had a historic haman in it as its built over a thermal hot spring.

Several of the woman went for this traditional Turkish steam and scrub massage. I guess it was quite vigourous with numerous exclamations over their dirty skin that was being peeled away. Our guide told us about a client who came out of the haman and she said she wanted to marry her masseuse. That sentiment was not echoed by any of our crowd but they were glad of the experience.

Had a weird experience last night.....stood up from my desk just after midnight. I felt the floor trembling. I didn't know if it was a motor somewhere or why it was trembling it happened again. Phoned down but couldn't explain on the phone so went down. The guy at the desk said there are always small tremors or aftershocks from earthquakes but at same time he said they never have earthquakes in Bursa. Doesn't make sense but oh well......all seems fine.

We are now in Bursa where they specialize in beautiful silks. There is a fabulous Silk Bazzar, Another great day. Too tired to write but here are a few photos of the day. Went to a glass blowing studio way way way out in the country down roads no bus has ever been before (or again). Crossed the Sea of Maramar to travel into Asia. Will be in the Asian part of Turkey for the rest of our time here. Bursa is famed for silks and skiing in the winter.