Our official tour start time was 1 PM, due to a bicycle race that closed a lot of streets. Danita and I went out during the morning to visit the Hagia Sophia one more time. We were there early, and had plenty of time to walk around and look. There’s a few pics on the web site. In the first picture, you will see that the Muslim equivalent to the alter is off center. When they converted the building to a mosque, they found that a centered “alter” didn’t point to Mecca. So they moved in 8 degrees clockwise.

We took a ferry to the Eastern side of Constantinople and had a good lunch (but no where as good as yesterday). Then we walked around some food stalls. It was a cool, rainy day. Danita and I got a little burst of rain in the morning. It more or less rained the entire time of our tour. Our guide offered us some time to walk around and take pictures, but nobody’s heart was in it, so we came back to the hotel.

Tomorrow we fly home. We leave the hotel at 4 AM, expect to get home somewhere around 2 PM. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Our first stop was the Dolmabahce Palace, finished in 1856. It was built at a time when the Ottoman economy was in shambles. Common people were unemployed and starving. It has 285 rooms and 68 toilets. It uses the very best (most expensive) materials. No wonder the Ottoman empire was on the edge of collapse. They wouldn’t let us take any pictures inside. You can search the internet.

We visited the Galata Tower. I didn’t want to take the chance that I would have to be stuffed into a small and very crowded European elevator. After the elevator ride, there were an additional 65 very steep steps to the top. That was enough to stop everybody else.

Our last stop was the modern art museum. I found they have an excellent coffee shop.

The food on our tour was always somewhere between good and fabulous, but our lunch today was the best food yet. We had kabob. The meat was perfectly cooked and extremely rich in favor. Our desert was Kunefe – shredded wheat, cheese, pistachios, honey with a dollop of clotted milk. It doesn’t sound all that great, but the taste was fabulous.

Tomorrow is our last day. There is a bicycle race in the city in the morning, so we will do a half day tour in the afternoon. Danita and I are off to find some ice cream for dinner. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Today was a day for visiting museums. Some people consider museums to be boring. Others can’t resist a joke. The sign in the middle-bottom is a warning not to damage the warning signs.

Several sections of the museum were closed. One of the closed sections held the most interesting ancient artifacts, including the original of a peace treaty between the Hittites and Egypt, made in 1259 BC. It is the earliest known surviving peace treaty. peace_ treaty Not even the tour guide knew this part of the museum was closed. Never mind. It’s OK. We already paid the full cost of admission. ;-(

Never the less, they did have several good exhibits. Here’s Alexander the Great’s sarcophagus (or so they say).

The detail in this hand-decorated book is incredible. I understand that top calligraphers and artists routinely went blind from the strain of doing their work.

The afternoon is free time, but we have quite a bit of rain today. We’re staying in and enjoying a little wine. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We had an easy day today. We visited another mosque. We took a delightful boat ride, and we visited bazaars. I actually went into the spice bazaar. For whatever reason, it wasn’t crowded. We even found and purchased a ceramic wine holder that we liked, kind of like this one.

Here’s a pic of the Istanbul skyline.

This is the last day for about a third of our group. Nine of us are joining the three-day extension. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

This was our first full day in Istanbul. It was a very full day. We were exhausted at the end. We toured the Blue Mosque, the highlight for me was the Hagia Sophia. The Blue Mosque was built in 1616, the Hagia Sophia in 537. From the outside, the Blue Mosque is beautiful, the Hagia Sophia is rather ugly. This is partially because the architect didn’t focus on how it looks from the outside, partially because they had to add buttresses to the Hagia Sophia for additional strength. Inside, the Blue Mosque is impressive, the Hagia Sophia is stunning. The supports for the Blue Mosque dome are obvious. The Hagia Sophia’s dome appears to float in mid-air. This leads to a much more spacious feeling.

About a year ago, the Hagia Sophia was converted to a mosque. Muslims do not permit any representation of a person in a mosque because it is considered an icon. The only artwork that isn’t covered over is the one of an emperor on his knees before Jesus. The story is that the emperor did not have any male children. At that time, the church permitted the emperor to take a second wife, then a third; but no more than three. The emperor wanted a forth wife, which the church would not permit. The compromise was that the emperor would create art illustrating that he had asked Jesus directly, and received permission from Jesus, not the church. You can see some pictures on the web site.

The most photogenic site was the cistern under the Hagia Sophia. This was one of four cisterns. The most famous shot is of the upside-down Medusa head. The Medusa can turn men into stone. It is so bad, it scares all the other bad spirits away. This Medusa is at the bottom of the cistern, looking up, and keeping all the other bad spirits out of the water. There are a few pics of the cistern on the web site.

We had lunch as a Michelin restaurant. Unfortunately, this means the restaurant has a Michelin tire sign on the door.

I would like to clean this up, but the internet is not stable. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We took our last long bus ride today, crossing the Dardanelles, leaving Asia, and entering Europe. Gaining access to the ferry was exciting. None of us believed there was room for our bus on the ferry. That would mean waiting an hour for the next ferry. But they managed to get all the wheels on the ferry, even if the back end of the bus was hanging over the edge. They even got one more bus parallel to ours. You can see pictures of the crossing on the website. One of the pictures shows the longest suspension bridge in the world, with six lanes traversing the Dardanelles. Unfortunately, the bridge connects two small towns. Locals deride it as being the bridge to nowhere. But the exorbitant toll is undoubtedly a major reason for the light traffic on the bridge. $20 US goes a very long way in Turkiye.

Just on the European side of the Dardanelles is Gallipoli. This is where WW I started for the Ottoman Empire (soon to be Turkiye). It was the first place where Aataturk (the father of the Turks) beat the British, with very heavy losses on both sides. I don’t normally get a lot out of these kinds of visits, but it is impossible to add anything that Ataturk had to say. If you have trouble reading the picture, he said:

Those heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives .. you are now living in the soil of a friendly country therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Jonnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours …
You, the mothers who sent your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.

Ataturk, 1934

Finally we arrived at out hotel, where we will remain for 6 nights. It’s in the center of the historic part of Istanbul. Their lobby includes a turtle pool. You can see a pic on the website. It includes many of the people we are traveling with.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Troy was built nine times, all on the same site. It stayed on the original site because it allowed control of the Dardanelles, which let Troy tax all the goods going up an down the Dardanelles, which made Troy very rich. It was rebuilt nine times because it was destroyed eight times, mostly by people who didn’t want to pay a tax to Troy.

The archeological site is a mess because Heinrich Schliemann was a greedy man. It took him years, but he found Troy in 1870. He didn’t care about archeology. He wanted the gold and jewels. He bought a village and paid the people to dig. One lucky day he personally found the gold. He told the workers to knock off early, then spent the rest of the day and the entire night getting the gold, then left for Germany. It is not recorded what the villagers thought when they came to work the next day to find Schliemann no longer present.

Here’s an old wall at Troy. The holes were created by bees living i the mud brick.

Turkey is a big country. We’ve spent a ton of time riding in the bus, and we have another four hours or so tomorrow. The pervious several days have been unusually hot, with highs in the mid-90s. Today, the heat wave broke, making touring a much more pleasant experience.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Today we learned about quality Turkish rugs. Wool on cotton, wool on wool, silk on silk, dies, double knots, and the many many excellent reasons we should have spent over $1000 on a rug. Unfortunately, we didn’t act quickly enough and we lost our opportunity forever. (So sad, too bad.)

The highlight was visiting Ephesus. A city on this site was established by the Amazons. In turn, it was ruled by the Hittites, Greeks, Fresiens (sp? – all errors are the sole fault of our tour guide!), Syrians, and finally the Romans. It’s the best ancient city site in Turkey. If ever you visit, be sure to get the second ticket to tour the Roman house. I promise you will be blown away. But enough of the Greco-Roman stuff. It’s not surprising the Amazons had a female god named Epheza. But it didn’t stop there. Here’s an Anatolian Mother Goddess from 7000 BC. No doubt fertility was an important superpower of this god.

Here’s gold god from 580 BC.

The Roman version was Artemis. These two statues survived the period where Christians destroyed pagan statues by burying them in the sewer. Nobody found them until the archeologists started digging over 100 years ago. Artemis has all manor of animals and plants in the lower part of her body, and hundreds of breasts. She is the mother god for all of creation, and feeding the entire creation is her superpower,

Finally, here is the Ephesus theater. What does the theater have to do with female gods? St. Paul preached at the theater. He told the people that they had to stop worshiping Artemis and worship only God. The people got so riled up that they wanted to kill Paul. That would not do. Paul was a Roman citizen. Officials put Paul in jail for his own protection. They smuggled him out of Ephesus on a boat a couple of days later.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The main event today was the city of Aphrodisias. This was a pilgrim city. People traveled great distances to visit because it emphasized the female god. As our guide pointed out, This area always had a female god. One of the earliest carvings from 5,000 years ago was of a female god, obviously emphasizing fertility. Since then the female god has had many names. Sometimes she emphasized love and beauty, sometimes motherhood and protection. But there was always a female god and it was always very important in the hierarchy of the pagan gods.

Aphrodisias was more than a typical Roman town. It had the second largest coliseum in the ancient world. All around he coliseum were stalls or stores. A covered walkway allowed visitors to walk between stalls in comfort.

You’ve seen plenty of pictures of Roman town ruins. I’ll leave you with this sunset scene from our hotel, overlooking the Aegean sea. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The Hittites built the first empire with written records in this area, the next empire was built by the Pergamenes, and the Pergamenes built the city of Hierapolis. (Pay attention, there might be a test.) Hierapolis has underground limestone caves that supply water to springs in the area. Because the cave water is warmed by the Earth, it is believed to have curative powers. Because the water is high in Calcium Chloride, white deposits cover thee area. The white deposi8ts are basically the same as stalagmites and stalactites in a cave.

Besides having curative powers and offering a staggering view, Hierapolis was easily accessible to three more empires in addition to the Pergamenes. (Sorry, I didn’t keep up with all the details. I cancel the test to avoid embarrassing myself.) The city quickly became the pleasure center for all four empires. They are the only city in the area with not one but two theaters. They had plenty of opportunities to get drunk, gamble, take baths, and visit brothels.

Today, countless tourists walked through oppressive sun and heat to wet their feet in the stream, or swim in the pool,which still provides healing to countless sick people sharing their germs and viruses with each other. Danita decided to walk in the stream. Here’s a pic of the stream.