Turkey

Overnight stops (in date order): Edirne (x3); Izmit; Safranbolu (x2); Amasra (x2); Doğanyurt; 50 km west of Sinop; Sinop (x2); Amasya (x2); Hattusa; Tokat (x2); 20 km east of Ordo; Trabzon (x2); 20 km south of Artvin; Kars (x3); Erzurum (x2); 220 km east of Mount Nemrut; 10 km west of Narince; 80 km west of Mount Nemrut; 180 km east of Goreme; Goreme (x5); Tarsus (x3); Narlikuyu; Anamur; Alanya (x2); Antalya (x2); Cirali (x5); Demre (x2); Kas (x3); Patara; Fethiye (x4); Lake Bafa; Kusadasi (x2); Selçuk (x4); Izmir (x3); Bergama (x2); ‘Troy’ (x2); Edirne

Turkey’s approach to the pandemic is to keep the country and economy open by requiring people to wear masks at all times when outside the home, by checking people’s temperature when entering public buildings (and some restaurants and hotels) and by installing alcohol steriliser dispensers at every turn.  They report a relatively low number of cases – but some question the accuracy of their figures.

Edirne, close to the border of both Bulgaria and Greece, was called Adrianople in Roman times after its founder – Hadrian.  It was the capital of the Ottoman empire for about 100 years in the 14^th/15^th Centuries; before Istanbul took its place. 

The enormous 16^th Century Selimiye Mosque is just too big to fit into a photograph

and its cavernous interior is beautifully decorated.

Danielle was lucky enough to bump into Sultan Selim II; who commissioned the mosque to be built.

On the edge of town, is a hospital complex and medical school built in the 15^th Century; which is now a health museum.

For the past seven hundred years, Edirne has hosted the Turkish national oil wrestling championship – where large men in leather shorts douse themselves in olive oil before grappling with one another.  The event is held in July; so unfortunately, we arrived just too late to take part.

In other respects, Edirne is a typical bustling Turkish town with a lively market.

Edirne is located on what was a major trading route between Europe and Asia Minor and, because it is situated on a loop in a river, it has a number of Ottoman-period bridges – the largest is the Meric Bridge.

We crossed from Europe to Asia on a bridge that was built more recently.  The Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge, completed in 2016, is the most northerly of the bridges over the Bosphorus,

and so gave us only a distant and hazy view of Istanbul.

Google Maps took us through back streets of Safranbolu.  They were too narrow for the truck. 

We lost our awning – knocked off as we passed an overhanging balcony. 

If you enlarge the photo below of the truck parked outside our hotel, and have a good eye, you can see the gap where the awning used to be – above the rear windows.

Here’s a closer view!

Our hotel room was worth the hassle of getting there.

The hotel manager had a soft spot for cats.

Our hotel was in one of the many Ottoman-period houses that led to Safranbolu being designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The large building in front of the mosque in the left foreground of the photo above is a 17th century ‘caravanserai’; a travellers inn used by traders on what was part of the Silk Road.  It is once again a hotel – we stayed there the last time we visited Safranbolu about 15 years ago.

At a café in the old market, Danielle took the opportunity to teach the owner how to make Turkish coffee in the traditional manner.

From Safranbolu, we drove 100 km north to the Black Sea coast at Amasra;

where we enjoyed the sunset from our dinner table.

We took three days to drive the sinuous and very hilly, 320 km-long, coast road to Sinop – pulling off to find a quiet spot to camp on both nights.

and enjoying a lunch stop

with a swim.

Thanks to its sheltered harbour, the ancient town of Sinop has a very long history

and is still a major base for the Black Sea fishing fleet.

An attack on Sinop by the Russian fleet in 1853, was the trigger for Britain entering the Crimean War.

Diogenes, one of the founders of the Cynic school of philosophy, was born in Sinop.  He rejected all societal norms and is alleged to have slept in large clay jar in the marketplace.

The old prison is one of the town’s main tourist attractions. 

It is housed within an old fort whose walls have incorporated material from the ruins of much older buildings.

From Sinop, we drove inland

to Amasya; which is set on the banks of the Yeşilırmak River.

The old Ottoman houses on the north bank of the river are the town’s main draw;

together with the tombs, cut into the rock above the town, of the Pontic kings who ruled the region before the Romans moved in.

Equally interesting was a patch of bushes with what looked like hundreds of unseasonal buds;

that turned out to be clumps of white snails.

A couple of hundred km west of Amasya, Hattusa was the capital of the Hittite empire that controlled the whole of Anatolia and beyond between the 17^th and 12^th Centuries BC.

The Hittites were one of the principal foes of the ancient Egyptians.  The temple of Abul Simbel in Upper Egypt commemorates Rameses II’s victory over the Hittites – a claim disputed by Hittite scholars who have deemed the outcome of the battle to be a draw at best.  What is known is that, following the battle, the Egyptian and Hittites signed a peace treaty; a copy of which on a clay tablet was found during excavations of the ruins of Hattusa.

The site is set on a hill with commanding views over the surrounding countryside.

The site includes a 70 metre-long tunnel through a massive embankment that forms one of the city walls,

and a separate religious complex with rock engravings.

We drove east across the plains of Anatolia,

during what was clearly the peak season for the onion harvest,

for a two-night stay in Tokat; with its by now familiar mix of ancient (in this case Hittite)

Byzantine (in the form of its castle – which later in its history, during the 15^th Century, held Vlad the Impaler in its dungeons),

and Ottoman.

In its day, Tokat was yet another stop on the old Silk Road.

From there, we drove back north, through the North Anatolian mountain range

to Trabzon on the Black Sea; which we used as a base to visit the Sumela Monastery set on a ledge in a sheer cliff-face.

The Monastery was founded in the 4^th Century;

though its frescoes are much more recent.

It was also a good opportunity for a haircut.

 

 

Continuing east along the Black Sea coast, we met the tail-end of a 10 km line of Turkish trucks waiting to cross the border into Georgia. 

The travel advice on the UK Foreign Office website states ‘The [Georgian] government has announced that the re-opening of Georgia’s land and air borders is postponed until at least 1 November, and that the tourism sector won’t be relaunched in 2020.’  The Turkish border with Armenia has been closed since 1993.  The only other borders in the east of Turkey are with Iran and Syria.  UK citizens require a special invitation to acquire a visa for the former, and the latter is still a war zone.  This meant that, for us, this was the blind end of a cul-de-sac – and as close to India as we will get this year.

Therefore, we turned south-east, through the mountainous country of the Turkish/Georgian border region (which in medieval times was in fact a part of Georgia).

We camped for the night off the road, with a view over a dammed and flooded river valley.

We were not alone!

After meeting her, we spotted a puppy,

then four more,

and eventually all nine – around their den dug into the stump of a tree (this is the only photo that caught them all).

The terrain flattened, at an altitude of between 1,500 and 2,000 metres,

before we reached Kars. 

In medieval times, this region and town were Armenian.  Apart from the citadel,

the only intact building remaining in Kars from that period is the 10^th Century Church of the Twelve Apostles; which is now a mosque.

The town’s more recent history has been a to-and-fro between the Turks and Russians.  The latter only dropped their claim to the region in 1948.  The town centre still has a distinctly Russian feel; with 19^th Century Tsarist buildings in the local grey basalt stone; including our hotel

and our favourite restaurant.

We spent one of our days in Kars getting minor repairs done to the truck.

Given the mountain roads, these focused particularly on the brakes!

40 km east of Kars, and right on the border with Armenia,

with a hazy view of the snow-capped, 4,000 metre high peak of Mount Aragats – the highest mountain in Armenia,

is the ancient, ruined city of Ani.

The site is enclosed on three sides by deep river ravines.

Built in the 10^th and 11^th Centuries as the capital of the Bagratid Armenian Kingdom, the site was abandoned about 400 years ago; leaving the remains of monumental churches standing on the dry plain.

We experienced our first frost of the season in Kars and the surrounding country had a distinctly autumnal look.

From Kars, we turned back west – spending a couple of nights at Erzurum. 

The 14^th Century Yakutiye Medrese (Islamic school) was built at a time when the Mongolians controlled the region.

The Çifte Minareli Medrese is even older and its twin minarets are decorated with beautiful tiles.

We ate well in Erzurum. One of the restaurants had been fashioned from a block of old Ottoman houses.

We finished another meal with ayva tatlısı – a Turkish dessert made from quince (thanks for the recommendation, Anna).

From Erzurum, we spent five days driving the thousand kilometres to Cappadocia.  This was now the season for harvesting sugar beet, potatoes.

and the enormous Anatolian cabbages – are they on steroids?

We shared the road with trucks hugely overloaded with white sacks;

that, on closer inspection Danielle found to contain chaff from the cereal harvest.

In this part of Anatolia, the farmland is interspersed with long stretches of rocky, barren terrain

and ranges of hills and rugged gorges;

with the occasional industrial eyesore.

There are no campgrounds in eastern Turkey, and so we simply pulled off the road for our lunch-stops,

and for the four nights.

At the half-way point, we visited Mount Nemrut

where, on the 7.000 ft summit, King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene built his tomb.  Clearly, he was the Donald Trump of the 1^st Century BC!

We were suitably impressed and, because of the pandemic, were alone on the mountain.

Goreme was once a remote village in the heart of Cappadocia. It is now a bustling resort. 

Although a local told us that there had been only about a quarter of the usual number of visitors this year; for us, this was the first time since we left Croatia that we felt surrounded by other tourists.

This part of Cappadocia has weird and wonderful natural rock formations

and villages whose houses are carved out of the soft, volcanic stone. Many of which are now abandoned.

Succeeding empires in the region followed suit.  It is thought that the underground cities of  Derinkuyu

(this is a ventilation shaft)

and Kaymakli

were founded by the Phrygians in the 8^th Century BC – though they were greatly extended by the Byzantines.

The Romans cut monumental tombs out of the rock

and the Byzantines carved out thousands of churches;

some of which still have well-preserved frescoes that are more than a thousand years old.

The presence of Greek Christians in Anatolia only ended in 1923 with their forcible exchange with Muslims living in Greece following the Greco-Turkish war; during which hundreds of thousands of Turkish Orthodox Christians were exterminated.

The Ihlara Valley, 90 km south-west of Goreme,

alone has more than 100 churches cut into its 14km-long walls.

There are ancient olive trees beside the stream at the bottom of the valley that are probably as old as the churches themselves.

Goreme and Cappadocia are almost as famous for their hot-air balloons as for the cave dwellings.

It is hard to escape them first thing in the morning – even when you are in the bath!

By now (late October), the fields were empty – except for a few pumpkins and peppers.

The centre of Tarsus has its share of Ottoman buildings

and Roman ruins;

including ‘Cleopatra’s Gate’ where legend has it that the Queen of Egypt met up with Mark Anthony.

To non-Muslims, the city is most famous as the birthplace of Saul/St Paul.

There is a museum at the site where the locals believe he was born; with a well that is a place of pilgrimage for Christians.

St Paul’s church was only built in the 19^th Century.

On the road from Tarsus to Narlikuyu, we had our first sight of the Mediterranean since we left Albania.  Compared with the parched interior, the Mediterranean coast is lush at this time of year.  We passed many miles of banana plantation,

and the pomegranate,

persimmon,

lemon,

orange,

avocado

and pink pepper

trees were still in fruit.

Whilst snorkelling from the beach where we camped near Narlikuyu,

I saw a large turtle.  Unfortunately, I did not have my camera with me – so had to settle for a photograph of this crab when I went for a swim the next morning!

The entrance to the ‘Caves of Heaven and Hell’, a few kilometres inland from Narlikuyu, is guarded by a small Byzantine church.

The nearby ‘Asthma Cave’ was given its name because of its supposed ability to cure that condition.

The Mediterranean coast of Turkey is littered with ancient cities and towns.  We camped on the beach in Anamur;

Just beside the medieval Mamure Castle.

Its 13^th Century fortress dominates the seaside town of Alanya.

Its ancient shipyard is from the same era.

The 2^nd Century ampitheatre at Aspendos is the best preserved of all Roman theatres and is used for opera and ballet performances today.

We reached Antalya, the day after Turkey’s Republic Day – which celebrates the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.

Hadrian’s Gate was built in 130 AD to commemorate a visit by the emperor;

whose bust

is part of a remarkable collection of sculptures at Antalya Museum;

many of which were found at the nearby Greco-Roman city of Perge; another city visited by St Paul.

Cirali, south-east of Antalya, is famous for the turtles that lay their eggs on its long beach,

for the ruins of the ancient city of Olympos (founded by the Lycians in Hellenistic times),

for the mountain of the same name

and for the flames of Chimaera on Yanar Mountain – jets of natural gas escaping from the rocks that have been burning for thousands of years.

There are also a lot of peacocks!

At Myra, the tombs of the Lycians

are cut into the rock in the hillside above the Roman ampitheatre.

The city’s ancient harbour has silted up and the coast is now some miles away.

We took a boat trip

to visit Kalekoy

with its hilltop Crusader castle

and Lycian tombs.

The area was the site of the ancient city of Simena that was destroyed by an earthquake in the second Century.  There are ruins of the residential part of the city beneath the water of the nearby Kekova Island.

We spent three restful days days at Kas,

where I was second time lucky with a turtle!

After Kas, the ancient Lycian cities came thick and fast; as many as three in one day!

Xanthos, the capital of the ancient Lycian Federation of cities (a plaque at the site states that most of its best monuments were ‘abducted’ in the 19^th Century and are now in the British Museum),

Letoon, a religious centre dating back to the 6^th Century BC,

and Patara;

with its partially restored Bouleuterion – the council chamber where elected members from the 23 city states that were members of the Lycian League met to discuss and vote on important, common matters.

Another, Tlos,

is set in the hills

close to the resort town of Fethiye;

with its large marina

and busy fish market

surrounded by seafood restaurants.

The town has its own Lycian rock-cut tombs.

Nearby are the natural wonders of the Saklikent Gorge

and Butterfly Valley; and

Kayaköy, a town abandoned in 1923 when the Greek-speaking people who lived there were expelled as part of the population exchange between Turkey and Greece.

Lake Bafa was a gulf of the Aegean Sea until its outlet silted up.  The water is still salty.

The enormous Greco-Roman temple of Apollo at the Greco-Roman sanctuary of Didyma collapsed in an earthquake in the 15^th Century.

In the seventh Century BC, Miletus was a major centre for science and philosophy.

We spent a couple of days on a sunny beach north of Kuşadası,

before stopping at Selçuk

to visit the sites.

Although the hill on which it stands has been fortified since the Bronze age, the walls of Selçuk castle were built by the Byzantines and the Ottomans.

There is not much left of the enormous Basilica constructed by Justinian I in the sixth Century on what was claimed to be the burial site of St John the Apostle.

According to legend, St John was accompanied by the virgin Mary and in the nineteenth Century a French Priest ‘discovered’ what he claimed to be the house where she lived.  It has attracted pilgrims, mainly Catholic, ever since.

The Cave of the Seven Sleepers was a site for pilgrims in the Byzantine period – based on a legend of seven men who fell asleep in the cave while fleeing persecution and awoke, and emerged from the cave, three hundred years later.

But, the main attraction is Ephesus.

The city was founded in the 10^th Century BC and further developed by the Greeks and Romans.  It is one of the most complete cities from antiquity and parts have been reconstructed.

The excavated interiors of the homes of the wealthy inhabitants, with internal plumbing and heating systems, show how comfortable life could be for those who could afford it.

There is not enough left of the nearby Temple of Artemis to show why it was considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

The museum houses statues of ‘The Beautiful Artemis’

and ‘The Great Artemis’ – the daughter of Zeus and the Goddess of wilderness, forests, hunting and the moon.

We had great view over the Gulf of Izmir from our hotel room in the city of the same name.

A few hundred metres away, Cakalburnu Lagoon is a haven for birds;

including sleeping flamingos and herons

and the occasional pelican.

In the centre of Izmir, the third largest city in Turkey, the ruins of the agora are one of the few remaining remnants of ancient Smyrna – once one of the principal cities of Roman Asia and one of the seven ‘Cities of Revelation’.

The underground vaulted corridors of the adjoining basilica

are more impressive than the few columns standing above ground.

Modern Izmir has the look and feel of a modern city.  But, at its heart is a teeming and typically Turkish bazaar.

The old centre of the provincial town of Bergama has winding, cobbled lanes and attractive houses.

But its main draw is that it is the site of the ancient city of Pergamon; whose acropolis sits on a hill above the modern town.

A major city in the Hellenistic period – following Alexander the Great’s ousting of the Persians – it was redeveloped under the Roman Emperor Trajan; and came to rival Ephesus and Smyrna in size and importance.

The huge Hellenistic theatre (can you spot Danielle?), built in the 3^rd Century BC, is the steepest in the ancient world – the upper seats are 36 metres above the stage.

Beneath the acropolis, the Asklepion was connected to the city by a kilometre-long covered road.

Dedicated to Asklepios, the Greek God of healing, the sanctuary complex was a major medical centre in the ancient world.  Galen was born in Pergamon and trained at the Asklepion. In his later life, he was the physician to the Emperor Commodus.  His theories and views dominated medical science until well into the European Renaissance.

The sacred spring at the heart of the complex still runs – though perhaps not as impressively as in times past!

Also at the foot of the Acropolis, the ‘Red Basilica’ is the ruin of an enormous Roman temple dedicated to the Gods of ancient Egypt.

We spent two nights camped at Tevfikiye;

next to Hisarlik Hill and the ruins of Troy.  From the top of the hill, there is a view over the mouth of the Dardanelles and the Çanakkale Strait (the sea was much closer to the hill in ancient times).

Archaeologists have identified nine separate cities at the site, built one on top of the other.  It is thought that either Troy VI or VII, from the late Bronze Age, was the Troy of the Iliad and Odyssey.

Before being forgotten and lost in the Byzantine era, the site had been a place of pilgrimage for Greeks and Romans steeped in Homer’s tale.  Alexander the Great, who was an admirer of Achilles, visited and sacrificed at the site before going on to conquer much of the known world.

Luckily, Uran our guide helped us to make sense of the jumble of ruins.

On our last full day in Turkey, we crossed the Dardanelles; taking the ferry from Çanakkale  

back to the European side.

We completed our clock-wise circuit by spending our last night in Turkey where we spent our first – at Edirne – before crossing the border back into Bulgaria, on the day that Turkey ratcheted up its COVID-related restrictions by imposing a curfew that covered the whole of the weekend.