Day 21 - Cappadocia

Today the weather is a little better, no snow at least. Still cold but the sun is shining. While we had breakfast and you could see the balloons flying over the valley so looks good for me tomorrow.

Today we had a wonderful day exploring the unique region and its landscapes. Our Orhan our guide did a great job keeping us ahead of the other tourist buses and when we got to the Open Museum of the rock carved Churches in Goreme we manage to be the first bus. We had a great time exploring these as there was no one ahead of us so we really see them well and see the ancient frescoes.

From here we went to the view point of the village and got some great photos of this amazing area. We then visited the Avanos pottery studio where we saw the great skills of the master potters and painters from this region. The amount of work that goes into the pieces is extraordinary especially seeming after weeks of painting the second fire can crack the piece. That would be heart breaking. We manage to spend too much money here but our purchases are unique to the area and will provide great memoires of our trip in Turkey. Mark and Noel did not like this

From here we visited the underground city, Hobbit Central. Derinkuyu Underground City is an ancient multi-level underground city of the Median Empire. Extending to a depth of approximately 60 m, it had 7 levels and was large enough to shelter approximately 20,000 people together with their livestock and food stores. It is the largest excavated underground city in Turkey and is one of several underground complexes found across Cappadocia. The underground city could be closed from the inside with large stone doors to keep the enemy out. Each floor could be closed off separately. Apparently there was also an underground tunnel to another village 9km away which is mind boggling.

 

After lunch we visited the picturesque Pigeon Valley where there are 200 pigeon houses carved in the rocks. The do this to collect the poop for fertiliser, not a job I want. From here we headed to the Fairy Chimneys. Volcanic eruptions created this surreal moonscape, the lava flows formed tuff rock, which wind and rain sculpted into sinuous valleys with curvy cliff faces and pointy fairy chimneys.

We have a night out tonight drinks included so better behave as I have to get up a 5.30am for my balloon ride. We are off to a folklore show in an underground cave which will also have belly dancers. Should be fun. Look forward to telling you all about tomorrow, fingers crossed the weather is good. J&N

Day 20 - Ankara to Cappadocia

Today we travelled 280km from Anakara to Cappadocia. Our first stop was to the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations and Anit Kabir were we saw the content of The Midas Tomb, the first ever international agreement and the very first gold coin.

From here we visited the Mausoleum of Ataturk, farther of the modern Turkey. This guy changed the governing system, law, alphabet, metric system, calendar and the language. During his lifetime, Atatürk adopted thirteen children: a boy and twelve girls. Of these, the most famous is Sabiha Gökçen, Turkey's first female pilot and the world's first female fighter pilot. He adopted daughters to educated them and make them role models for Turkish women of the future. He was a forward thinker and the political reforms involved a number of fundamental institutional changes that brought end of many traditions, and followed a carefully planned program to unravel the complex system that had developed over the centuries.The reforms were implemented under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in accordance with Kemalist ideology. It also has a very interesting war museum where there is a display like at the Canberra war museum of Gallipoli however this is from the Turkish side and you can see the Aussie diggers coming up the hill and the Australian ships in the harbour.

We then visited Haci Bektas to visit the tomb of Moslem Sufi philosopher and spiritual leader who gave his name to the town. A very ordinary building on the outside however very beautiful on the inside. They also believe the water is holy here and people come and collect the water as they do in Lourdes in France.

 

On the way on the drive after lunch it started to snow, yes snow. The average temperature for the most of the day was 7 but during this part of the drive and at the tomb it was only 3. It was still snowing when we were at the tomb. This is very unusual and the locals can't believe it is snowing in October. I did not think snow was going to be an optional extra when I booked this trip. It is going to make the balloon ride very cold if the weather improves so we can go up on Sunday.

We arrive at our hotel just after 4.30pm so this gave us a little time to get some washing done before a few of us went out to see the Whirling Dervish Ceremony. This was very interesting experience, how they twirl for that long and stay standing I don't know. The ceremony is the inspiration of Mevlan Celaleddini-i Rumi 1207-1273 as well as part of Turkish custom, history, beliefs, and culture. Sema has 7 parts and each part symbolizes a stage of the mystic journey to perfection called ascension (Mirac). While whirling their arms open their right hand is directed towards the sky to receive Gods beneficence, their left hand turns down toward the earth and twirl right to left pivoting around the heart to embrace all of humankind and all of creation with affection and love. It is a state of what is called Nirvana in Buddhism and Fenafillah in Islam and the aim is a realization of submission to God. The boys start doing this around 10 years old and they do it every day. That is what I call dedication to your religion.

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After the ceremony we headed back to the hotel for dinner, blogging and chill time ready for tomorrows adventure. We have 2 nights here in Cappadocia, pure luxury. The temperature tonight is meant to be -1 so who knows maybe more snow overnight.

Our guide is a very interesting person and tells us many stories during our drives. Today he  talked about social issues in Turkey. They do not have an aging population problem here (probably because they all smoke heavily) as 68% of the population are under 28, they estimate by 2016 they will need another 2 million condos. Nothing wrong with the building industry here. This explains the odd condo buildings we see in the middle of nowhere, new suburbs of the big towns one day I guess.

 

Fairy chimneys tomorrow so until then J&N.

Day 19 - Bursa to Anakara

Another wet and cold morning as we set off to visit the Tomb of Sultan and the Green Mosque. The Green Mosque is very beautiful and the caretaker into one of the side rooms which even our guide hadn't been in before and read the scriptures that are written in religious Arabic. Interestingly again even though 99% of the population are Muslim they do not teach Arabic in the schools and only a very few can read the religious Arabic. The scriptures talk about love you should love others, not harm others, not lying to the others and if you do you do it to the world etc. The words were very beautiful shame that some choose not to follow them.

After our visit we headed to a Cumalikizik Village but as it was raining the locals had not come out with their wears so we didn't stay long. It was a very quaint village with wooden homes and cobble stone streets.

We stopped for lunch on our long drive to Anakara stopping at the burial mound of the Phrygian King Midas with the original 'golden touch'. The tomb is amazing, the wooden structure they built to make the tomb is still in very good condition and his skeleton was apparently also complete even though it is around 700BC. They used to build a wooden tomb and cover it with dirt creating a huge mound, around the area you can see many of these mounds creating an odd man made landscape of small hills. We visited the small museum which contained the finds from the excavations from the Gordion Village near by.

The drive into Anakara is fascinating. They build these huge condos in the middle of nowhere and there is hundreds of them. They have a co-op system here as it is the only way they can afford their own homes. The condo buildings are usually all exactly the same and there could be ten in a group and then several groups together. It is there location that is confusing, they seem to be just condos on top of a hill, no infrastructure around them, just condos and lots of them. As you drive into Anakara which is the capital of Turkey it is just mind blowing the amount of huge high rise condos, businesses and shopping centres. Four million people live here and the size of the place is astonishing.

The weather is better in Anakara thank goodness as at one stage it was 6 degrees when we were in the mountains. At least here it is 18 and not raining. Nearly time for dinner so until tomorrow J&N.

Day 18 - Istanbul to Bursa

We woke up to a wet miserable day today so our tour director decided to put off our cruise of the Bosphros until we come back to Istanbul in a couple of weeks. After navigating some very busy traffic we visited the Haghia Shophia. The traffic is worse than anything I have experienced in Asia. The Site is now a museum first it was a Christian church for 1000 years then converted to a mosque for 480 years. It is interesting to see the two religions combined in this one building. 

Istanbul is huge and the Europe side seems to be a lot poorer than the Asian side. We drove through both continents and saw some depressing and also some wonderful sites. Although Turkey is 99% Muslim it is illegal to wear a turban/headscarf if you are working in a public service, school, university, police etc. you also cant be married in a mosque it is illegal. In the past 85 years they have change from Islamic law and calendar etc which apparently 80% of the population are now happy with. 

We drove to Iznick, famous biblical Nicaea and on route stopped for lunch. We caught the ferry across the Bay of Izmit which took about 40 minutes. The First Council of Nicaea was the first ecumenical council of the Church. Most significantly, it resulted in the first, uniform Christian doctrine, called the Creed of Nicaea.

 

 

In Bursa we visited the Grand Mosque before strolling around the Grand Bazar. Bursa was once the capital city of the Ottoman Empire. All up today we travelled 240km. Our hotel is very nice and has hot springs and a Turkish Bath. Dinner was wonderful, a selection of Turkish dips and meze dishes.

 

 

Early stat tomorrow as we drive 400km to Ankara. J&N 

Day 17 - Greece to Turkey

Today the weather has turned and it is cool and very, very windy in Santorini. We have been very lucky with the weather in Greece around 30+ everyday but it looks like it will be cooler in Turkey.

After breakfast we said farewell to Flora and ARC Houses and headed for the airport. Very busy and very inefficient system at the airport but finally we left the beautiful Greek Islands and headed for Athens. After a delay taking off and delay when we landed we finally made it to Istanbul, Turkey. I thought Barcelona was big until I saw this city, 15 million people live in Istanbul.

Very nice hotel with big rooms but the view is only the city streets and not what we have become used to in Greece. We met our tour leader Orhan and got the rundown for the week the headed for dinner in the hotel pizzeria.

Thought we would have an early night and catch-up on emails etc before we start our two week tour. Tomorrow we see a few sights of Istanbul before we head to Bursa once the capital city of the Ottoman Empire.

Until tomorrow J&N 

Day 16 - Santorini

This morning we woke up to a windy overcast day that didn't look good for diving. We had breakfast and it started to look a little better but not much. Donna, Noel and I headed off to meet Kostas our dive boat operator and the day was starting to look better. By the time we got to the dive shop Aegean Divers the sun was shinning. We got kitted out at the shop the headed down to Vlichada Port. It  is hard to put on a 5mm wet suit I can tell you when you are a bit sweaty to being with, they are not easy to get on. We met a fellow Aussie Mark from Victor Harbour who will also be on our flight to Athens tomorrow, small world.  We also had some people Noel met at the pool diving as well who are from France.

By the time we got to the harbour it was another magnificent day thank goodness. We boarded the boat which is a good size and has a canopy which is great, no baking in the sun. Our first dive was on Perissa Rock 1 which was max depth 25 meters and we dived for 38 mins. The water is very clear and so blue it is like blue loo has been added. They say the water is 24 but I think more like 20 as it was rather fresh going down the wet suit. The sea scape is much like the land scape, not too much life. We did see a groper, eel, nudiebranch, fish that look a bit like sweep and leather jackets.

After a mixture of snacks and surface break we did our second dive at Perissa Rock 2. This dive had much more fish and interesting rock formations to explore. We dive for about. 35 mins and got to around 16 meters. Although I was a bit cold on this dive I enjoyed the crystal clear blue water and now I can say 'dive Greek islands', there is no way the water is 24.

Got back to our villa and had a bite to eat before a well deserved shower, swim for Noel and then had better start to look a packing the suitcase as we leave Greece tomorrow for Turkey.

We watched our final Santorini sunset from our balcony before walking into Fira for dinner.
 

Day 15 - Santorini

Today we visited the Prehistoric City of Akrotiri at the southern end of the island. The city dates from the first phase of the late bronze age 1650-1500BC. Cycladic finds indicate the area was continuously inhabited from the middle Neolithic period of the 5th millennium BC.

The city was covered in deposits of volcanic material and over thirty buildings have been located in the 1.2 hectares. The site is protected by a very impressive bio climatic shelter and four of the buildings have been explored as fully as possible and the finds can be found in the museum.
 

 

After exploring the amazing site we took the walk along the coast to the red beach. Everything here is red from the rocks, cliffs and the red sand on the beach. We decided to get the bus back to Fira for lunch which consisted of another yummy gyros in the central square.

After lunch Noel and I took the local bus to Oia which was in the middle ages a castle fortresses erected by the Venetians. You can still see the castle walls and cobble stone paths. Now Oia is know for its Captains Houses, Chapels and dwellings carved in the rock. It is also the spot nearly every tourist comes to see the famous Santorini sunset.

We headed back on the local bus to the room to chill for a while and maybe a swim stopping to get supplies from the mini mart on the way. Managed to organise a double dive for tomorrow so really looking forward to that.
 

 

We walked to a local restaurant for the famous moussaka for dinner. There

is a very mystical feel about tonight as the steam from the volcano is coming up over the cliff face which is rather amazing.
 

Until tomorrow J&N