A Portfolio
The work and adventures of Dwayne Hodgson,
+ Learning Designer & Facilitator at learningcycle.ca
+ Storyteller & Photographer @ thataway.ca
September 16 to December 3, 2014.
Here is the itinerary of our travels in Turkey: aApproximately 3,800 km by ferry, bus, minibus, cable car, metro, funicular, tramway, car and a flight from Antalya to Istanbul (not shown on the map).
December 3, 2014
Here are few shots from our last days in Istanbul, including a visit with our friends, Derek and Leia Spencer, and their kids, Logan, Corgan and Gavin; short boat trip up the Bosphorous (towards the Black Sea) and some more random street scenes.
I met a man on the bridge who was also taking pictures with his phone on the way home from work. "I've lived here for over 20 years," he said sighing as in love, "and there is always something amazing to see".
Indeed. A la prochaine!
Some places that we've been in Turkey. Click to enlarge the map.
It is hard to imagine, but after 11 weeks and 3,500 km of bus, car, dolmus, kayak, balloon, bicycle, paraglide and plane travel, we are about to wind up our travels in Turkey.
It has been really amazing to have a significant chunk of time to hang out here, but in the end, we really only saw a bit of Western Turkey, and most of those places had been well-beaten by tracking tourists.
Then again, Turkey has a lot of amazing of places and millions of people come here for a reason. But I feel like we've made a good "downpayment" and that we've left a few things to see in case we can come back here again.
To reflect on what we've done and learned, I challenged Tricia and the kids to name their Top Ten Experiences in Turkey.
Here is what they came up with. Click on the buttons below the photos to see our lists.
In reflecting on our travels in Turkey, we're all writing our Top Ten Lists. (Click here to read the lists by Tricia, Zoe and Isaac). Here -- drum roll please! -- is my own top ten list (but in no particular order):
Okay, that was eleven, and some of those items are admittedly combos.....But we did a lot more than I can list here, so you'll have to go back and read all about it on the blog.
In early December, we head off to Tanzania for a similar length of time. Tricia and I lived there between 1998 and 2002, but we've only ever visited briefly for work since, so this will be a bit of homecoming for us. We are also planning to do some volunteering with our former employer there, so it will be a bit of a change of pace from all of our touristing here in Turkey. But we do hope to take the kids to see some of the amazing sights in Tanzania.
I'm hoping that my Swahili will come back and not entirely displace the French that I learned here in Turkey, as we'll need this again later on in our trip. Mais, nous allons voir / tutaona / we'll see.
As we wrap up our time in Turkey, each of us has drafted a Top Ten List of things that we enjoyed doing here.
Here a list from our youngest Road Scholar, Isaac:
As part of our last week in Istanbul, we're all writing down a list of things that we liked in Turkey. Here is my Top Ten list:
Tricia in her blog post debut!
As our time in Turkey comes to a close, each of us has written a Top Ten List of things that we enjoyed doing. Here is mine:
1. Swimming off of boats in the Mediterranean Sea in Bodrom and near Knidos.
1. Going on a Hot Air Balloon ride in Cappadocia
November 8-24, 2014 / Near Antalya, Turkey
In planning our stay in Antalya, we were pleased to find a farm via the TaTuTa website where we could WWOOF ("Willing Workers on Organic Farms") in exchange for room and board. Even better, our hosts were from France and have two kids! Formidable!
Charlotte and Guillaume have farmed here for nearly ten years, and both also work part-time teaching French at a local university. The food they produce is all for their own consumption, and we were delighted to help them harvest and eat oranges, pomegranates, mandarins and lots of fresh vegetables from their garden.
Our WOOFING work during our two week stay has included:
After three months of travelling, the chance to do some physical work has been oddly refreshing. Now, I am not just Odysseus, doomed to wander in exile. No! I am Hercules heroically completing his labours by the strength of his will and might, watering the soil with my manly sweat!
In the evenings, I am working my way through Turkish Nobel laureate, Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red, a murder mystery set in the 16th Century Ottoman Empire. Each chapter is told from the perspective of different characters or creatures -- living and dead -- and even objects, and it is never clear until the last chapter who the murder is. Many of the human characters serve as illustrators and calligraphers in the workshop of the Sultan, and their accounts are full of esoteric discourses on the relative aesthetic and moral merits of of Islamic vs. Frankish /Infidel art.
The book is hard slogging at times -- Pamuk breaks every rule of plain language and delights in constructing elaborate discourses and tangential accounts of historical events that can run for pages, even as the as-yet--unnamed culprit is holding a knife to the hero's throat. But having invested 400 pages of my life into this book, and still not knowing who'd-done-it, I had to finish it. (Spoiler alert: It wasn't the butler).
For millions of years, I have been minding my own business, such that I have, bearing the slow erosion of time that rounds my edges and polishes my surface to a smooth patina. Each grain from my body became soil and my gifts of calcium, potassium, phosphorus, and magnesium feed countless, thankless plants around me. The lithospheric cycle that began so many million years ago in a flurry of heat and pressure finally catalyzes a burst of photosynthesis, nourishes the breakfast of some lucky mammal, and returns again to the earth in a steaming pile. Some of my relatives may have been chosen by a so-called "ancient" Greek sculptor who chipped away at their edges to reveal the god within, but I, humble farmyard stone that I am, have been content enough to lie here amidst the detritus and ungrateful humous of those who dwell above.
Until now: the indelicate interruption of the pick, the furious hacking of the shovel and the disorientation of flight precedes my abrupt clanking amongst my fellow rocks amidst the rusty din of the wheelbarrow. We hurl headlong down the track, helpless against the pinning force of inertia.
A further indignity follows as I am tossed through the air and I thud against the hard face of the earth, pieces and grains chipping off me as I crash into the limestone nearby. I am then crammed against my comrades along the fence line. and here I will again sit undisturbed for millennia, except for the rude-interjections of urinating dogs and desperate chickens longing for escape into some dangerous unknown world beyond the safe haven that is this farm.
Some day, in the distant future, the tourists will come in their levitating otobuses wearing their plaid, leisure space suits and say: "Mais oui! That is Hodgson's Wall. It was built to last a thousand years."
Staying with two French teachers, bien sur, means that one must, quoi? parle francais, non? Charlotte and Guillaume turn out to be very patient teachers and let us natter on with only the most critical and timely corrections. Zoe and Trish are lapping this up, and Isaac is starting to understand more than we had expected.
Moi? Well, I'm doing my best to uncover the buried vocabulary and grammar that lies somewhere under the bedrock of my left frontal lobe. Shards of my previous attempts to learn French are uncovered as I dig deeper looking for the right word while the conversing winds blow by me. I do my best to catch up, but get caught on an unfamiliar verb or conjugation and then completely miss the next sentence.
By the end of the day, my brain hurts and I console myself in the generous vocabulary lessons of our hosts: Bordeaux, Merlot, Cabernet-Sauvignon, Pinot Noir...... The garnet elixir loosens my leaden tongue and makes me believe that for even for just a moment, je peux parler le français.
"Would you like to give a lecture at the university?" Guillaume asked me the second evening.
"Who ....me?" I asked incredulously. "Give a lecture? About what?"
"Canadian politics, of course. My French language students are very interested in this topic. And as someone from Canada, they would consider you an "Usta" (expert). You could present in French for a small group of twenty or perhaps in English for maybe fifty or so. I'll talk to the students and set it up."
Gulp. Another sip of courage. "Sure....," I say. This certainly wasn't something that I had expected to do while WWOOFIng, mais pourquoi pas?
In the end, the students are busy preparing for exams this week, so they instead offer to interview me in English and post their video on their international-affairs website. The camera rolls as I give forth my considered opinions on Arctic sovereignty, the state of political discourse in Canada, immigration, my fellow citizens' probable amusement at ever being considered a potential super-power -- how, unCanadian! -- and the petro-fixation of our own Dear Sultan, He Who Shall Not Be Ashamed.
But I dodge the final question on press freedom, lest I extend my stay in Turkey inadvertently. Instead, I share how Canadians also face challenges in ensuring freedom of expression, access to information and democratic engagement: the gagging of federally-funded scientists and civil servants; the surveillance of private communication; the refusal to answer questions in the House of Commons, in press conferences, or to respond to access to information requests; the utter contempt displayed for refugees; the termination of the long-form Census that renders all subsequent data and surveys suspect; the auditing of civil society groups that might dare to criticize the oil-at-all-costs platform; and the utter denial of the existential threat of climate change.....But of course, I am free to voice my opinion freely, albeit it as a part-time dissident in a foreign land. Happy am I who can call myself Canadian.
Until now, I am still uncertain as to what happened. One minute I was contentedly scratching the ground, picking up a morsel or two of bugs and seeds, and enjoying the souvenirs of fine, French meals that land periodically in the middle of the yard. The next, I am floating somewhere above my feathered body, gazing back upon my recently-off-shuffled, mortal coil as I enter into the limbo of Bazarkh to contemplate my sins before the Day of Judgement.
Was it the cruel fangs of that foul hound of hell that dispatched me? Or some stealthy malady acquired from the drinking of rainwater next to the pen? Or perhaps it was a jinn brought to the household by those Infidels who arrived last week? Those Frankish fools who couldn't even speak a word of proper Turkish and who mocked our noble dialect with their high-pitched gobble, gobble, gobble. I will never know the identity of the culprit who did me in, but forever in Paradise I will speak of how happy I was to be one who could call myself a turkey.
I have always been uncomfortable with the title, "tourist". For me, it evokes an image of a middle-aged man with a loud shirt and a camera around his neck complaining about how the food / service / transport / scenery / whatever is not as good as it is "back home". I prefer the term, "traveller" because after all, my shirt is a boring grey.
At the same time, we can't help but enjoy some of the local touristic sites near Antalya, and we make the most of our time by visiting the local museum with its splendiferous sculptures of Ancient Greek gods and goddesses; ascending one of the rock faces of the local sports climbing area; and partaking in that most-ancient-yet-now-primarily-touristic-of-Turkish-experiences, a bath in a six-hundred-year-old Ottoman hamman. Towards the end of our stay, we also made a pilgrimage to Aphrodisias, another ancient Greek-Roman city high in the mountains, and splashed about the geological curiosity of Pamukkale (Cotton Castle), a series of cascading, calcite rock formations and hot springs. All wondrous things that are well worth the trip.
Frap frap frap frap frap.....the wooden spoon hits one half of me and I spew out my seeds into the bowl, staining the table with the deep red-purple of my life blood.
The colour is reminiscent of sunsets in distant lands, the robes of royalty, the glint of Merlot in the sommelier's glass, the deep tone of garnet set in the stones of the rings made for the concubines in the harems of the Sultan, and the blood of the martyrs spilled upon the battlefields of Persia, Babylon, Gallipoli, and throughout so much of Anatolia.
The Infidel children submit me to further humiliation as they tromp, tromp, tromp and squish my last drops between their toes and gleeful giggling.
The next moment, I feel my essence being poured into the scalding cauldron, the smell of eucalyptus smoke augmenting my potency as I release my tearful prayers to the heavens. In my reduction, I grow stronger, thicker, sweeter.
Soon I shall grace the salads of the Sultans, or perhaps provide succour/ sucre to the indomitable Gauls residing in Antalya and the next weary travellers who labour heroically chez eux.
October 31 - November 7, 2014 / Cappadocia
All the leaves were brown, and the sky was grey. Not a great start to our time in Cappadocia, I thought. Flat light makes for dull pictures and I was hoping to take some good shots of the stunning geological features here. It was also quite cool up here at 1200 m above sea level: around 5 Celsisus in the evenings.
So we made the best of the so-so weather by visiting two underground cities where communities of Christians (AD 400 to 1300) used to hide from marauding invaders. There are reportedly about 100 underground cities in the area, some of which go down as far as 8 stories and which could shelter as many 20,000 people for up to 6 months. The kids had a great time exploring the tunnels and rooms where people used to cook, make wine and worship in subterranean chapels.
We went for a walk on a winter's day....Well, okay it was not quite winter, but certainly very fall-like, and we went for a walk in the Ihlara Valley. It was great to be tromping through crunchy leaves again, and we stopped into some of the 105 rock churches we passed on the way. Many of these churches had frescoes on the ceilings and walls depicting stories from the Old and New Testaments.
We also took some hikes (and got a bit turned around) among the fairy chimneys and crazy rocks of the Red, Rose and Pigeon valleys. As mon beau pere explained, the basalt tops protected the softer, volcanic "tuff" rock below from eroding. The rain has also cut some really sharp valleys into the rocks, and as we found out, it was really easy to lose the main path.
(Click here for the standalone gallery, Cappadocia On the Ground)
The, uh, high point of our visit to Cappadocia, however, was taking a hot air balloon ride at dawn. Seeing the rock formations from 6,000 feet (about 2000 m) was awesome, but it was also really neat to see close to 50 balloons all around us.
(Click on the pics to see them up close or on Cappadocia Aloft).
October 15-30 / Fethiye, Turkey
Because we are travelling for the better part of a year, we're trying the "slow travel" approach. That is, staying for longer in a few locations vs. rushing off to different destinations each night. That would just be two hard on the kids, and frankly, not a pace that we can keep up anymore.
Our longest stint so far has been two recent weeks in the seaside town of Fethiye, Turkey. We found a nice flat via Air BnB just north of town, this time with actual water in the pool, and only half a kilometre from the sea. The apartment had a kitchen so we could self-cater, and a full selection of Russian, Somaliland and Uzbeki TV channels, but no WIFI :-(
Fethiye is an odd place in that it draws a lot of tourists from the UK who come on packaged holidays or who own vacation flats (apartments) in the area. The annual British invasion has given rise to a plethora of Anglophile shops and restaurants: I have never seen the words "British" and "cuisine" together before, never mind sidewalk boards advertising Premier League football matches, Proper English Breakfasts, and "mushy peas".
But as the end of October marks the end of the tourist shoulder season, the shops and pubs were emptying out and our neighbourhood was starting to look decidedly lonely. On the plus side, we never needed a reservation for anything, and there was never a shortage of mushy peas.
We also enjoyed a visit from Trish's Dad, Frederick Wind, who flew down from Istanbul to visit us in Fethiye for a few days, before we drove up to Cappadocia together. (BTW: It has been great to have someone from home join us. Hint! Open invitation!).
But although we slowed down a bit by sleeping in the same place, we kept busy seeing the sites around Fethiye. This included:
swimming swam several times in the Aegean / Mediterranean Sea -- we're were never quite sure which it was, but it was often very, very blue);
renting bikes to tour around this odd little British colony of Çalis Beach;
visiting the Lycian tombs up the hill behind Fethiye and the Lycian ruins at Xanthos, Letton and Patara -- the Lycians were forerunners of the Greeks who had a nasty habit of committing mass suicide when cornered by invading armies, but they also organized what is recognized as the first democratic government;
sea kayaking from Olüdeniz Bay to Butterfly Valley with Dean, our guide Seven Capes, who heroically retrieved our #thataway flag;
visiting the former Greek / Christian community of Kayakôy, the town that was abandoned during the euphemistically named "population exchange" between Turkey and Greece. Kayaköy also provided the setting for Louis des Bernières' novel, Birds Without Wings, a novel that has helped me make sense of a few things we've seen here;
hiking 6 km along an old, old trail from Kayakôy over the headland to Olüdeniz;
visiting a sea turtle rescue sanctuary;
meeting with the cousin-of-the-father-of-the-minister-of-Zoe's-godfather who runs a yacht leasing company in Goçek;
listening to some live, traditional music at a nearby restaurant in a large open air tent;
para-gliding (me) from the Babadug mountain, some 1960 metres down to the sea at Olüdeniz Beach-- very cool!
visiting the Sunday farmers market in Çalis;
checking out a Turkish delight factory outlet store;
tromping through two canyons / gorges a few clicks from here;
watching a few Premier League football games at the local British pubs.
We also celebrated Hallow'een a bit early since we were going to be on road on the 31st. As far as we coudl tell, Hallow'een is not celebrated in Turkey, but we carved up two pumpkins that we bought at the local market and the kids, Trish and Fred all dressed up as Greek heroes and gods/goddesses, complete with togas and olive-leaf laurels. The kids then dutifully trick or treated to our door -- we are only one of two apartments with occupants still here b -- and she gave them chips, a chocolate bar and some tahini (sesame) halva. Not a really big haul of candy by Canadian standards, but the kids were really good sports about it.
Of course, two weeks in one place also produced a lot of photos. But instead of deluging you on this page, you can click on the icons below to view each gallery:
Fethiye
Kayaköy to Olüdeniz
Lycian Ruins @ Xanthos, Letoon & Patara
October 14-16, 2014 / Marmaris, Turkey
When we last left our intrepid travellers, they were escaping the tourist trap that is Bodrum for Marmaris...
It took us a few seconds to realize that the loud grinding sound was the rear axle of the bus scraping along the pavement. By that time, the bus driver had managed to pull over to the side of the highway as we watched one of the two rear wheels continue its journey towards Marmaris without us.
We've taken lots of buses in our time in Tanzania, and we've had plenty of tires blowout, but that was the first time that I've ever been on a bus that has lost a wheel.
Having safely pulled the bus over to the side of the road, the driver did what any self-respecting Turkish bus driver would do: he smoked a cigarette while talking on his cell phone. Within 20 minutes, we were crammed into the aisle of another company's mini-bus until the next town, and then ushered onto a third bus for the remainder of the trip.
The kids seemed to take all of this drama quite well, but the delay meant that we missed our 1 pm car rental and had to settle for a short evening drive down the Datca Peninsula. The next day, however, we set out on a 2-hour rolller-coaster-road-ride down the peninsula to the ancient Greek city of Knidos,.
Of course, no visit to an ancient site in Turkey is complete with out a stop at the restaurant next door -- I have never seen so many restaurants anywhere before -- so we enjoyed some kebabs and mesa's (cold appetizers) for lunch. Then, we heard a familiar voice: Dave, the Aussie, walked up the steps! They had moored their rented catamaran at the harbour, and were coming in for a bite to eat.
"Of all the cay joints in all the world, and you had to walk to mine," I said.
Okay, I didn't actually say that, but I wish I had thought of that at the time. That, or "Dr. Stringer, I presume", but I should probably save that line for Africa, come to think of it.
But back to the story.....
The four kids hung out together as Trish and I took a look around the ruins of Knidos- an ancient fortified city of 70,000 people -- and then Dave and Nikki took us out for a ride on their boat. We headed east under sail power, and then went for a swim in another crystal-blue bay. But as we were returned upwind to Knidos under engine power, the wind suddenly blew up and the waves started crashing into the hull of the catamaran and through the open port holes.
"Batten down the hatches!" I helpfully cried. I've always wanted to say that. As a non-sailor, I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it seemed like the right thing to say in this situation.
A mad scramble ensued.
Ten minutes and 20 litres of water on Jessica's bunk later, we forged on westward, fearlessly into the winds. After a quick round of happy birthday and some freshly-baked-on-board, cupcakes to celebrate Jessica's 7th birthday, we landed safely on shore and drove the twisty roads back to Marmaris.
So, as it turns out, had the wheels not fallen off the bus, we may not have had this little adventure. It just goes to show you the value of being open to what happens, and how sometimes, something bad can lead to something unexpected and great.
Fair winds, dear Stringers!
History / photography / zoology class in Izmir, Turkey
As we were planning to take this year off, the second question that everyone asked was “So…uh….what will the kids do for school while travelling?”
Given that Zoe and Isaac are 11 and 8 respectively, we figured that it would be enough for the children to focus on their 3R’s: -- Reading, wRiting and aRithmetic – with the rest of the time spent travelling internationally they’d naturally be immersed in geography, history, social studies, archaeology, phys-ed and ecology. We also wanted Zoe to keep up her French so that she can rejoin the Grade 7 immersion program, so we're planning to spend some time in France and Morocco.
To make sure that we were on track, we met with both kids’ teachers last spring to get their advice. Both of them said they were excited that the kids had an opportunity to travel, and they were both surprisingly chill about how much we “covered the curriculum”. “Just make sure that they don’t get too far ahead,” one quipped. They also pointed us towards the provincial curriculum objectives, and also suggested a few online resources that we could incorporate (e.g. IXL Math, Duolingo, Khan Academy, Brainpop).
We also checked in with Tricia’s sister, Heather, and her cousin, Sandra, who have both home-schooled kids up through high school. “Don’t worry too much about structure,” Sandra said. “They’ll be fine.”
But as someone who is never one to worry about things – especially structure! – I did a bit more research on how to “road school” kids. It seems that most vagabond families either:
So far, we’ve used a mixture of 3 & 4, designing topical learning task designs as we go, and drawing upon the “teachers,” we meet and the “generative themes” from where we travel. For example:
Turkish history is on a roll....
Now that we've been in Turkey for just over six weeks, we’re finding that 2-3 hours of “road schooling” per day is about what we can manage and realistically, probably all that they need. Without taking time to get the bus to school, line up at the bell, take off and put on layers of clothes (Oh, Canada!), wait for teachers or on other kids, etc. they can get a lot school work done in a short time.
Other days, the program is much less structured, either because we're travelling, or because there are things to do that are just too cool for “school”. In the past few weeks, they have:
Some days it feels like we’re in an episode of the Magic School Bus…
Of course, the kids are picking up some informal skills too, like how to improvise as the days unfold, how to buy groceries in a foreign language, and that well, Mom and Dad don’t always know where they are, never mind how to get back to our current "home"…..
On the plus side, I love the challenge of designing lessons on the fly, and the creative challenge imposed by the constraints and unique opportunities of each place that we stay. And we’ve also appreciated that they kids, by and large, have played along, and taken these lessons in stride.
However, we’ve also found that road-schooling requires a fair bit of time and planning (duh!), and that the kids pretty much need constant supervision lest they get distracted by the closest iThing. As well, on the days that we don’t have easy access to the Internet, it is harder to capitalize on those spontaneous learning moments and questions like “Is seawater more salty in bays? Who would be the Greek god for soccer” Finding enough English, children's books in Turkey has also been challenging, but thankfully we can usually download e-books from the public libraries when we have WIFI.
It is also clear that Zoe and Isaac really miss the social side of learning with other kids. It might be the places that we're going, the time of year or the fact that Turkish kids tend to go to "cram schools" after their regular classes, but we've met very few children on our trip so far. Both kids have been real troopers so far, but we’re still hoping that we can check in periodically with their friends at school back in Ottawa. Stay tuned...
October 6 - 13, 2014 / Bodrum - Bitez, Turkey
From Izmir, we headed south by otobus to the city of Bodrum, and then took the dolmus (local minibus) to the nearby town of Bitez. The area is famous throughout Europe as a package holiday and yacht destination, and you'll see signs everywhere in English, German, Dutch and Russian.
The beaches typically have deck chairs right down to the water's edge, and then local restaurants and bars that serve Turkish and international food for double what we'd paid in other towns. We spent a few afternoons at the beach, and our road-schooling those days consisted of calculating the ratios of skin to tattoos to bathsuits -- on average 10:8:1 -- as well as the impressive degree of sunburn that the average European tourist can achieve of the course of a 7-day holiday.
Okay, I've never been much of a beach guy, but it was nice to take a dip and watch Trish and the kids actually float (in the saltwater). We also went on two interesting excursions:
Through an American that we met on the train back from Ephesus (Hi, Brant!), also met up with an Australian family who are also travelling through Europe. It was great to connect with David, Nikki, Rex and Jessica, and we even had them over to "our house" for dinner one night.
Due to a couple of snags with the Air BnB apartment that we were renting -- Note to self: Turkish swimming pools are drained in early October -- we elected to leave Bitez a day early. This decision, as we later learned, would be very significant......
Oh no! a cliff hanger! My kids hate that when I tell them bed time stories. Stay tuned...
In the meantime, here are some pictures from Bitez & Bodrum. Roll the tape, Stan.....
September 28 - October 6, 2014 /
Izmir & Area, Turkey
Early this month, we enjoyed a visit to Izmir, Turkey's third largest city. We stayed in Alsancak ("Al-sahn-jack") a vibrant part of town with a very hipstering pedestrian street -- imagine Spark Street in Ottawa with real people instead of zombies.
Izmir, we were told, has always rowed it's own boat due in part to its Greek heritage (née Smyrna -- it's in Revelations, people!) and a large European presence, including the influential Levantine community that has been doing business in Izmir since the 1700's.
And through some Ottawa connections, we had the pleasure of meeting Brian, the cousin of the father of the minister of the godfather of our daughter, Zoe, who had us over for coffee at the family house in Boranova, Izmir. Their family's home is one of 30 Levantine homes in the neighbourhood, and is complete with an English garden that the kids enjoyed playing in.
Brian also drove us down to see the seaside town of Çesme, where we enjoyed a memorable cuppa Earl Grey on the back deck of his boat. He even directed us to his favourite saltwater hot spring near the harbour, and treated us to a great meal on the way back to town. Many thanks! In Çesme, we also took a tour of the Ottoman castle.
While we were based in Izmir, we also visited the site of Ancient Ephesus (It's in Revelations, people, and in uh, the Letter to the Ephesians, and Acts too), and paid a visit to the ancient town of Smyrna's Agora and road the bus down from that city's old Ottoman castle, the Kadifekale.
Here are a few, okay a bunch, of snapshots from that week of the trip. Cheers!
In which our Road Scholars, Zoë and Isaac, report live from the Ancient City of Ephesus, near modern-day Selcuk, Turkey.
Ephesus was a Greco-Roman city that was founded in the 10th Century BC. People lived there until around 700 AD when it was abandoned.
On the right is a simple map of the Ephesus site (click on the map to enlarge it).
Archaeologists believe that the excavated ruins are only about 20% of the original city.
Road Scholar, Isaac Wind
The Theatre at Ephesus
Up to 25,000 people could sit in this theatre in Ephesus, which is bigger then TD place in Ottawa, but smaller then Wembley stadium in London. At the Theatre my Mom & I saw some Dutch people singing hymns. Back in the day when there were no microphones, people would just talk ( not yell) at the bottom of the theatre and everyone could hear them. Amazing, eh?
An exhibit of the archaeological excavation of the Terrace Houses at Ephesus
There were 6 "Terrace Houses" where wealthier citizens of Ephesus lived. The houses were stacked up the side of the hill. The houses had heating, running water, and bath tubs. The floors were made out of marble and the walls were made of stones. There were mosaics of Greek mythology on some of the walls. Now archaeologists are studying the houses under a big shelter. If the houses weren't made out of stone, and not in ruins, I might like to live in one of these houses.
The facade of the Library of Celsus
The Celsus Library could hold up to 12,000 scrolls, and keep them safe from heat and humidity.It was the third largest Library in the Ancient World.
Zoe reading on her Kobo and Isaac reading "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" in the Celsus Library.
Zoe, Hat Acrobat
Celsus Library facade
The Goddess Nike -- look for the swoosh!
The Celsus Library had a cool facade, but interior was not so cool because the scrolls were no longer there and the stone work was way less intricate.
There was a marble frieze of the goddess Nike (left), who was the goddess of victory, (not running shoes).
There were two amphitheatres:
The acoustics in the large amphitheatre were so good that If someone were to stand on the stage and project their voice a bit, they could be heard by every member of the audience, provided there was not to much back-round noise.
Here are a few more photos that we took while in Ephesus.
September 25-28, 2014 / Canakkale & Gallipoli, Turkey
We recently enjoyed three nights in the town of Canakkale (pronounced "Cha-nak-kah-leh", with an "cedi" on the first C, natch).
Canakkale is on the Dardanelles, the waterway that connects the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas with the Sea of Marmara and then the Black Sea (via the Bosphorous at Istanbul). It is a much smaller and calmer city than Istanbul, which worked well since the kids were ready for a break.
Historically, Canakkale is notable for two wars:
1. The Trojan War as described in Homer's Iliad and as seen on TV.
Unfortunately, because the weather was wet, we didn't make it out to the actual site of ancient Troy. Instead, we went to the Canakkale Archaeology Museum, which houses a number of the artifacts that weren't looted by the Russians. For a long time, academics believed that the battle of Troy was merely part of the vast volumes of Greek mythology, what with its interplay of gods, beauty-pageant goddesses and muscled heroes who wouldn't look of place in a modern WWE contest. But excavations by Indiana Jones type treasure hunters and later more careful academics fond that there were actually seven Troys, all piled upon one another like so many layers of historical sediment.
Was there actually a Trojan horse? Sure! I've seen several around here (see the photos).
2. The Gallipoli Campaign of World War 1 in which the Ottoman Empire successfully defended Turkey from an invasion by the combined forces of the British, French, Australian, New Zealand and Newfoundland (then a British territory).
We did, however, manage to take a rainy-afternoon tour of some of the WWI cemetery sites on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Our tour guide was extremely knowledgeable, although he had a puzzling way of inserting a rhetorical question into every sentence: "The ANZAC soldiers were pushing up the hill. To where? To the Turkish positions ....".
As he explained, the conditions were brutal for the soldiers on both sides: mud, heat, awful (even by British standards) food, lack of drinking water, lice, extreme cold and frostbite, and of course, intense machine gun fire and shelling -- often between soldiers hunkered down in trenches that were 20 metres apart. Nearly a hundred thousand soldiers -- some say more -- died during the nine months of this battle. Their names are now engraved in dozens of Turkish and Allied memorials throughout the peninsula.
The guide was fairly even-handed in how he told the story, which would be tricky given the significance of the battles for the Turkish people and for the thousands of Aussies and Kiwis who make a pilgrimage here to pay their respects.
The best moment of the day, however, was watching an Aussie tourist taking photos with a group of Turkish students. It made me wonder if their ancestors who fought here would have ever imagined a time, just two generations later, when their descendants would be shooting selfies instead of each other. And if today's soldiers could imagine this, would they still fight?
As our tour guide might say, "May all wars become what? ....Ancient history."
A few more snaps from our week in Istanbul.
On Saturday, I went to the Grand Bazaar and I bought a football jersey (no. 9, Fernand Torres, of Spain).
The owner of the shop asked for 45 TL (about 22 Canadian dollars). After waiting a long time and discussing it with Mom, I then offered him 25 TL. He said yes and he kissed me twice and told me that I was a good businessman.
The next day, I went to a local futsal court. Futsal is like football (soccer), but in a tennis court with screens on the outside, artificial grass and tiny nets. when I got to the footsall court some boys saw my Torres jersey and started saying ''Torres! Torres!'' and I realized they were talking to me. I started to play footsall with then even though I couldn't speak Turkish and they couldn't speak Englesh very well. It was fun.
In which we view two historically-significant and sacred tourist magnets in a desirable neighbourhood.
The Aya Sofia (nee Hagia Sophia) is a massive stone building that has undergone more radical changes than any house on the Home Renovation shows that my dad likes to watch.
It was originally built in Constantinople and consecrated as the Hagia Sophia church by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 537 AD. Subsequently, the building underwent further renovations by earthquakes, Crusaders and iconoclasts who favoured a minimalist ascetic/aesthetic -- each added their own peculiar touches to the layout and facade.
Then in 1534, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II purchased the building in a multiple-offer bidding war -- or more likely just a war -- and he undertook a major renovation to transmogrify it into a mosque. However, he left some of the original Christian mosaics due to its heritage-building designation.
His successor, Sultan Abdul Mecit 1, later oversaw some further upgrades -- you know, new cabinets in the kitchens, radiant floor heating, taking out the aluminum wiring, adding in some massive medallions with Koranic quotes -- in 1847.
Finally in 1935, the first leader of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Attaturk, put a modernist, secular stamp on the building by declaring it a museum. Its current manifestation is a pleasing mix of Byzantine-Ottoman-Modernist with great windows, high ceiling, lots of tile, and close proximity to public transit. All quite a steal for just 30 TL to visit + 20 TL for the audio tour.
Just across from the Aya Sofia on the other side of a massive water feature is the move-in-ready Blue Mosque (a.k.a the Sultan Ahmed Mosque), named after the thousands of blue Iznik tiles that adorn its inside.
Compared to its neighbour, it has a bit more curb appeal because it has not been subject to the redecoration whims of its previous owners. And it also has a more coherent interior-design motif: more of a non-representational, geometric pattern and Koranic calligraphy vibe.
Again there are lots of high ceilings, plenty of stain glass windows and full wall-to-wall carpeting -- please remove your shoes when you come by for a viewing.
Admission is free, but only between prayer times and to those who are appropriately dressed.
Greetings from Istanbul, Turkey.
After flying in-style-in-economy class with Turkish Airlines, we arrived safely on Wednesday afternoon and caught a cab into town. The cab driver responded to the onslaught of "traffic problems" with very pious profanity and several out-of-vehicle tirades at obstructing drivers. Forty minutes later, he gave up on even finding our hotel and suggested that it would be faster to just walk towards.....well....he pointed vaguely to somewhere back behind the traffic problem.
The hotel was actually in the other direction....
We have spent the first few days getting over the cultural shell shock of landing in the heart of the Old City, Sultanahmet and finding our feet again in the New City, Beyoglu. We are grateful for the modest progress of:
Today, Isaac even successfully haggled for his first purchase, using his winsome smile to dicker down the price of a Fernando Torres jersey from 45 TL to 25 TL and winning an affectionate kiss from the proprietor. Our Turkish vocabulary so far consists of 3-4 mangled phrases, so we are grateful for the kindness of local merchants.
My first impression of the city is that it is a marvellous soundscape of cultures, and religions, teeming with pedestrians and small businesses that crowd up the gnarl of streets that are piled on layer upon layers of empires....
....Oh dear, I'm lapsing into competing metaphors. Clearly words fail me. So I'll think that I'll just pour myself a bit more raki and share a few first impressions for now....
