Time is flying as usual

Can't believe it is Wednesday!   The group I am with is pretty good, with a wide range of ages.  Our tour director has lead tours in Turkey for 15 years and for this company for 3 years.  Her name is Ayşegül (Eye- sha-gool) and is from Anatolya but went to University in Istanbul.  I began with the tour on Saturday and it has been non-stop since then.

Our days have been FULL.  I am so glad I am going back to Istanbul, as there is so much to see and at some of the places we went, I went so fast, I didn't get to see all I wanted to.  The highlights in Istanbul were the mosques with all their beautiful tiles, the Bosphorus Cruise and the Topkapi Palace.  (Entrance Gates below)

When I am back there, I will go back to the Palace in order to view the displays of the clothing from the Sultan days.  There is a HUGE pear shaped diamond there, 86 carets, which, as the story goes, was found by a man in a garbage pit.  Not knowing what it was, he traded it to a spoon maker for three spoons.  When the Sultan heard about this stone, he took it for his own and had it cut!  It now sits in the museum at the palace. Of course, no pictures could be taken inside.   Besides this diamond, there are four courtyards, the harem, relics of the Islam religion, a museum of the clothing, a library, etc., etc.!  We walked through the harem rooms with our guide, which really gave us a much better idea of what life was like for the women...the wives, concubines, the mother of the Sultan, etc.  The whole area was gorgeous with the same type of blue Iznik tiles as in the mosques.


We left Istanbul by night train and arrived in Ankara early in the morning.  The museum we were going to wasn't open yet, so we stopped at Starbucks, but I ran across the street to a local place instead and got a latte.  There was a young couple in there, and she wanted to talk to me, but it didn't work as I didn't know French or Turkish and she didn't know English...oh well.

We visited an awesome archeology museum (it had the first "safety pins"!), then went on to Attaturk's mausoleum and museum on the founding of the Republic of Turkey.

Then off we went by bus for 6 hours, with 3 stops (and a nap or two) to the Cappadoccia region of Turkey.  We are staying in a small village of about 2000 people in the land of fairy chimneys -- formations in the rocks made from first a volcano depositing its ash and then the wind, rain and weather altering the shapes.  Then, in some of these cliffs, homes and churches were dug out.  Today we visited the "Gerome open air museum", an area where there had been a monastic settlement.  There were four churches carved into the cliffs with paintings on the walls.  Incredible, but we were not able to take pictures inside.

We then went to another small town where we were greeted by Fariya, a local woman in her 70's who invited us into her home for lunch. Fantastic tomato salad, beans and bulger and then a question and answer session with her afterwards.

We also visited a carpet making cooperative and received a demo on the whole process and of course had the opportunity to purchase carpets afterwards.  I didn't, although it was tempting!

Tonight after our dinner, we were treated to some Turkish folk music in our restaurant with a turkish guitar and drum and a young girl playing the tamborine.  There was an older man in traditional clothing dancing with and for us.  It was great, as I had asked Ayşegül if we were going to hear any folk music and she had said there was nothing scheduled.  She was soooo nice to put that together for us!

When I returned to my room and started to close the curtain, I saw a scorpion on the wall.  Have to say, I was less frightened of it than I was of the snake in the Peruvian jungle.

Off to bed, as I will be getting up early to go up in a hot air balloon ride with the sunrise!