Turkey: 3rd May 2011 to 14th May 2011Total distance travelled: 4,679km
Total days travelled: 27
Turkey accommodation breakdown:
Bushcamps: 2
Campsites: 5
Hostels: 4
We crossed into Turkey from Romania and it was the first properly interesting border crossing. Of course, by interesting, I mean that we sat and played cards on the tarmac for about 5 hours while CJ was on the phone to the ambassador in Ankara. Some problem to do with whether we were a truck or a bus, or perhaps they just didn’t like the look of us?
From there it was a wee drive into Istanbul, taking a wee scenic route over the Golden Horn and back again, getting stuck going the wrong way up a one way street due to a low bridge and causing traffic mayhem!
We were really lucky* to be staying in a fab hostel about 2 mins from Hagia Sofia, the great 4th c Byzantine church/Mosque/museum, but arriving in the dark we just went for a wee meal, with the unexpected bonus of touring a partially excavated 4th c. palace below the restaurant.
The next couple of days were spent tramping round the fantastic city of Istanbul in the rain, which ranged from drizzle to downpour. I’d already been for a long weekend a few years ago so knew where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do, so mostly took off by myself round some of the best places again. Hagia Sofia wowed me even more than last time as, although more full with tourists, the interior scaffolding had all gone and you got a true sense of the amazing scale and beauty of the place. I also revisited the Blue Mosque (beautiful), the Archaeology museum complex (fab), the mosaic museum, the Grand Bazaar, the Museum of Islamic Art, various mausoleums etc.
 |
| Pastries |
 |
| Jim, telling it like it is |
After a few lovely, if damp, days in Istanbul we went off to Goreme which was a bit of an epic trip. Goreme is home to some lovely rock formations called fairy chimneys formed out of soft tuff overlaid with harder rock, but the same soft tuff allowed people to carve houses and churches out of the rock. An added bonus was that the campsite we pulled into had a house cave which most people opted to stay in. However, after a few days staying in the hostel (it’s an entirely different experience sharing a dorm with strangers to people you know) I opted to sleep top side in my tent.
 |
| Euro symbol fail! |
 |
| Cave church |
The hollowed out churches are really amazing, if slightly odd. They’re mostly covered in murals, but they’re very naïve for only being a few hundred years old. Erosion has also taken its toll with many of the front walls having fallen off and some of the old houses have now been converted into dovecotes.
We also went for a dawn balloon ride over the fairy chimneys which was really beautiful. There wasn’t a lot of wind so we didn’t go very far, but the pilot was pretty skilled, managing to fly us very low over some valleys, and landing us in someone’s field. It was nice, but it couldn’t really compare to ballooning over the Serengeti during migration.
 |
| Fairy chimneys |
 |
| There were a couple of other balloons up at the same time |
From there it was off to an underground city which was built for protection in times of siege. It was really claustrophobic inside, with low tunnels connecting 5 different floors over 50m of depth. There were some pretty big rooms carved out including churches, a temporary graveyard, a wine processing area and stables.
 |
| Squint hard enough and you can see Jaws... |
 |
| Take a lot of drugs and you might see a camel |
From there it was a few days of bush camping through the countryside (complete with decomposing cow, massive thunder and lightning, our first real bush toilet (ie hole in the ground), and a smoky campfire) before arriving for a welcome shower at a campsite on a fish farm near the Sumela monastery.
The
Sumela monastery is perched a long walk up a steep hill and is apparently quite stunning. However, after completing the aforementioned long walk/steep hill in the drizzle, we couldn’t see any of the outside and its dramatic clifftop location, and the inside was a little anticlimactic.
 |
| Drizzle |
 |
| Drizzle (for the view without drizzle, please see link |
 |
| Fresco (not really, there's some other technical name) at Sumela monastery |
 |
| Little boy on school trip in silver shiny suit |
 |
| Lucy |
Overall impressions of Turkey are that Istanbul is fantastic, and in the rural areas there are lots of men in black leather drinking tea. The weather was generally moist.
And so from there to Georgia (the country, not the US state for those in any doubt).
*I was possibly the only person to think that staying in a hostel was fantastic.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.