Overview of Turkey
Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Greece to the west; Bulgaria to the northwest; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the south. Population estimate is 81,619,392. Capital is Ankara and the largest city is Istanbul. They use Turkish Lira. When they have worked 25 years and paid into a pension they can retire, on a full pension minimum age was 45 but in the last year this has been increase to 50.
Turkish Flag
Gallipoli
In early 1915, British and French warships attempted to force their way through the Dardanelles straits to attack Constantinople (now Istanbul) the capital of the Ottoman Empire. After the naval attack failed, troops were landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula. (British, Irish, Australians, New Zealanders and other Commonwealth servicemen) For eight months fighting raged across the fields around Cape Helles, along the ridge above Anzac Cove, and in the hills around Suvla Bay. Unable to break the deadlock, allied soldiers withdrew from the peninsula, leaving their fallen comrades behind. Almost 36,000 Commonwealth servicemen died were buried or commemorated on Gallipoli.
We set off for Gallipoli early the next morning. It was a beautiful day the drive took about four and half hours. As we got there in the afternoon we seem to have missed all the tour buses we had the place to ourselves, which was nice as it was very peaceful, we were both surprised with the emotions that the place brought out in us. Martin and I have always wanted to visit Gallipoli as it was here that the Irish fought alongside of the Australian and New Zealanders. It was interesting to see all the graves side by side, very sad all the same as most of the men were only in their early twenties. To see the barren and roughness of the land and the hills that the men coming off the boats had to climb up, carrying all their guns and ammunition gives you an idea of the struggle and hardship they went through. The whole area is much bigger than we expected, there are several different Cemetery and all of them are kept in very good conditions plus different Memorials. The death toll for Australians was 8,790.00, New Zealanders 2,700.00 and Irish 4,000.00. There were big loses on both sides. One would hope we have learned much from this war but from what I see things have not changed. Will we ever learn ???
A moving statue of a Turkish soldier carrying a wounded Australia soldier.
Anzac Cove
Lone Pine Cemetery
Beach Cemetery
Some of the hills the soldiers had to tackle when they got off the boats
A grave stone of a young man 23 that came from Co Dublin were I was born.
Gallipoli truly a moving place.
Eccabet
We continued our trip to Eccabet where we will spend the night. Eccabet is a small town very close to Gallipoli it has a very good model in the main street of a battle seen out of Gallipoli and some great memorial status. A lot of Australian stay here when they visit Gallipoli, the Turkish people were very hospitable to us when we were there.
Eccabet
For dinner that evening we took a 10-min ferry across to Cannakale. We had a great feed in Cannakale the food was so fresh and the lamb chops were to die for.
We drove back to Istanbul the next day, and flew to Antalya where we meet with our friends Ann-Maree and Hussey. We will be back in Istanbul later in the month and will do our site seeing then.
Olympos
Olympos is a great place, we love were our friends live, they run a pension resort, it has great accommodation and it is so relaxing, quiet and the views are amazing. Olympos town itself is very bohemian, it reminds me of the way Byron Bay (Australia) was 20 years ago. A place you could lose yourself in. Olympos was under the Roman rule from 77 B.C there are a lot of very interesting ruins in the Olympos area, it is said that Olympos was one of the sixth most important cities in the Lycian league.
View from our friends place
Their beautiful pool
Historical tomb found in Olympos
We had many great meals at our friend’s home, they introduce us to the Turkish breakfast (mezze plate) which we fell in love with, in particular the cay tea. We had a great meal on the first night at Ulueina, everything was so fresh and the fish was great. Our friends also brought us to a Hamam (Turkish bath house) which was a great experience. The Hamam was in Kumluca, which is their local shopping town. We also had a wonderful day at the Friday markets, the markets have great fresh produce, vegetables, fruit, fish, bread, cheese and all at a great price.
Martin and Hussy in the Hamam
The beach at Olympos is very nice, the water is crystal clear and very refreshing. You can walk to Cirali another small town from Olympos beach. We drove to Finike for a day trip and went out on our friend’s boat, we had a wonderful day. Finike has a very picturesque harbour.
Olympos Beach
Restaurant on Olympos Beach
View from the beach
Finike Port
Great Day out on Captains Boat
We decided to do more travelling around Turkey with our friend Ann-Maree, she was a great host and knew all the great places to visit, all the great places to eat and sleep. It makes such a difference being with someone that has all the local knowledge of the country and the language.
On our first trip, we went to from Olympos to Antalya, Konya and then to Cappadocia.
Antalya has some lovely beaches, just passed Antalya we stopped at Aspendos Orenyeri the archaeological site. It has one of the best-preserved amphitheatre in the world. It is amazing. It is still use today for different theatre events and opera’s I bet the acoustics would be amazing. The theatre was built in (161-180 A.D.) by two brothers Curtius and Chrispinus Auspicactus as a gift to the city.
Aspendos Orenyeri
Amphitheatre
From here we drive to Konya where we will spend the night. Konya is a very busy vibrant place. There seems to be so much going all the time, we went to see their Grand Mosque which is an amazing structure, we also went to the Mevlane Museum the mausoleum of Jalal as-din Muhammad Rumi, a Persian sufi mystic also known as Mevlana or Rumi. It was also the dervish lodge of the Mevlevi order better known as the whirling dervishes. This is where the dervishes spin around and around and get into a mediative state. Rumi and his father are both buried in the rose garden.
Martin was about to have a heart attack when he found out that we may not be able to find a bar to have a drink in, but TG we did find a place that sold us alcoholic drinks. So, hysteria was avoided. Even though a lot of Turkish people do not drink they are still very sociable, they will sit around for hours drinking Chai (a Turkish tea). They love a good old chat.
IHLARA Valley is one of the treasuries of Turkey.
The Valley is beautiful the melendvis stream dives the valley and makes it very picturesque, it holds about 60 Byzantine churches, chapels, monasteries and hermits’ caves dating from the 11th to 13th centuries.. In some of the churches there are still some remains of paintings on the walls, the paintings are of the old catholic bible stories. It is a very interesting place soaked in history.
There are a large number of steps to climb down to the canyon so if you are not in good shape !!!
We drove on to Cappadocia – Goreme National Park, this place blew my mind, it is hard to find the words to describe it. The natural rock formations are nothing like I have seen before. Our accommodation was very different the owner had built all the rooms in to the side of the a mountain so it felt like we were staying in a hobbits underground home, not unlike the underground hotels in Coper Pedy in Australia.
The town itself is very quaint with lots of Turkish souvenir’s, and the food was great I would recommend a restaurant called Dibek in the centre of town, the specialty of the restaurant is a dish called “testi kebabi” it is cooked in a clay pot, it needs to cook for a number of hours so you have to book ahead for it, you have a choice of chicken or Beef both are delicious served with rice and bread. And of course a good bottle of red. The Amphora Cab Sav 2011 was very good.
Cappadocia
Pension we stayed in
After a great night’s sleep and a wonderful Turkish breakfast, we set off our first stop was the Goreme open air museum. The area covered by this Open-Air Museum forms a coherent geographical entity and represents historical unity. There are eleven refectories within the Museum, with rock-cut churches tables and benches. Each is associated with a church. Most of the churches in Goreme Open Air Museum belong to the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries. The Goreme Open Air Museum has been a member of UNESCO World Heritage List since 1984, and was one of the first two UNESCO sites in Turkey. The whole area is made up of a number of Valleys, The Red Valley, Rose Valley, The White and Pigeon Valley, Gomeda Valley, Ihlara Vadisi, we visited each valley. They are all amazing.
We had an amazing day, and were tired by the time we got back to the hotel, we had an early dinner and went to bed as we were up at 4.30am to go hot air ballooning. This is one of the best places in the world to do a hot air balloon ride so we were very keen to do it. As this area is ideal for hot air ballooning it is possible to run this business all year round. The weather was perfect on the morning we did it there was about 100 other balls up in the sky, it looked amazing and is definitely one of the highlights of this trip. The video and pictures below say it all. The views as you can see are great, weather perfect and having all the other balloons either above, below or alongside was magic a site for sore eyes. We flew over all the different valleys, and we went as high as 5,000 feet or 1,524 meters. The drivers of the balloons are very qualified, the taking off and landing was so smooth, can you believe the driver was to land the balloon straight onto the back of a trailer Wow was I impressed. What a great way to spend a Sunday morning.
On our journey, back to Olympus we stopped at Sultanhani Kervansaray. Sultan Amit caravan surai. This was one of the original secure place that travellers on the silk road would stop overnight or for a few days of rest, before continuing their journey. Their journey would normally take them from the Orient to Constantinople (now Turkey).
We rested up for a few days back in Olympus. Our next trip covered, Pamukkale, Partar Beach, and KAS.
The drive to Pamukkale was though a beautiful mountain range. Pamukkale Archaeological site is in a town in western turkey it is known for the mineral rich thermal waters. It is quite surreal to see this snow like mountain in the middle of the town, I had seen pictures of Pamukkale years ago and although it is still very impressive, but because of too many visitors walking all over it (including us) it is not looking as good as it once was. There is also a Thermal pool that you can bath in, this pool is believed to have several health benefits.
Pamukkale also has some wonderful roman ruins. The Hierapolis of Phrygia is going through restoration and looks great so far, most of the stones that are being used are the original ones from the third century A D when the theatre was first erected.
From Pamukkale we drove to Partar Beach which was just beautiful, it reminded me of some of the beaches in Australia, it was a sandy beach with lots of waves, it was also very clean and fresh to swim in. A lot of the other beaches in Turkey although still nice are stony beach, with calm water and no waves and quite warm. I personally enjoy cold water it is more invigorating.
The coast road drive from Partar Beach to KAS and onto Demre reminded me of the Amalfi coast drive, the road is much wider and looks new with not half the amount of cars, motor bikes, tour buses on it, but the views are just as breath taking as the Amalfi coast. KAS is a beautiful town with a small harbour, great restaurants, bars, with great accommodation right on the water’s edge. It is a popular holiday spot for the Turkish people and can get very busy in July, August and September, but in October the weather was still in the mid-twenties with only a few tourists. I could easily come back and spend a month here next October.
All too soon our time in Turkey was coming to an end, we had a wonder last few days, going to Addrasan beach, Olympus beach, having BBQ and wonderful Turkish breakfasts. On our last night we went to a restaurant on a lake in Addrasan. The food was great, the restaurant was nothing like I had been to before, we had ducks on the lake with turtles in the water, again the pictures below can tell a thousand words. We said our sad good byes to our very welcoming friends and amazing hosts, Ann-Maree and Hussey.
Our flight back to Istanbul was from Antalya. We spent a few nights in Antalya, the accommodation was in the old town, a great location but the pension was very old and dated it did have a wonderful roof top terrace with amazing views. We loved the old town with cobble streets, restaurants, and plenty of bars. We had one of the best meals on our trip so far and it was very reasonable priced it was just on $100.00 and that included a great bottle of wine. The name of the restaurant is the Olive if you ever visit the old town in Antalya this is a must.
Antalya
Olive restaurant example of food
So, it is back to Istanbul, this time we are staying in the Sultanahmet-Old City area as most of the tourist things we want to see is in the area.
First on the list is the grand bazaar, you need to go to these markets with an open mind and with the intention of having fun, otherwise you may run from the place. There are over 4,000 stalls, with many wonderful items for sale, pottery, bags, scarfs, leather jackets, luggage, T-shirts, jewellery and of course carpets, they are very good at spotting tourists, Martin was fine when he was on his own (while in Turkey he was told several times that he looked Turkish) so because of that they never tried to sell him stuff, except when he was with me. Overall, we found the sellers fine if you told them you were not interested they would leave you alone, eventually. Oh, and the Turkish delight is so good.
Next on the list was the Blue Mosque, this is another great piece of architecture, the tiles and marble in these mosques are just outstanding, obviously marble is a lot cheaper in Turkey than it is in Australia. I would have loved to have bought some of the tiles to bring back to Australia but as Martin keeps telling me, you buy it you carry it. Next time !!
The Topkapi Palace is the biggest in Istanbul. It was built in between 1466 and 1478 by the sultan Mehmet II on top of a hill in a small peninsula, dominating the Golden Horn to the north, the Sea of Marmara to the south, and the Bosphorus strait to the north east, with great views of the Asian side as well. The palace was the political center of the Ottoman Empire between the 15th and 19th centuries. There were originally around 700-800 residents of the Palace at the beginning, but during the centuries it dramatically raised to 5,000 during normal days and 10,000 during festivals, approximately. Amongst these, the Janissaries were the biggest part of the population who were based within the first courtyard of the palace. The palace became the largest palace in the world, a city within a city.
A miniature of the whole palace area
Hagia Sophia is an architectural wonder of the times which actually traces its origins to the Byzantine Empire between 532 AD and 537 AD. the distinction of remaining the largest cathedral in the world until 1520. The magnificent part in the architecture of the Hagia Sophia was its impressive central dome, which had a diameter of 31.24 meters and a height of 55.6 meters. They converted the age old church of Hagia Sophia to a mosque and in the process, removed the various decorations like the bells, alter, iconostasis, and sacrificial vessels, typical of Christian churches. The Hagia Sophia underwent several alterations and additions and remained an Islamic mosque till 1935, after which it was transformed into a museum by the secular Republic of Turkey.
Well our time in Turkey was amazing it really is a great country to visit it surprised us in so many ways. The people are se friendly, the food is great and the architecture is amazing. We hope to go back one day.