Turkey – robinchartier

underground city

One of the afternoons in Urgup/Cappadocia, Josh took the boys to the underground city. I didn’t go because 1) it was time for the baby to nap and we had been hiking all morning 2) supposedly the underground city is made up of all these connecting tunnels, some that you have to kneel and crawl through and I didn’t see how that would be feasible with a baby on my back (and that part sounded a little claustrophobia inducing) 3) it looked to be almost an hour away according to the map, which did not sound like a fun drive with a tired, yelly baby.

It turns out that except for the necessary nap for Camille, all the other obstacles weren’t an issue. It was only about 1/2 an hour away and the boys didn’t want to go down any of the really narrow tunnels because they were small and pitch dark, so I wouldn’t have had to worry about squeezing through tunnels with baby. Either way, I enjoyed my quiet afternoon in my cave while the boys went and explored this cave.

From what I remember reading in the guidebook, thousands and thousands of people lived in these underground cities to hide from enemies/religious persecution. I should probably google that to make sure it’s accurate, but I don’t feel like doing that right now. Josh said the craziest thing was that everything was underground, including areas where they would grow food. He couldn’t figure out how you could grow food without sunlight. Maybe they just stored food for the times they were in hiding?

They had access to plenty of grapes. Cappadocia is wine country.

I can’t say a lot of interesting things about these photos, because I didn’t take them and I wasn’t there, but I do know the story behind this one. These underground cities (there are over 100 of them, but 2 or 3 main ones open to the public) are huge with tour groups and while Josh and the boys were there, they heard a tour guide talking about this well and how it provided water for all the thousands of people that used to live underground. He then took out a small pebble or rock and told the group to listen as he reverently dropped it into the well. It fell down, down, down and the group all oohed and ahhed and nodded when they heard the “splash.”

After the tour group left, Josh took the boys over to the well, because he didn’t hear a splash and he tossed a coin in and it clattered and banged all the way down until they heard a “thunk” as it hit the dry bottom. As the boys were telling me this story, they were laughing so hard that they had tears in their eyes at the idea that the tour guide made a big production about hearing water in the well when it was so clearly dry.

Some of those areas are looking pretty narrow to me . . . maybe it was a good thing I didn’t go along.

If you want to read more about Kaymakli from someone who has more information than I do, I found this link that describes what is on each of the 4 levels that are open to the public: http://www.anadol.com/kaymakli.htm or there’s always my friend, wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaymakl%C4%B1_Underground_City

Maybe a table? A millstone? A door?
**Josh let me know that this is stone is actually part of their security system. The stone would be turned on edge, rolled to block the archway in the photo below, and wedged in place to keep intruders from entering.

The main passages had some light (you can see the wiring running in this picture, but I guess a lot of the passages are completely dark. Josh said the boys started out with the idea of exploring all the side tunnels, but decided it was too dark. In all they saw stables, a church, living areas, kitchens, granaries, wineries, ventilation shafts, everything required to maintain a city, all underground.

cave dwelling

I’ve been trying to hold off on posting the Turkey photos until I feel like I’ve adequately captured the feeling of being there, but I’ve realized that’s an impossible task so I’m just plunging in. When we last left off, we were leaving Ankara and had stopped at the salt lake on our way to the Anatolia region of Turkey. This is where we stayed in Cappadocia: Esbelli Evi Cave Hotel.

The hotel was located just up the hill from the downtown area of Urgup and we were easily able to walk down the hill to go out to eat, get ice cream or shop.

The unique thing about the Anatolia region of Turkey is a type of rock that is filled with caves that were formed by a volcanic eruption a long time ago. And the stone in this area is soft and perfect for carving out cave dwellings, which is how people lived here for years. Recently, some enterprising people have taken abandoned cave dwellings, renovated them and turned them into boutique hotels.

Once we stepped through the entrance of the hotel it was as if we had entered a secret garden.

On the grounds are stone steps that go up and down and pathways that wind around to all the different rooms.

Looking down on the front door to our Family Suite. There is a garden with fruit trees growing on the roof.

Inside the front door was the entryway, two bathrooms, and the stairs leading down to the main cave rooms.

At the bottom of the stairs — the passage to the left leads to the living room (to the right are the bedrooms).

The living room was cozy and comfortable, beautifully rustic and plenty big for all of us. The back door led to our huge private garden.

(like the makeshift baby gate at the bottom of the stairs?)

Flowers, fruit trees, climbing vines, plenty of space — I could have called this place home permanently.

And the view of the hillside from our backyard — plenty of caves to explore right outside our back gate!

The rest of the house was just as beautiful and I must have been too busy relaxing and enjoying it to get very good pictures. This was our bedroom. I loved that all the rooms had windows that looked out on the back yard.

The kid’s bedroom was the most fun. There was a bed carved into the wall and the closets were created from smaller hollowed out areas. Perfect hiding and play spaces.

Nighty-night! Don’t let the cave animals bite!

Grand Shopping

Istanbul is totally tourist friendly. See the free wifi sign? They have spots with free signal around the city. And if you look like you’re lost . . .

there are official people walking the streets, ready to assist. On the back of the blue shirts it says, “Ask me!” This woman stopped to make sure we knew where we were going and let the boys pet the kitten she was carrying.

We were on our way to the Grand Bazaar. It’s the oldest covered market in the world. It dates back to the 1400s. We weren’t there to do any serious shopping, just to look around.

There were stalls with carpets, lanterns, clothing, jewelry, ceramics — some things were really nice (expensive) and others were the trinkety junk you see in every tourist city.

There were crowds of people and since every third stall seemed to have the same items the browsing became tiresome quickly. On another day we tried to “cut through” the Grand Bazaar on our walk home, but because of the way that it winds around we ended up exiting further away from home than when we started.

We did come away with one treasure: these wooden tops/yo-yos.

Caleb wanted one really badly, but he played it cool while Josh agreed on the appropriate number of Turkish Lira for three of them. They settled on 5TL, about $3. They paid for themselves many times over during the rest of our trip as the boys could pull them out of their pockets and entertain themselves if they got tired of sightseeing. How do they work? You’re supposed to wrap the string around the base of the top and then flick your wrist as you drop it — if you do it correctly the top will spin on the ground attached to the string — it looks like walking a dog on a leash. I never got the hang of it, but the boys were doing tricks and catching the spinning top in their hands, Globetrotter style, by the time we came back from Turkey.

adding a little spice to our lives

A fun place to go in Istanbul is the Egyptian Spice Market. It got its name because for a long time that’s where they traded all the spices and things that were brought from Egypt. It was built in 1664 so it has been in business a long time.

Even though it was hot, we decided to walk so we could explore the neighborhood around the market. It was mostly downhill and we promised the boys we would take the train home if they agreed to walk there. They were still protesting about wanting to take the metro instead so we just said, “too bad, we’re walking.”

Lots of people, lots of old buildings and shops, many trinkets, and lots to see . . .

Walking around Istanbul without a plan feels is an adventure. There’s so much to see (like Egypt), but it’s clean (unlike Egypt). We could have explored the city on foot for another week without even beginning to be bored.

Inside the Spice Market looked just like this — if you imagine it going on and on and around the corner and on and on some more. We wandered around for over an hour and it just kept going.

We smelled the different teas, tasted some different spices, and had samples of Turkish Delight. I don’t like Turkish Delight. When reading The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe I thought Turkish Delight had to be some rich creamy chocolate or caramel candy — something that would go well with the steaming hot chocolate that the White Witch served to Edmund. It turns out that Turkish Delight is actually gummy fruit squares with nuts in them. I mean, it’s OK, but it’s hard to imagine that Edmund sold out his family for some nutty fruit leather . . .

At the entrance to the Spice Market there was a place selling soft serve cones. After our long, hot walk, everyone deserved a treat.

I’m making this picture extra-large so you can read the sign right in the center: Turkish Viagra (they are dates stuffed with nuts). If you click on the picture to look at it up close, it says “5 times in the night.” Gross.

At another spice place in central Turkey we were sampling different nuts and fruit combos and I asked the guy what the bright pink stuff was. He said it was concentrated cranberry, “good for the milk” and proceeded to use his fingers to create two jet streams shooting out from his chest. Um, oh-kay then! I thought maybe I had misunderstood what he was doing, so I asked Josh about it on the way home. Yep, that’s exactly what he was doing.

Right outside the Spice Market there was a man who was offering bird food for “tuppence a plate.” It was only 1/2 a lira (30 cents) for a small plate of corn.

Caleb and Carter had fun feeding the pigeons until . . .

this little boy intentionally ran through the flock and made them fly . . .

up to a safe haven — a high ledge on the side of the building. He was only 2 years old and was shrieking with excitement so it was pretty funny.

After spices and pigeons the boys wanted to take the train home, but it was about time for dinner so we went in search of some fish.

The Spice Market is right across the street from the entrance to the Galata Bridge and there are always people fishing from it. Rumor had it that you could buy fresh fish sandwiches right from the dock, so off we went in search of dinner . . . (to be continued).

lunchtime entertainment

One of the things we loved about Turkey is how much they love kids. Camille spent the entire two weeks fending off unwanted advances by strangers who wanted to pick her up, hold her, kiss her, give her food and other presents, pinch her cheeks and just get as close to her as they possibly could.

She resorted to using what we called “the Heisman.” When people would come up to her and put their hands out as if to pick her up, she would start shaking her head “no” and put her hand straight out to block them. I can’t believe I don’t have a photo of it, but I guess I was too busy laughing to snap a picture.

We went to lunch at this restaurant near our hotel in Istanbul and Camille was perched on my lap, happily chowing down on bread when the owner dragged this enormous baby swing over to our table and wanted to put her in it. We settled for me putting her in it and we all smiled and clapped as she looked at us like we were crazy, but once the owner got it moving, she was happy. I should have gotten a photo of the entire thing because it had a big yellow canopy with gold fringe on it. She looked like a princess on her throne as I tried to time her bites of lunch with the motion of the swing.