From City To Country

in ,

Cappadocia is the heart of ancient Anatolia. It is a landscape that is both familiar and fantastical.  Bounded by three long extinct volcanoes rising 12,000 feet, it is a mix of high plain and gentle rolling hills. On first glance it is an arid landscape of mesas familiar to travelers through the American west.  But it is only dry on this June day.  In winter this area is covered in snow, giving it a rich supply of water that supports a world of green.  The soil that appears dry and ashen is really volcanic soil textured with humus fertilized with pigeon and bat guano. Imagine the striated mesa tops of Utah surrounded by lush fields of vegetables, wheat and grapes. And while Cappadocia is not the part of Turkey known for its fruit growing, cherry and apricot trees are everywhere -strategically placed in small family fields and yards.

In the US both large scale agriculture and small family gardens are almost always square and rectangular.  Here, Turkey’s non-linear aesthetic and a graceful accommodation to the landscape are at play. Those uneven mesa tops don’t come in tidy squares, so the fields follow the land, as do the graceful arcs of the plantings.

As we drive from the airport and our eyes adjust from an urban to rural landscape, the gardeners in our group feast on the display of wildflowers.  A few turns down some windy roads and we are in Balsac – a landscape uniquely Cappadocian.  This is the home of the fairy chimneys.  Formations of yellow-white toufa stone topped with dark volcanic basalt.  Wildflowers are growing everywhere in this strange landscape.

 After a two days in Cappodocia, we decide that the royal blue stunners we have been seeing are a form of statice, but I need the help of one you gardening guru’s out there to identify this pea-like flower.

 

Creative Land Use

in

In a city of fourteen million, every piece of real estate is valuable, and unlike our strict zoning laws, nothing so petty as food or fire safety laws gets in the way of the Turkish entrepreneurial spirit.  A new subway stop is being built just down the street from our hotel and at the moment it is nothing more than a giant excavation, where clearly something far more attractive once existed.  But not to worry, the restaurant owners across the street, simply took the opportunity to create some more open air dining space by hanging some rugs and lamps to block the construction site view- and voila- seating for 30 more….

An even more impressive land use is the Galata bridge which crosses the The Golden Horn, a deep bay in the Sea of Mamara.  It’s name comes from the color of the water at sunset.  This bridge doesn’t just provide a connection for cars and buses to reach the two sides of the city, it is also a prime fishing spot for the locals, and the entire area under the bridge is filled with restaurants taking advantage of the spectacular view of the city’s seven hills adorned with its palaces and magnificent mosques. 

While seating eating in one of these restaurants we watched a lure from a fisherman above nearly catch more than one passer by on the restaurant deck.  That was amusing, but what was really great was watching “fish and loaves” restaurants next to the pier.  These are three elaborately decorated small wooden ships that are used as outdoor kitchens for a standing room only crowd of dinners. 


The customers sit at picnic tables on the pier and the chefs cook the fish and prepare the salad in the kitchen boats which do some serious rolling from the wakes of the big ferry boats.  We’re not talking about a  little dip, we’re talking about 5 & 6 foot swells, but it seems to have no effect on the grillmasters who just man the barbeques.  Yelling orders and handing finished orders over across the open water - Turkish style fast food goes on without a hitch – giant pieces loaves of bread filled to the brim with lettuce & freshly fried fish from the rolling kitchen.  Smelled wonderful…

Rock the boat

in

 

I am standing still- this boats devoted to grilling fresh caught fish from the Bosporus are rolling on the wakes of big ferry boats. Look at Number 2 in the line.

 

Something You Don't Need

in

 

For all their entrepreneurial spirit, there is a lack of visual advertising here in Istanbul that is most refreshing. Even though some folks had told me they found Turkish sales tactics aggressive, I have found it to be easy enough to smile and say no.  

One of the most creative sales pitches I heard was from a friendly gentleman at a shop near our hotel.  As we walked past with laughing eyes he said to us, 
“Please come in ladies and buy something you don’t need.” 

Turkish Style

in

 I found it very interesting that in this vibrant city there was a wide range of styles of dress for women and a much narrower one for men.  That first morning as Sally and I sat drinking turkish coffee watching people getting off the trains and trams, what was striking was the lack of bright tee shirts and baggy pants on men.  Regardless of age, most wore dark pants with a polo or button down style shirt, perhaps a suit, as they headed off to work in the morning bustle.  This held true in the markets, museums, and out in the countryside of Cappodocia.  If you were to do a Boston and Istanbul comparison, the guys in Istanbul would make Bostonians look flashy.

Turkish women on the other hand have a wide spectrum of clothing styles from tight shorts and tank tops to full burkas.  What is striking however is the quiet style - Gucci purses to go with elaborate black beaded Burkas, beautiful head scarves coordinated with pants, shoes, belts and sweaters.  The evening of our farewell dinner we went to a swanky island restaurant floating on the Bosporus.  A wedding party was in progress and the female guests wore dresses and shoes that were stunning, sexy, and stylish- yet not over the top.  It reminded me of how women dressed when I was a child and my mother had a closet full of beautiful clothes for every event.  It is lifestyle that skipped me completely, my daughter embraces and is alive and well in Istanbul.

Modern Day Istanbul

in

While tourists flock to the historic district of Istanbul to see the palaces, mosques and other historic sites, they often miss the chance to see modern day Istanbul. In a country where half the people are under 35 there is a remarkable energy and endless development. The connection of past and present was very evident as we wondered through narrow cobbled streets around Galata Tower filled with hand made clothing stores. 

The aesthetic of this crossroads of east and west could be seen in the beautifully designed dresses and traditional Turkish pants.  Made from fabrics with subtle vegetable dye colors in draping forms – this apparel was both modest and revealing, and unlike anything we see in our world of mass marketing clothing made in China.

We met designers and salespeople, all telling us that their mothers did some of the work. While this not true in every case, it is clear that the artistry and craftsmanship comes from close at hand.  Beautiful handmade shoes can be found in these shops and no doubt you could find someone to make them for you.

Look at the dress on this beautiful dress -
the silver buttons at the shoulder
crochet work in the torso, subtle colors....mmmmmm


All Roads Lead to Rome

in

My recollection of western civilization was dim at best before this trip and I certainly have had a refresher course here at the end of the silk route in Nova Roma. The Hagia Sophia, the home of the Eastern Roman Empire from 400 AD until the Byzantium fell to the Ottomans a thousand years later, was our first stop of the day.  As we stood on the road outside, I understood for the first time the expression, “All roads lead to Rome.”

Until the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, this was the largest church in the world.  For 900 years from 537 to 1453 it was the center of Orthodox Christianity. 

Marble walls of the Hagia

This magnificent building then became the Grand Mosque of the Sultans.  The frescoes and mosaics of the saints were covered in plaster to comply with Islamic tradition forbidding the visual representation of gods.  This saved many of these works of art.  In 1935 when the building was converted into a museum, the plaster was pulled away to show images that had not seen the light for 400 years.

The Blue Mosque

in

 The Blue Mosque is massive and was built in 1609.  Inside is decorated with the famous blue Iznik tiles. All of the great mosques that grace the seven hills of Istanbul are alike in their gray stone construction and simple exteriors.  In contrast, the interiors are covered with beautiful tiles and gold calligraphy and carpets.  Our guide explained that the design difference in decoration is a reflection of the belief that it is what is inside that is important, the beauty and spirit of one’s soul is where the emphasis belongs.

Hippodrome Horses

in ,

There was much discussion of the looting of antiquities from Turkey by the Crusaders, Venetians,  English and the Germans.  An interesting tidbit for those of you who have visited Venice and been awed by the bronze horses atop St Mark’s Basilica.  They were boosted from the Hippodrome in Constantinople in 1204 by maurading crusaders who has sacked Jerusalem clean.

The Real Tulip Truth

in

 While I am doing my best to keep straight all that I am learning about Byzantine and Ottoman history one story I will not forget is the Turkish tulip story. Kazakistan, the ancestral birthplace of many of todays current Turks is also where tulips came from originally.  In the 1600’s when the Dutch East India Company was looking for new products to bring to Europe they were struck by these beautiful flowers that grew in the gardens of Topkapi Palace. The Dutch asked the Suleman’s permission to try bring some to the the Netherlands to see if they would grown in their climate.  He granted permission and you know how the rest of the story goes….

Reproduction of tulip design similar to that found in Topkapi  Palace tiles -

 

Tulip logo on our bus in Cappadocia.

 

Obelisks

in

Turkish coffee is quite addicting, and a powerful fuel for a busy day of sightseeing, history lessons and lots of eating…. On our way to the Blue Mosque and Topkapi Palace, we walked through the Hippodrome where chariot races were held 1500 hundred years ago for 40,000 spectators.  Today it is a sprawling plaza punctuated with several monoliths, including at 3500 year old Egyptian obelisk.  It was moved to Istanbul on three barges and then sat at the shore for five years until they engineers of the day figured out how to get the massive piece of granite up the hill.  What they devised was the world’s first conveyor belt to raise it. 

The defeat of Persian soldiers who were defeated by the Spartan soldiers near Troy in 480 BC is memorialized in Serpentine that was constructed  in the Temple in Delphi, Greece.  It’s blue green patina comes from the metal of the weapons of the loosing side, which were melted down and used to construct this ancient monument.