The problem is that every one of these locations is on the Istanbul Tourist Bucket List. If you come here, you will visit these sites, so they are CROWDED. I think that feeling was exacerbated by the short trip. Cramming everything into five weeks made Turkey feel much more like a traditional tourist cadence than is comfortable for us.

Which is, of course, kind of laughable. I saw packaged tours that covered pretty much everything we did in Turkey in six days: Istanbul’s Old City, Cappadocia, Ephesus, and Pamukkale. If I told someone on one of those tours that we’d felt rushed covering that itinerary in five weeks they’d think we’d slipped a sprocket.

But that is legitimately how we felt. We’ve been talking about cadence a lot, and we think that three full months might be a little long in a lot of places. But five weeks is obviously way too short for how we like to travel. I think going forward we’ll consistently be in an 8-10 week cadence, depending on the location.

One of the weirder landmarks of the Old City is the Obelisk of Theodosius. It originally dates to roughly 1400 BC, and was actually the obelisk of Thutmose III. Constantine II moved it to Alexandria, to commemorate his awesomeness, in 357 AD. The loot was subsequently looted by Theodosius and moved to Constantinople in 390 AD.

It’s nice to know that colonialism, looting, and cultural appropriation have such a rich, deep history. Sometimes it seems like something the French just made up.

It’s also an objectively awesome thing. If I had the space I’d definitely appropriate it.

The Grand Bazaar

We’re going to start in our comfort place: shopping.

Of all the various Medinas and Old Cities we’ve visited, Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar stands out. Like everything else here, apparently, it’s old, with original construction having been completed in 1461 by the new Ottoman rulers of Constantinople. It’s big, with over 4,000 shops on 61 covered streets. And it’s crowded, with almost 3 million visitors/year, making it one of the top tourist attractions on the planet. It’s also very, very beautiful, more an orderly yet ornate indoor mall than a twisty ramshackle Medina.

The shops are as varied as you’d expect. Lots of jewelry, less textiles than you’d think, but enough to satisfy Dorothy. She found one shop that specialized in ikats from Uzbekistan, and she went back for a second round before we left. Uzbekistan has now vaulted to the top of the Where Next list.

The Cisterns of Mercy

Apparently there are 100s of cisterns ‘neath the streets of Istanbul, but the Basilica Cistern is the largest, and is fully open to the public. They’ve graciously kept the water level low, to keep visitors from drowning.

It’s an epic space, covering 100,000 square feet and holding 2.8 million cubic feet of water, with vaulted ceilings over 30 feet high. In its current incarnation as a tourist attraction it’s been artily lit, and it’s used for an evening concert series. Which seems dead on for ambience and acoustically just about the worst idea ever.

It’s a beautiful, peaceful space, and, if you’re willing to wait, it’s even possible to get pictures without hordes of people crowding the frame.

The Dolphins Of The Bosporus

I know I’m teasing. Topkapi! Hagia Sophia!! Blue Mosque!!! Patience, little one. We’ll get there.

But first, we were told by some folks that you could see dolphins sporting in the Bosporus on the stretch just below Topkapi and around the corner from the Golden Horn. So one morning, before enjoying the Old City’s sights, we made our way to the water.

Balat

We also visited Balat, a lovely old neighborhood in the Old City known for its colorful homes, steep streets, and beautiful views of the Golden Horn.

Ottomans: They’re More Than Just Footstools

I wasn’t truly sure what to expect of Topkapi Palace. It served as the residence of the Ottoman sultans and the seat of administrative power from the 1460s until a new palace was built in 1856, so it was sure to be a grand edifice. But just about everything I knew about it I learned from Topkapi, the 1964 movie starring Maximilian Schell and Melina Mercouri. For reasons only a forensic psychologist could fathom, it was one of my favorite movies as a child.

It had everything a young boy’s heart could desire: exotic locales, priceless jewels, a clockwork heist, and Melina Mercouri. Who knew I’d someday get to visit? Nary a hint of Melina Mercouri, by the way. I looked everywhere.

In Morocco and Tunisia most of the places that called themselves museums kind of weren’t. For the most part they were museums of themselves, showcasing the design and history of their structures. Topkapi is obviously that, but it’s also a real museum. In fact, an amazing museum, with the quality of the collection on par with the Met.

Unlike the Met, which means to tell the entire history of the world, Topkapi has a laser-like focus on one specific thing: the lives of the Ottoman sultans who lived in and ruled from Topkapi Palace. Where the Met has breadth Topkapi has depth. That deep dive, into a world of almost unfathomable power and luxury, is amazing. It was good to be sultan.

The collections were divided up by category: rooms for costumes, weapons, jewels… Like the Met, way too much to see in a single visit. But I think we got the highlights.

The Armory

The armory surprised me. I was expecting something like the Met’s armor collection which, to be fair, I find a little musty. I’m sure that’s a failure of imagination on my part, but no such failure was possible at Topkapi’s armory exhibit. I think it was the first hall we entered, and it very much set the stage for the rest of our visit. Anything and everything can be made into decadently luxurious art, no matter how mundane the underlying object.

Case in point, the ludicrously overdecorated tools of war on display here, not one of which has ever seen, or was ever intended to see, battle.

The Costume Room

You will be unsurprised to learn that it was difficult to get Dorothy to leave this exhibit. “I’m hungry” was met with a grudging, “All right. We can come back after lunch.”

She had ample cause to be so engrossed. This was our favorite exhibit, even accounting for the famous Topkapi jewels. While the objects in the other exhibits were amazing, they were not, for the most part useful; they were decorative in intent and execution. Or rather, they may have been useful, like a clock, but that clock’s value as an object was derived from the beauty of its execution, not the accuracy of its timekeeping.

But these were their actual clothes, what they wore as they went about the daily business of being sultan, or a member of the sultan’s family or retinue. This was an intimate look into the lives of people whose lifestyle would otherwise render them unknowable.

The Sultan’s Rooms

Interestingly, Topkapi Palace seemed a little subdued after touring the palaces of sultans and beys in Morocco and Tunisia. Those folks decorated to the tune of, “If some is good, more is better.” You can practically hear the architect screaming, “Look, that spot is undecorated. Fix it, before someone notices. And beheads me”

Big swaths of Topkapi, on the other hand, seemed more functional than decorative. One unsurprising exception being the sultan’s residence, as one might expect. Pretty fucking swanky.

The Harem

After the sultan’s rooms, the harem was the other place that was extravagantly decorated tip to toe. That befits the importance of the harem to Ottoman rule. The harem, sniggering aside, was a critical part of the Ottoman governing structure, offering both upward mobility and access to power.

Much of this had to do with how the Ottoman sultans dealt with slavery. The sultan’s male slaves were educated in palace schools and often went on to positions of influence and power, from military leaders to regional governors to grand viziers. More than one grand vizier had been enslaved.

For enslaved women, potential power radiated out from the harem. If a concubine gave birth to a son, that son was an official heir. The mother was responsible for guiding her son’s education, training, and career, in order to best position him as the next sultan.

This was a distinctly non-trivial matter, as the newly installed sultan’s first act was almost always killing his brothers, to secure the throne from threat. Who made it to the top of that heap mattered. If you successfully maneuvered your son onto the throne, you became valide sultan, the Queen Mother, and held enormous sway over matters of state. Despite having started out as an enslaved, harem-dwelling concubine.

Commensurate with its role in governance, the harem was a massive complex, practically its own standalone city within Topkapi Palace. At its peak the harem boasted 300-400 rooms, nine bathhouses, two mosques, its own kitchen, dormitories, a school, a hospital, and a laundry.

The tile work rivaled anything we saw in Morocco and Tunisia, and warrants its own slideshow.

The Watch Room

Topkapi’s single most underwhelming display, conceptually. “Mom! Mom! Can we go to the Watch Room next?” You’d have your kids tested. But like everything else here, the contents of the Watch Room are executed at a level that neatly blurs the line between artistry and absurdity. Here are just a few choice examples from a surprisingly deep collection.

The Jewels

The Crown Jewels of Topkapi are… the jewels. More than any other exhibit, here is where the wealth and opulence of the Ottoman rulers really hits home. Honestly, some of this stuff is just ridiculous. But something can be both ridiculous and beautiful at the same time. I myself am living proof of that dictum.

Museum of Turkish & Islamic Art

Yet another ridiculously old structure, the building that houses the Museum of Turkish & Islamic Art was built in 1524 as the palace for one of Suleiman the Magnificent’s grand viziers. Which sounds like an outtake from 1001 Nights, but is an actual historical fact. It sits across Sultanahmet Square from the Blue Mosque, close to Topkapi Palace, part of a very small area thick with history.

It’s one of the largest museums in Turkey, and covers the full range of art forms across all of Turkey’s various ethnic groups. It’s a comprehensive overview of local beauty, and not to be missed on a trip to Istanbul, even though it’s less well known than its neighbors.

Diplomatic edicts from the Ottoman sultan took the form of beautifully illuminated and calligraphed documents called either Fermâns or Berâts. We saw examples throughout our museum visits in Turkey, but the standouts were here.

Istanbul Archaeology Museum

The Archaeology Museum was established in 1869 by Sultan Abdülaziz in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire. The building that houses the museum was purpose built in 1891, unlike its repurposed neighbors, so it’s only ever fulfilled its designed use.

The Ottomans were late to the party in acknowledging the value of their cultural patrimony, but Abdülaziz had his eyes opened on a European tour in 1867 that included visits to archeological museums in London, Paris, and Vienna. 1869 saw not only the inauguration of the Archaeology Museum but the establishment of the first laws governing the management and ownership of antiquities.

They had plenty of material to work with, even with a late start. The collection covers all of Turkey’s history, as well as artifacts from across the extended Ottoman Empire. Which was a substantial chunk of the ancient world. Unsurprisingly, the collection is eye bleedingly dense and beautiful. If you wanted to understand the origins of Western civilization, you could do way worse than a visit to the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.

Picking highlights from this museum was hard. The entire collection is highlights. Here’s our best shot.

Marble

As impressive as this collection was overall, I think the carved marble was the standout. From decorative friezes to statuary, the work was subtle, nuanced, and delicate. The statues were especially alive, looking at any moment like they might tap you on the shoulder and whisper in your ear.

Gods & Creatures

Archictectural Friezes

Gold

Terracotta

How on earth have terracotta artifacts made it until now? Everything here dates from the 6th to the 14th centuries BC. This shit be old.

Bronze

Not a lot, but what was there was choice.

The Blue Mosque

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque got its nickname from the profusion of blue tile work, mostly Iznik tiles from Anatolia. It didn’t seem all that blue to me, but what do I know. It was completed in 1617, and is still a functioning mosque. Which makes it a surprisingly quick visit, as most of the complex is off limits to heathens. Which, in turn, makes the parts that are accessible incredibly dense with tourists (that has to be the plural: a dense of tourists). Here’s the main hall.

The payoff comes from looking up. The central dome complex is stunning.

The rest of the interior Is just as eye catching. The Blue Mosque is one of the rare buildings we’ve seen on this tour whose primary cultural significance is its raw beauty. It wasn’t a seat of power, it wasn’t a sultan’s palace, it wasn’t the site of a meaningful conquest. It’s just one of the most beautiful structures man has ever created. That’s more than enough.

It’s not too shabby from the outside, either.

Hagia Sophia

First off, it’s not pronounced hay-gee-ah so-fee-ah. It’s pronounced hi-ya so-fee-ah. You’ll often see it anglicized as Aya Sofia, which I actually thought was a different place (“I want to see both!”). Because a passport doesn’t require an IQ test.

Like the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia is a working mosque, although its route has been decidedly more circuitous. The current structure was built by Justinian in 537 AD as the Christian cathedral in Constantinople, and was actually the third church built on the site. There has been a church there since 360. It was also the largest cathedral on the planet for literally 1,000 years, until the completion of the cathedral in Seville.

It was a Greek Orthodox church from 537 through 1453, except for a brief time out as a Latin Catholic Church during the Crusades in the 1200s. It became a mosque in 1453, when Constantinople fell to the Ottomans, and stayed that way until 1935, when it was turned into a museum. In 2020, Erdoğan had it turned back into a mosque to curry favor with a certain strain of Muslim voter.

So it’s a mosque chock full of Greek Orthodox images and iconography. But to me, the strangest thing about it is its age. We’ve seen older buildings on this tour, but they were ruins. Hagia Sophia is, arguably, the same building that was erected in 537. It’s gone through multiple cycles where artwork has been painted over and restored, and it’s not like nothing has changed since construction. The Ottomans added a minaret, and some of the domes collapsed in the late 500s and had to be rebuilt, but the structure itself is largely original.

Which is, frankly, mind-blowing. The first thing I thought of when we were there was the Ship of Theseus paradox. As I’m sure would have occurred to you, as well. As the myth recounts it, Theseus’s ship was brought out annually for a pilgrimage over hundreds of years. The boat was regularly maintained and restored: one year a new keel, another year a new rudder, another year new planks. At some point every part of the boat had been replaced. Was it still Theseus’s ship? If you ever want to see philosophers fight, and who doesn’t, toss a pair the Ship of Theseus paradox and stand back. Now that’s how you poke a bear.

Because the Hagia Sophia was so old, it seemed inconceivable to me that I wasn’t touring the Ship of Theseus. It couldn’t possibly be the same exact structure that was built in 537. But while I have found ample evidence of art restoration and the repair of actual damage to the structure, I can’t find anything to support the notion that the brick and mortar structure itself has been systematically replaced over the last 1,500 years. However it got there, at least one source lists it as the 11th oldest building on the planet that’s still in use. Even if parts have been replaced, it’s no small thing to be inside a building that old.

The Angels

There are four angels, seraphim guarding God’s throne, in the pendants supporting the main dome. Two of the angels are original mosaic, while the other two were damaged and repainted as murals. When the Ottomans converted the church to a mosque they covered the angel’s faces due to the Islamic ban on representational images. Unlike the Byzantines, who literally defaced their own religion’s artifacts over sectarian disagreements, the Ottomans respectfully covered the angel’s faces with star-shaped metal caps. You can see one of the original angels, whose cap was removed during repairs in 2009.

There’s a Hagia Sophia History Museum off premises, but 90% of that is a weird “experience” where you walk from room to room while videos play and you listen on a language-specific headphone device. When that’s over there’s a small museum with, to be fair, some choice artifacts. Like most of the North African museums we visited, the Hagia Sophia is primarily a museum of itself, but it does have a few museum-y displays.

Other than the space itself and the soaring main hall, the draw here is the mosaics, both geometric and figurative. This era Christian church loved it some mosaics, and the Hagia Sophia is practically pavéd with them. And those golden colored mosaic tiles? Gold. Nothing’s too good for our Jesus.

Like the rest of Turkey, Kapadokya has some miles on its tires. It dates back to the late Bronze Age, about 2,000 BC, and was the Hittite’s homeland. These days it’s a craft center, with long traditions in both ceramics and rugs, but the real attraction is what draws the balloons. Balloons haven’t coalesced around the area because of some fluke of updraft aerodynamics. It’s because what you can see from the air here is so unusual: Fairy chimneys. Thankfully, the view from the ground is just as amazing.

As is the view from way up in the air, on the right, flying in from Istanbul. That looks like a painting.

Fairy chimneys are a weird geological phenomenon that look just like… fairy chimneys! They’re spread out over a wide enough area that it takes cars to get from place to place. In retrospect, the smart thing would have been to hire a car and private guide to take us around, but we booked two days of group tours.

We could also have rented a car for the day and made our own way, but we’ve pretty much boycotted car rentals except for dire circumstances. I rented a car for two days in Oaxaca at the beginning of our journey, and I didn’t care for it. I didn’t like being responsible for someone else’s expensive property, and that was before a tiny fender ding cost me $600.

Our Hotel

I know, I know. Fairy chimneys. That’s the whole point. But I have to take a moment to call out our hotel. We got a nicer hotel than we usually do for these sorts of side trips. We’re always doubling up on housing costs when we road trip, because we’re still maintaining our Airbnb home base, so we tend to be pretty budget conscious. But we splurged a little bit, and it was worth it.

First, most of the Kapadokya hotels call themselves cave hotels, but most aren’t really built into the caves of the fairy chimneys. A few, but they go way beyond splurge. Most of the hotels fake it by slathering plaster over stone, which is what our hotel did, but to excellent, silly effect. The rooms were definitely cave-like.

But the setting of the hotel itself was marvelous. Lush and abundant plantings, a lovely small pool that we always had to ourselves, a convenient location, and staff that made us feel completely at home. I reviewed it on hotels.com, which I hardly ever do.

Enjoy the slideshow while you listen to the call to prayer echo across the valley.

The neighborhood itself had much to offer. Some of the other hotels were amazing for their own reasons, and the views were beautiful.

Fairy Chimneys!

Finally, the main attraction. It’s why you’re here. Admit it.

Honestly, it’s why everyone is here. After Tunisia’s comparative desolation, Turkey’s dense thicket of tourists is a little off-putting. I realize we’re part of the problem, but it doesn’t make it any easier to shoulder through crowds when you’re just trying to soak up the culture.

Let’s start at the top with Ortahisar Castle, the king of the fairy chimneys. It’s 300′ tall and is purported to be the world’s first multistory dwelling.

The fairy chimneys are spread throughout the region. According to our guide, Yasin, it takes about 800 years for the mountains to calve a fresh fairy chimney. That seems unusually fast in geologic terms, but who am I to argue with Yasin? ChatGPT, on the other hand, is happy to call him out, claiming it takes tens of thousands of years. The Smithsonian claims millions. Since they’re the result of volcanic activity and the local volcano has been dormant for all of recorded history, I’m going to say… longer than 800 years.

Yasin also claimed that the word phonetics derived from the word Phoenician, since the Phoenicians were alphabet pioneers. Yeah, no.

And then there were the very special fairy chimneys from Paşabağ Monks Valley. Chimney? Is that what you first thought of when you saw this? Liar.

We were able to visit someone’s house in the area around Uçhisar Castle. Most of the fairy chimney residents were moved out in the 50s, but it’s still possible to rent from the government if you’ve got a good story. The family that lives in this space also uses it as a gift shop and offers free tours, a usage that passes government muster.

Still, it’s a tough life. Solar panels provide power, when it’s sunny, and water is carried in by the bucket. I forgot to ask about sewage, but there’s clearly no sewer system, so… On the other hand, rents are probably cheap. On yet another hand, your landlord is the government. It’s not exactly a sweetheart deal.

Many of the fairy chimneys had rooms accessible to the public, so you really got a feeling for how the spaces were used.

Let’s talk about pigeons, shall we? The harvesting of pigeon poop to use as fertilizer was long one of the primary economic drivers for the region. Not so much anymore, although there’s still plenty of guano to go around. There are millions of pigeons in Pigeon Valley alone, so many they got to name it.

In Olde Tymes, pigeon roosts were created in the fairy chimneys and painted on the outside so pigeons would notice them. Pigeons would come in, roost and poop, and then the roosts would be harvested of guano quarterly. A pretty sweet deal for everyone, although it does cast humans as the remoras and pigeons as the sharks. Weird.

In addition to the fairy chimneys themselves, the entire area is like a textbook on how geology is the unsung hero of crazy science. Take that, quarks. It’s like a mashup of the American Southwest and The Land That Time Forgot.

Everywhere there’s a wide spot on one of the bluffs overlooking the valley, enterprising folks have set up snack stands, souvenir shops, and posed photo ops. You can even ride a camel or a pony. The camels aren’t native, they’re just there for the tourists. Gypsies import them from Syria, Iraq, and Iran at about €10k a head, and have to earn that investment back in photos €5 – €10 a pop. No one said it was easy being a Gypsy.

Is Kapadokya nothing but fairy chimneys and crazy geology? Nope. There are whole cities underground and entire churches carved out of stone.

Kaymakli Underground City

There are eleven known underground cities in the area, but Kaymakli is the one that’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It’s seven layers deep, but only the first four floors are open to the public. And those floors have been only partially restored to be safely accessible. Only a fraction of the city is available to tourists.

While the fairy chimneys offered natural caves that locals took advantage of, Kaymakli is entirely hand carved from the soft volcanic tuff. The caves date back to the Phrygians in the 8th–7th centuries BC, but were dramatically expanded by Byzantine Christians, who used them for protection from raids during the Arab–Byzantine wars (780–1180), and then again for protection from Mongol raids in the 14th century. As recently as the 1920s, Greek Christians took refuge there from occasional Ottoman oppression.

Their history as both home and sanctuary manifests in a couple of interesting ways. There are multiple passages that can be sealed off by rolling specially carved round stones over the entrances. And there are a considerable number of holes in the floor that would be known to residents but be a trap to invaders who didn’t know the layout.

Peak population estimates for Kaymakli range from 3,000-5,000 up to 10,000+. These really were cities. In fact, Kaymakli was connected to the largest of the underground cities, Derinkuyu, through a tunnel over six miles long. Derinkuyu was estimated to have a peak population of over 20,000. Shoulder had been put to wheel over an extended period.

Göreme Open Air Museum

We visited the Göreme Open Air Museum on Day Three all by ourselves. No tour, no guide. Just us, as god intended. Yet another UNESCO World Heritage Site, it’s not a museum in any normal sense. Rather, it’s a site you can explore.

Monks found the site in the 800s and carved a monastery out of the soft stone. As the location became known for its spirituality, it started attracting pilgrims, and the pilgrims started carving out chapels, leading to the thicket of sacred sites that make up the current museum. While the monks arrived in the 800s, the churches and refectories date from the 10th and 11th centuries. Each of the churches contains Byzantine painted wall murals, in varying degrees of both artistic quality and condition.

Sadly, I can’t really share pictures with you, because of the blanket prohibition on photography inside the churches. Truthfully, I think it was for traffic control, not preservation. If it was for preservation, a ban on flash photography would have done the trick. But if pictures were permitted everyone would take three times as long in each church, waiting for the right shot. I certainly would have. The museum is the single most visited attraction in Kapadokya, and the crowds would slow to a crawl without the ban.

Thank goodness the exteriors were interesting in their own right.

The most interesting exterior belonged to the Karanlik Kilise, commonly known as the Dark Church. There are painted elements on the outside, although the interior is, obviously, where the action is.

Needless to say, there are pictures of the interiors online. Normally I’m happy to scrape a photo, but it takes a number of pictures to tell the story, and that’s more theft than I’m comfortable committing. Instead, here’s a link to an especially good photo essay on the interior of the churches. She does a great job of taking you inside and providing that you-are-there perspective. She even has a video of the Dark Church.

One of the most interesting things about the interior art is that almost every piece has been defaced. Literally. The faces have been scraped off. The churches stopped being actively used around 1100, and it’s likely they were the victims of the Byzantine practice of iconoclasm. Iconoclasm, and I did not know this, literally means break icons, and was the Byzantine response to a perceived excess of veneration for the images themselves, rather than those represented by the images. It was a thou shalt not, after all. Scratching out the faces was a way to symbolically neutralize the power of the image. It also appears to be the original meaning of the word deface.

Of course, while it was forbidden to take pictures inside, if one were to find oneself inside one of the churches, and were that church to be momentarily bereft of either guards or other tourists, and if one’s wife was willing to watch the door, one might be able to sneak a few optically neutral, flash-free photos.

Balloons

While we might be personally earthbound, it’s not like we don’t appreciate the pageant of a good balloon show. It used to be a free-for-all here, but the local government decided that the number of balloons offended decency and common sense. It’s now limited to 200 balloons at a time. That’s still a lot of fucking balloons.

I was up early enough one morning to capture at least some of the spectacle.

Shopping

The nature of the group tours is that they always take you to some commercial ventures that compensate them. I get it. It greases the local economy. It happened on the Ephesus tour and we knew it would happen on our Kapadokya tours. We went to two shopping locations each day, and they were, with one exception, atrocious.

At one point early in our stay in Istanbul we mentioned to someone that we wouldn’t be getting a rug in Turkey. We were out of floor space, having picked up rugs in Mexico, Morocco, and Tunisia to go with our previous Kashmiri rug. Well, my dears, pearls were clutched. It was unthinkable that we would come to Turkey and leave without a rug. Confessing to ritual child murders would have engendered a less dramatic response.

So we were resigned to getting another rug, and we had every reason to believe that Kapadokya was the right place to give in. When our first commercial stop on Day One was Bazaar 54, a government run rug store with fixed prices, we were cautiously optimistic that we weren’t about to be fleeced.

They had rugs in all different qualities and price ranges, but we quickly zeroed in on their knotted pile rugs, which seemed to be a specialty. All of our other rugs are woven on traditional looms, where the shuttle takes the horizontal weft yarn through the vertical warp threads to create the pattern.

In a knotted pile rug, the weft threads are structural, like the warp threads, and yarn is hand knotted at the intersection of warp and weft. One by one. Individually. For the entire rug. After a weft row is completed a comb is used to push the yarn down and tighten the weave and the knotted threads are trimmed to a consistent height, creating the pile and setting up the next weft row.

The knots are tied with either wool or silk yarn, and the warp and weft threads are either wool or cotton. A wool/wool rug is the coarsest, a wool/cotton rug allows for more detail, and a silk/cotton rug has incredibly tight knots and an insane level of detail. And the price to match.

The other variable is how the fibers are dyed. Traditional dyes are natural, based on plants, shells, insects, and the like. Chemical aniline dyes are cheaper, easier to use, and more consistent. But the color variation of natural dyes is part of the appeal, making the uniformity of the aniline dyes look a little harsh to our eyes by comparison.

Natural dyed wool yarns on the right.

With little actual floor space (at this point, we’re envisioning nomad-style stacked rugs in our Chicago apartment), we settled for something small, 50″ x 30″. We wanted wool/cotton, natural dyes, and a traditional Anatolian motif. Nothing moderne. That quickly got us to this.

That’s just objectively spectacular. Also the most we’ve paid for a rug, including the much larger silk Kashmiri rug we bought in Mumbai. But that’s what it takes to get a hand knotted rug.

The Dregs

The other three places we went on our tours failed to clear the high bar set by Bazaar 54. They didn’t even ooze out of the slime. Our second stop on Day One was a ceramics shop. So far, so good. Ceramics and rugs are Cappadocia’s key crafts, and this place had undeniably beautiful work. It was just insanely overpriced. We eyed a lovely bowl and choked when we discovered it was $600. The cheapest, most meager of their bowls was $60. They were operating at about 5-10X going rates. I’m fine with fueling the local economy, but I don’t much care to be mistaken for an endowment. Or a sucker.

But Day Two had us nostalgic for Day One. While we’d never have bought anything at the ceramics store, their wares were at least culturally relevant. Someone who was interested in Turkey would be interested in the rugs and ceramics we saw on Day One, whether they purchased anything or not. But the shops we went to on Day Two were examples of Turkey’s ability to manufacture high-end designer goods. They spoke to Turkey’s industry and had nothing to say about Turkey’s culture.

The first stop was a leather store, where we were hoping to see some actual leather handicrafts. Instead, we got a replay of the leather store we saw on our Ephesus tour, complete with cheesy runway show and $1,300 Louis Vuitton and Burberry coats minus the designer label. Our second stop was an “onyx workshop,” which was nothing of the kind. It was an expensive designer jewelry manufacturer, priced like the leather and ceramics shops. I found a single stud earring with a stone I liked, but was unwilling to pay $100 for it.

The whole arrangement was insulting. We’d paid for these tours, but we were being treated as economic assets to be delivered by the vanful. Because of all the shopping fluff, it took two days and two tours to see Kapadokya. If we’d hired a private guide and car we could have seen it in a single day, at our own pace, and probably wouldn’t have spent any more.

It’s a learning, and the next time we need to visit a place that requires being driven around, we’ll skip the group tours. Thank you, Kapadokya!

But Wait, There’s More…

Thankfully, those weren’t our only shopping opportunities in Kapadokya. Göreme, the town we were staying in, had plenty of shops with high quality, reasonably priced wares. While we’d 100% capped out on rugs, we seem to have an insatiable appetite for ceramics. Amongst the many options, we felt two shops stood out. Both were, unsurprisingly, owned and operated by the craftsmen making the ceramics.

Hattuşa Seramik, named after the Hittite capital, specialized in Hittite-era designs. Pieces were being painted in the front of the shop.

As beautiful as that work was, the highlight for us was Göreme Seramik. The shop, which has been open for 22 years, exclusively represents a collective of five brothers, with their workshop and training going back to their grandfather.

Their specialty was the Anatolian textured ceramics, whose raised dots of glaze require a third firing. It’s a traditional approach and can be seen everywhere, but not necessarily at the eye bleeding level of detail offered by the five brothers, especially the shopkeeper’s husband. It’s a fine line between genius and madness. I feel for the woman.

And while ceramics and rugs might take top billing, there’s another Turkish art form easily as rich and traditional: Ebru. It’s a paper marbling technique that can also be applied to fabric, leather, and ceramics. We were lucky enough to track down Art House Ebru Sanat Evi in the neighboring town of Ürgüp, a short taxi ride there and almost a walk back (we followed a taxi that was dropping off a fare in order to get an empty cab).

Pigments are dropped onto an oil base, manipulated to create the desired shapes, and then transferred directly to the substrate. We got a demo which shows the process end-to-end.

Dorothy bought a silk scarf, I got a baseball cap (which worries me, since I’ve left three caps in taxis so far, but I think the Ebru will make it harder to miss), and we picked up a pair of marbled paper pieces.

And that put an end to our Kapadokya tour. The road trips are another learning. While we home base in cities with a lot going on, if we truly want to know a place we have to get out and explore. We took an epic two week road trip in Tunisia, which included our life changing week in the Sahara, and even added a day trip to Dougga and Bulla Regia. We really saw Tunisia. I think we’d have enjoyed Morocco more if we’d gotten out of the cities and explored, although we did take multi-day trips to Fes and Essaouira. But Dorothy was immediately post hip replacement when we hit Morocco (literally blaming the victim), so we were a little constrained on adventuring. Now she’s clearly up for anything.

We return to Istanbul for a final four days before starting our trek back to the US. Our first stop is actually Tunis. When we decided to go to Turkey instead of the US, we already had our tickets to go to Chicago from Tunis. We could change the dates, but we couldn’t exchange the tickets. So we’re headed back to Tunis to regroup for a couple of days before the long haul to the US and another adventure: moving in to our new apartment.

Ephesus was a Greek city established in the 10th century BC. As if that doesn’t make it old enough, it was built on the site of Apasa, the former capital of Arzawa. I could have made that up and you wouldn’t know, but I didn’t. In Christian times, Paul preached there, but was booted, it’s said, by the silversmiths who made their living hawking Artemis gewgaws. They thought Christianity undermined their business model, but I think they seriously underestimated the market for Christian gewgaws.

Paul, imprisoned briefly for riling up the locals, decided it would be best to communicate his thoughts from a safe remove, one martyr apparently being plenty. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians became an entire chapter in the Bible. Woo hoo!

A Christian-Greek-Pagan-Roman mashup? A perfect road trip, since we already reside at the intersection of Adventure and Absurdity. Four days and three nights ought to do the trick.

Izmir

We flew to Izmir from Istanbul. It’s just a little over an hour, and flying within Turkey is super cheap. We flew out of Sabiha Gökçen, which had been the primary international airport for Istanbul before IST opened in 2018. So it’s still a pretty big damned airport. Our favorite part, if you can have a favorite part of an airport, was this Soviet-style mural. Onward vanguard of Turkey, to your glorious future airport!

Izmir is Turkey’s third largest city, sitting right on the Aegean coast, but we only spent the afternoon and evening there, heading to Selçuk and Ephesus the next morning. Izmir used to be Smyrna, and we were staying in the Old City right next to the ruins of the Agora. It was hot enough that we spent the afternoon in the Kemeralti Market, which was covered. By the time we got out to the Agora it was closed. We walked around the perimeter and peered inside. It looked like… old stones.

I’m afraid we’ve been to so many Roman era ruins at this point that we’re a little jaded. Which is concerning, since we’re going to two more sites on this trip. Fingers crossed.

On the other hand, you have to love a town that’s chosen this as their mascot. She stands guard just outside the Kemeralti Market. As a warning to the other fish.

The Kemeralti Market is a big, sprawling covered market dominating the Old City. But what really stood out was the complete and total absence of arts and crafts. There was food and clothes and spices and textiles and cafes, but we literally found only a single shop selling tourist goods. We must have just missed the sector, although we spent the entire afternoon wandering the market. I was embarrassed to ask at the hotel. “Hey, where do the tourists shop?” The shreds of my dignity and self respect tortured themselves into a semi-human shape and forbade me. It’s not like we needed more handicrafts. It was just weird.

This, however, demands its own explanation. There were a lot of shops selling little Grand Vizier costumes. At first we thought they might be for wee wedding attendants, but there were way too many, and no commensurate quantity of adult wedding wear. Nope, these were their own animal.

A short trip to the interwebs revealed the unpleasant truth. These are the fancy outfits 5-7 year olds get to wear for their own personal Sünnet festival. For when they’re circumcised. In public. At 5-7 years old. I’d demand way more than some Arabian Nights cosplay, but that appears to be the payoff. That, and, of course, being circumcised. Which is awesome and totally worth it. On Day Eight. Not sure I’d have signed off on Year Seven.

Selçuk

We’d been planning to take the train from Izmir to Selçuk, the town closest to Ephesus. The guy who arranged our tour said the train was complicated, which made no sense, as the train schedule showed a direct train from Izmir. When we got there and tried to figure it out, surprise, it seemed complicated. So we took a cab for the thirty minute drive south.

And here’s where the stupid kicked in. It was hot the day before in Izmir, but we were able to stay pretty covered in the market. Ephesus would be a direct sun tour, with very little shade, and a temperature of 108. We should have just bailed and stayed in our air conditioned hotel room. That would have been, what’s the word I’m looking for…? Smart.

Especially since we came back to news articles about pilgrims dying on the way to Mecca in the 110 degree heat. That got our attention.

But we didn’t know that at the time, so off we went, marching under our banner: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? First stop on our tour wasn’t Ephesus. It was…

Mary’s House

We found our tour guide through a personal connection, so we just signed up for the Ephesus tour without drilling down into the itinerary. This was our first group tour, so we figured we’d just go with whatever happened. Counting us there were eight people on the tour, sharing our thankfully air conditioned van. Five Argentines who got their own Spanish speaking guide, and three Americans with our own guide: ourselves and a lovely Japanese woman who lives in… Chicago! We’ll be connecting with Hisae when we get back to the US. Look at us, making friends.

I have to confess, I wasn’t all that thrilled about visiting Mary’s house. First, I don’t actually care. Second, I felt pretty strongly that we should have started in Ephesus before the sun was directly overhead. But Mary was first up and we’d strapped in for the ride.

The redeeming feature wasn’t Mary’s actual house, it was the wackadoodle backstory. A German nun took to her bed in 1812, riddled with all of Jesus’s various maladies: wounds from the Crown of Thorns, the stigmata, the lance, the whole nine yards. She was attended by a monk who cared for her from 1818 through her death in 1824. During this period she was prone to visions, which the monk, he claims, dutifully recorded. After her death he published them as The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which became an international best seller. Because it would take over a century to produce a Robert Ludlum.

One of her visions was a description of the location of the house that John had purportedly built for Mary’s retirement years. Or as she preferred they be known, Mary’s Scrapbooking Years. It’s not like she quit working. One of the many readers of the book declared that he recognized the location the nun had described as being uniquely a hilltop above Ephesus. An expedition was raised based on his claim, which found… the foundation of an old house. Exactly where the nun described it.

And, that’s it. There is absolutely zero evidence that this is Mary’s house except the crazy nun’s visions. The Catholic Church has never officially recognized the site as Mary’s house, but three popes have visited, so… you know.

Meanwhile, the site racks up the pilgrims. You can visit the house, which is actually a brand new Olde Style stone house built on top of the existing floor. I guess Mary’s Foundation didn’t come out of focus group. You get to stand in line so you can enter the fake house, look at pictures of popes, and buy an offering candle.

There’s still a spring there, and there are faucets so you can douse your hands and face with water from the same spring used by the mother of god. There’s a wishing wall. But most importantly, there’s a gift shop, with ridiculously overpriced Mary merch. The silversmiths of Ephesus should have seen this coming and welcomed Paul with open wallets.

While the site itself was underwhelming, the meta made it somehow worthwhile.

Ephesus

Finally, 108 degree heat be damned: Ephesus. How hot was it? Dorothy drank 3+ bottles of water and never once peed all day. Our iPhones overheated and their screens dimmed, which had never happened before. I mistook it for glare making the screen unreadable at first, until it kept happening in the shade. But we were not to be deterred. Even if being deterred would have been really smart.

Ephesus, despite its august history, has had it kind of rough. Rebuilt after rampaging Goths (is there another kind?) razed it in 262 AD, it finally went down for good in 614, laid low by an earthquake and the silting up of the port.

Very few structures have survived with their integrity intact, so what’s left has been largely reconstructed from the bits and bobs found on the site. That still gives Ephesus a fairly epic feeling, as many of the sites we’ve visited aren’t much more than foundations. Ephesus is a real city, and we could have explored much longer than the hour and a half we were there. On the other hand, we left before the heat stroke, so, on balance, a win.

That’s the main drag on the right, Curetes Street. The street was lined with shops and temples, and led down to the iconic Library of Celsus at the bottom. You can see how this still has the shape and feel of a real city.

Other than its scale, one of the most interesting things about Ephesus is how much it’s a mashup of Greek and Roman design and construction, all side by side. The Romans were known for destroying whatever came before them and reusing the building materials, so a true Greco-Roman city is unusual.

There were several arena-style structures with raked seating, but they served entirely different purposes. One was for governing and one was for entertainment.

Our guide referred to the first one as the Politarium, although I couldn’t find that term anywhere else. It’s where local officials gathered to debate and vote on the business of the day. Unlike the theater, it had a covered roof.

The Great Theatre of Ephesus was actually built by the Greeks and refurbished by the Romans. Most Roman cities had two arenas, one for entertainment and one for spectacle, but the refurbished Greek theater served both purposes in Roman times. You can tell it was used for spectacles because of the high walls, which kept dangerous animals away from the patrons. While it wasn’t as enormous as the Colosseum in Rome, which could seat 50,000, The Great Theatre of Ephesus held a more than respectable 25,000 attendees.

As we walked down Curetes Street toward the Library, we passed a couple of key sites. The first was the Trajan Fountain. Erected in the 2nd century AD in honor of Emperor Trajan, it was one of the city’s more spectacular fountains.

Next down the hill was the Temple of Hadrian, built by the Greeks in about 130 AD. It’s one of the most intact structures in Ephesus, although everything here has been rebuilt. Pretty much nothing was left standing by the time serious excavation and restoration efforts began in 1863.

I’ve saved the best for last. The absolute highlight of Ephesus awaited us at the foot of Curetes Street, the restored Library of Celsus, the most magnificent structure in the city and, honestly, in much of the ancient world.

The library, completed in 135 AD, held more than 12,000 scrolls. While it couldn’t hold a candle to the Library of Alexandria (and probably shouldn’t have) and its 500,000 scrolls, it was still one of the largest libraries of the ancient world. On the other hand, you can still visit the Library of Celsus. Try booking a tour to the Library of Alexandria.

This was pretty much the end of the Ephesus tour, and at this point Dorothy found a spot of shade from which she could see the library clearly. Because she’s the smart one.

Shopping

I know how the packaged tours work, and it’s one of the reasons we’ve never done them. You’re on someone else’s agenda, and there’s always an obligatory stop at some overpriced gift shop. I get it. Everyone makes money from it, and it’s a necessary part of the commercial food chain. I may not like it, but I certainly understand the benefits.

So having been taken to an overpriced gift shop, we purchased overpriced Turkish Delight and olive oil. Which were both very good. Just hideously, unnecessarily expensive. But hey, happy to do our part for the local economy.

It was the next stop that was so over the top I was actually kind of pissed off. We were taken to a high-end leather shop for a runway show and a shopping adventure. The leather was undeniably high quality, but prices ran from $600 to upwards of $1,300 for coats. What about “I’d like to tour Ephesus” logically suggests “I’d like to drop trust fund dollars on expensive leather goods”?

On the other hand, it was both air conditioned and utterly ridiculous, so a notch short of completely wasted time.

Temple Of Artemis

This site no longer has much to say for itself, but the history here is thick. There have been three discrete temples on this site, all of them dedicated to Artemis. The first one is from the Bronze Age, and while there’s no build date for it, we know it was destroyed by a flood in the 7th century BC. So, old.

The second temple was built by Croesus of Lydia (that Croesus, the one who invented money) and completed about 540 BC. That temple was destroyed by an arsonist in 356 BC, because he wanted to be famous. Well, we still know his name, so, well played.

Alexander had offered to rebuild the temple again, but only if his name was above the title and bigger than Artemis’s name. That put the Ephesians in a bind, as they had no interest in angering either Artemis or Alexander. After consulting, they returned to Alexander and declined, saying “it would be improper for one god to build a temple to another.” That actually worked, and Alexander toddled off without killing anyone for their effrontery, leaving the Ephesians to fund the rebuilding of the temple themselves. All in all, the best possible outcome.

Alexander’s interest, the story goes, is that he was born the day the temple burnt, and Artemis was so busy attending the birth and making sure the Great popped out healthy that she didn’t have time to goddess back to Ephesus and save her temple. A classic time management problem.

The final version, whose remains are the current ruins, was the most glorious of all. It was started in 323 BC and stood until those nasty Goths destroyed it as part of their Ephesus campaign. It was a massive building, the largest of the three versions, with more than 127 columns and an overall structure that soared to 60 feet. It was recognized at the time as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. In fact, it’s our first checkmark on our Seven Wonders Bingo Card. Here’s a recreation from Wikipedia.

What’s left today is remarkably less impressive. There’s a field of foundation rubble and a lone column standing melancholy guard. And that’s not even a real column, just random pieces that were found on site and stacked up to the proper height, a faint echo of the temple’s previous grandeur.

Like many such sites, one of the reasons there isn’t much left is because the ruins served as a source of reusable building materials. The Christians stripped the marble from the temple to build a basilica to St. John. Parts of that basilica are still standing.

Why only parts? Because when the muslims showed up and needed to build a mosque, they found a basilica with plenty of material ready to be reused. What goes around comes around.

That was a lovely way to close out the tour. There was some shade from the heat, and we were the only people there. It was a quiet spot in which to contemplate how everything, even a monument to the gods, is eventually little more than rubble. It made me feel small in a very satisfying way.

Shopping!

Tour over, we headed back to our hotel to shower and hug the AC. We set out to find some dinner in Selçuk, and damned if we didn’t walk right into a crafts store. How did that happen?

The pieces were beautiful, but very expensive, and we were sure we were just window shopping on the way to dinner. We are so, so silly. The proprietor was a lovely man, and every piece had a story. It was impossible not to be charmed and seduced. Especially if you’re the easiest marks on the planet.

Pamukkale

Day Three kicked off with a train that ran directly from Selçuk to Denizli, the town closest to Pamukkale. Or it would have run directly if we’d gotten on the train going in the right direction. I asked the station agent if we were on the correct platform for the train to Denizli and he said yes. I’m sure that makes him laugh every single time.

We took the train to the next major station and got the next train headed back. Thankfully, no one was weird about our having a ticket for the earlier train, and it only added about an hour to our arrival time. Worse mistakes have been made. Like touring Ephesus in 108 degree heat.

When we were in Oaxaca we visited Herve el Agua, a stone waterfall that was built up from minute calcium carbonate deposits accreted over thousands of years. When I wrote about it, I’d written something about how it felt to stand somewhere completely unique on the planet. Which prompted fact checking that brought up a similar site halfway across the world. In Turkey’s hinterlands, clearly a place we’d never get.

Well, we have now visited all two of the stone waterfalls on the planet. Honestly, didn’t see that coming.

We stayed in the hotel and didn’t venture out until 4:30. Because at 4:30 it was still 107 degrees. What did we learn from having survived our previous day’s outing to Ephesus in 108 degree heat?

Not a thing, apparently.

The deal with Pamukkale is Hierapolis. The Greeks, specifically the Seleucids, founded Hierapolis as a hot springs spa in about 280 BC, although a Phrygian temple at the site dates back to the 7th century BC.

An earthquake in 60 AD leveled the city, and the Romans rebuilt. That’s the version of Hierapolis that’s reflected in the ruins today.

Sadly, we barely saw Hierapolis. We started late in the afternoon and had to leave the next morning before noon. More ruins in that heat would have been foolish (we had a much better plan), so with great regret we made the only smart decision of this trip and passed on another full sun tour of ruins.

But what we were able to see while in Pamukkale (Turkish for Cotton Castle) more than did the trick.

Here’s the tourist map.

Our hotel was right at the entrance at the bottom right. We took a shuttle from there to the South Gate, went to the thermal pools and then walked down the path through the travertine pools to get back to our hotel. We left at 4:30 and got down the hill for dinner just at sunset, at 8:30. It was still 92 degrees at 8:30. As much as I regret missing them, skipping the ruins at Hierapolis was 100% the right call.

I cannot stress enough how crowded Turkey is. We expect it, to some extent, in Istanbul, in places like the Hagia Sophia and Topkapi Palace. But Pamukkale felt off the beaten path in ways that made the crowds feel like an unpleasant surprise.

The Theater

Pretty much the only part of Hierapolis we saw was the theater, which is just above the thermal pool in the tourist map above. And even that we only saw from a distance, while we walked to the pool.

Cleopatra’s Pool

The thermal pool, or Cleopatra’s Pool, was the main draw in Pamukkale, along with the travertine pools. Although fed from the same hot spring source as the stone pools, the water here is somehow ridiculously transparent. The pool, in which Cleopatra was reported to have actually bathed, is full of fallen Roman columns, capitals, and slabs of marble to sit on and swim around.

So here’s the thing. For literally decades Dorothy has had a picture from a fashion magazine on one of her mood boards. It was of a crystal clear pool with a model sitting on what looked like a submerged Roman column. She couldn’t possibly have told you where it was taken, but it’s been part of her visual wallpaper for forever, and unquestionably an aspirational life goal.

It wasn’t until we’d planned the trip to Ephesus and Pamukkale and we were digging into the details that Dorothy realized that her picture was from Cleopatra’s Pool, and that we were going there. The picture below is the same angle as the picture from her mood board. The only difference is that our model is much prettier than the one in her clipping.

While nominally a hot spring, in 107 degree heat it felt more like a warm spring, cooler than the air. We stayed in it for almost two hours, right to closing time, before making our way to the travertine pools.

Dorothy, as happy as I’ve ever seen her.

The Travertine Pools

Like Hierve el Agua, the travertine fields and pools of Pamukkale have an otherworldly feel, as well as a timelessness born of the millennia it’s taken to create them.

This is the view from our hotel room’s balcony. The pictures above are of these travertine fields. To the right, just outside the picture, is the path that leads down to the town via a descending series of pools. Walls have been built to catch the water and create pools that you can swim in. None of them are very deep, maybe knee depth or a little deeper, although they’re fine for sitting.

Having just spent almost two hours in Cleopatra’s Pool, we didn’t really need to swim anymore. But the path down isn’t a path so much as a slope through the pools themselves. Shoes are forbidden on the travertine, so the walk back is a refreshing splash through warm water. As the evening cooled, all the way down to 92, it was the perfect way to close out our visit.

While the vast travertine fields might seem like a still life, they’re anything but. The landscape is alive with the movement of water, from trickles to torrents.

In our ongoing series, Dorothy Sees Textures, Dorothy sees textures. In this case, Geology × Time ÷ Gravity = Art.

Sunset over the travertine falls.

Back to the hotel for a 10:00 dip in the cool swimming pool, and that put a bow on our trip. We’d get up in the morning, take a bus from Denizli to Izmir, about four hours, and then fly back to Istanbul. We wound up getting back at about midnight, exhausted but happy.

Pamukkale had one last treat for us before we left. That next morning I was up early enough to see the balloons take off at about 6 AM. It’s not like the balloon army in Cappadocia, where we’ll be in a couple of weeks, but it was a lovely sendoff nonetheless.

Oil Wrestling

Thirty countries were represented at Ethnosports, but Oil Wrestling is Turkey’s contribution to the art form. Folks have been oil wrestling for 4,500 years. Which is exactly what it looks like. It’s the sports version of a primordial forest.

Before the rasslin’ starts there’s a ritualized parade. Kind of like when moose stomp the ground to intimidate other moose.

YouTube makes me check a box on uploads declaring them “Safe for kids.” I checked yes, but I suppose it depends on how the kid in question feels about gladiator movies.

I was surprised by how slow it was. My only other experience with oil wrestling was in a strip club, and that was greased lightning by comparison. Although, to be fair, I don’t believe the emphasis there was on winning. I didn’t actually stay to the end of the match. While I’m sure the subtleties sing to devotees, it wasn’t exactly action packed.

Oodarysh

Also called Er Enish, it’s wrestling on horseback from Kyrgyzstan. I’m sorry it wasn’t horse wrestling. How much would you pay to watch horses wrestle? Cock fighting would be relegated to the ash heap of illicit sports history if anyone could figure out how to get horses to wrestle.

While this was also a little on the slow side, it did make me marvel at the logistics of putting on an event like this. You don’t Oodarysh on just any old horse. That horse is trained. So unlike, say track and field, where you’re packing your shoes, you have to pack your horse to attend this shindig. We’re having trouble figuring out how to ship a box from Istanbul to Chicago. Getting a horse from Kyrgyzstan to Istanbul? No thank you.

The funny thing about this is that we did watch it to the end, and it just appeared to stop. Perhaps there was some subtle rules violation that ended the match, but as far as we could tell the guy with hair just dismounted and they walked off. He appeared to be done.

Shalwar Wrestling

Another Turkish ethnosport, Shalwar Wrestling is named for the shorts, which are the only uniform. The participants are barefoot and otherwise exposed. The pace on these bouts was decidedly spritelier than the oil wrestling and the Oodarysh. It felt more like actual wrestling, while still looking plenty odd.

It started with the children’s division…

Moved on to teenagers…

And finished with adults.

According to Wikipedia, “Defeat is the belly that sees the sky.” Isn’t it just? I wish I’d understood that when we were watching, but I feel like I’ve always known.

Mounted Archery

Although it’s practiced all over the world, Mounted Archery is another Turkish sport. It originated in the Eurasian Steppe in the second millennium BC, although its current form was perfected by the Ottomans as a type of military training. It encompasses a variety of trick shots, most of which involve shooting arrows while riding a horse that’s running very fast.

The most famous of those is the Parthian Shot, which involves shooting at a target behind you while racing forward on your horse. They also shoot at tin plates atop long poles, maybe 20′ tall (you can see that on the still in the video below). We witnessed them using a sword to slice a watermelon while galloping at full speed. Unfortunately, I can imagine what that’s training for. One rider chased another and shot an arrow at the shield on the leader’s back. Successfully, in every attempt we witnessed, at least.

Kökbörü?

Honestly, I’m not 100% sure this is Kökbörü. Of the sports listed on the festival’s web site, this seemed closest. Yet another Turkish sport, Kökbörü is traditionally played with a dead goat as the ball, with horsemen chasing each other like hell and trying to get the goat into their opponent’s goal.

I think the chew toy the riders are fighting over in the clip below is a family friendly stand-in for a dead goat, and, since the field was used for multiple sports, the bales of hay stood in for the goals.

Or it could be something completely different. I’ve posted this to YouTube and tagged it as Kökbörü, so now I guess it’s a fact. It’s fitting that I’m not even sure what sport it is, as I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what was going on while we watched.

Kökbörü, if that’s what it is, is pretty popular, played, if that’s the word, in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, and Afghanistan. Because lots and lots of spare goats.

Arts & Crafts

It wasn’t all ethnosports. There were tons of booths with amazing, crafts and each country had its own booth showing off their heritage or offering tasty snacks for free. There were even booths spread out over the grounds offering free water. We got sandwiches at one of the food kiosks for about $2 each. That and the free water may have been the craziest things there. Don’t they understand that gouging is the entire point of a festival? Maybe Live Nation could take over and run things properly.

Did Dorothy buy anything at the craft stalls? Oh, you.

Sadly, that was all of the ethnosports we could handle. There was plenty more we missed, but we were pretty cooked after four hours in the sun. And more than grateful for what we were able to see. We’ve seen videos of this kind of thing, but it was an amazing experience to witness it all firsthand.

My Moroccan and Tunisian experiences were spa-based, so this time I picked a more traditional trench: the Kılıç Ali Paşa Hamam. It was built in 1580 by famed architect Mimar Sinan, builder of many of Turkey’s iconic structures, including Istanbul’s Süleymaniye Mosque. The hammam was part of the Kılıç Ali Paşa Mosque compound built at the same time. Sadly, it hasn’t operated continuously, as it had fallen into ruinous disrepair. It was reopened in 2012, to spectacular effect, after a seven year renovation.

The main floor is a lounge, for waiting with a chilled pomegranate juice while they prepare for you, as well as relaxing post-hammam. The vibe of this space was spa chill, but it obviously didn’t feel like a spa. It felt pasha luxurious, not spa luxurious. It was built for a pasha, after all.

This was the only place I could take pictures. Even if they were permitted inside, which they are thankfully not, that’s a lot of hot and wet for an iPhone.

The changing rooms are upstairs, and that’s where the traditional starts to kick in. They provide you with slippers for the marble floors and what they refer to as a loincloth. That loincloth is actually called a peshtemal and dates back to Roman times, the Roman baths having been the inspiration for the Ottoman hammams. One source I found claims that the peshtemal is the oldest textile product still in use.

They’re woven from fine Turkish cotton and are thinner than regular towels, so they dry quicker. They’re also big, like serapes. I was expecting something more like the ridiculous disposable spa panties I’d been provided in Morocco and Tunisia (and yes, I have a picture, and no, you don’t get to see it – you’re welcome), but instead I got a length of fabric I had to negotiate. You can imagine how that went. But don’t.

I returned to the waiting area clutching my poorly secured peshtemal and was ushered into the holy of holies, a white marble sanctum full of hot air and mostly naked Turks. And here’s where the whole experience required a leap of faith. Turkish hammams are strictly segregated by gender. I only found one coed hammam in Istanbul, in the sense that men and women could be serviced at the same time, although in different facilities.

The Kılıç Ali Paşa took the more usual approach, with daytime hours for women and evening hours for men. In all of the pictures I’d seen, the hammamers, called tellaks, were fat old men. I don’t think this makes me a pig, but I think the correct answer to the question, “Would you rather get a bath from a fat old man or a pretty young woman?” is pretty young woman. Cancel me. It would be a relief.

I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d feel about being bathed by a fat old man, but my tellak, an affable young man named Engin, put me at ease. By being, at a minimum, neither fat nor old. I discovered later that Engin means vast or wide. What a shitty thing to do to a baby.

The room was dominated by a massive hexagonal marble plinth sitting under a backlit dome.

As I obviously couldn’t take photos inside, I scraped the interior photos from here. I’m sure they stole them first.

Engin placed a folded up towel to use as a head rest and guided me to lie down on the plinth, which turned out to be heated. If you’ve read my posts on Moroccan and Tunisian hammams, you’ll know that I don’t really like saunas. Sweating is one of my least favorite activities, especially given that we’re in Istanbul in June and spend most of the day sweating. But I like a wet sauna even less than a dry sauna, which is one of the reasons I didn’t much care for the Tunisian hammam experience, so I was at least slightly mollified by the fact that I was lying down in a dry sauna.

Well, if I was expected to lay down and sweat my toxins out, I was going to lean into that experience. It’s like taking acid. Once that tab dissolves under your tongue you are on the trip, my friend, and it’s better to relax and let it sweep you along. Struggling is counterproductive.

I’m guessing that I was on that plinth for about 15 minutes, although time was, to be fair, a little elastic. At one point I opened my eyes to see that a glass of ice water had magically appeared by my head. It’s good to be pasha.

I was summoned from my moist fugue and taken to a heated marble bench. Engin decorously rearranged my hideously malformed peshtemal so that I could actually be bathed. He was very kind.

He also started with a scalp massage, which was a particularly devious way to get in my good graces.

A marble basin sat to my left. Engin mixed the water, and the metal bowl was used as a bucket to sluice water over me. He started out with pretty hot water, and after rinsing me down he applied soap by hand. There were several cycles of soap and rinse.

Each soap cycle involved really working the soap into my skin. They offer an actual massage as an add-on, but I can’t imagine needing it. I felt plenty massaged.

In between one of the soap/rinse cycles an exfoliating glove, called a kese, was introduced. It fell well short of the birch branch flensing I’d anticipated, and was nearly gentle. Engin and I were fast becoming friends. I wasn’t even offended when he grabbed my belly and playfully suggested “şiş kebap.” Of course, the correct answer was “kek.” To be fair, if a pretty young woman had grabbed my belly, looked me in the eye, and announced “şiş kebap” I’d probably have been mortified. So there’s that.

Although Dorothy swears I’d just interpret it as a come on, and disagreeing with Dorothy is pointless.

After washing my hair, Engon performed a magic trick. It involved an object called a torba, which is basically a pillow case. It’s dipped in soapy water and then swooshed to fill it with air. Through some black art, the bag fills with rich, dense foam which is poured over you. Repeatedly. I looked like a soapy Michelin man, nothing but a head and feet.

After a final rinse with cool water (which felt wonderful), Engin stood me up and swapped in a dry peshtemal. He also cinched it like a professional. So thoroughly that when it came time to change I have trouble unwrapping it. Properly adorned, at last, he led me to the final room, the soğukluk, what the Romans called the frigidarium.

He dried my hair and wrapped it in a turban. He also wrapped a towel around my shoulders, flapping it repeatedly so it blew cool air over me. On balance, I found Engin extremely likable.

The final stop was back to the lounge, to unwind for as long as I’d like and enjoy every glass of ice water they brought me. The whole experience was like getting a bath in a mosque. Both in the setting itself and in the sense of spiritual contentment that followed. It was as close to a religious experience as I’m permitted.

I never did the traditional hammam in Morocco, so I can’t truly say whether the difference between the two situations was Morocco vs. Turkey or Spa vs. Traditional. But as much as I truly loved the Moroccan experience, I’ll take the Turkish version any day of the week. Preferably all of them. If I could afford it. My Turkish bath was over three times the cost in Morocco and Tunisia. But you get what you pay for, and I got an unforgettable adventure into a distant past made deliciously present.

If my goal was traditional, mission accomplished.

Let me take you out on a video the hammam itself put together. You really get a feel for the space.

Sure, sure, it’s Istanbul not Constantinople, but before that it was fucking Byzantium. Which was founded in 657 BC. OK, I’m cheating that timeline a little, since Carthage was founded by the Phoenicians in 800 BC. But even if Carthage is technically older than Istanbul, it’s a matter of inches from this remove. What’s undeniable is that somehow we’ve managed to create a cradle-of-civilization tour. We swear, it wasn’t on purpose. Nothing we’re doing is on purpose.

Once again, we’re dealing with a metric buttload of old. Besides ourselves. The Old City of Istanbul houses a Grand Bazaar that dates to 1455. Topkapi was built in 1460. The Blue Mosque was completed in 1617. The Hagia Sophia was originally built in 537. Jesus, there’s a hammam in the Old City that was built in 1584.

To say nothing of the various ruins scattered about the country. Inspired by our epic Saharan trip, we’re planning a tour to take in some of the amazing things outside Istanbul, including a trip to the Greek era city of Ephesus, which Dorothy recalls reading about in her childhood bible study classes.

But how did we even wind up in Istanbul? Weren’t we supposed to head to Chicago after Tunisia? Yes we were, and thank you for asking.

We haven’t tired of traveling, but we have tired of being homeless, so we were headed to Chicago to set up the apartment we purchased from my sister, which is currently occupied by my niece and her husband. They took on a huge gut renovation, turning an abandoned synagogue in Chicago into an arts center and residence. To no one’s surprise, or at least not ours, that project ran over. They figured they’d need another two weeks past our planned return date to actually be out of our apartment.

What to do? We could come back as planned and spend those couple of weeks somewhere in the US. Or we could stay in Tunisia longer, stretching our visa out. Or we could go somewhere else completely.

One of the interesting things about what we’re doing is the illusion of freedom. Freedom is just a machine into which we sluice data and await the result. When we’re planning our next stop, we could go anywhere. But then we factor in the weather. And the cost of transit. And the cost of housing. And the ease of entry. And the local safety and political outlook. And the EFF (Estimated Fun Factor).

By the time we’re done, the machine usually spits out a single answer. So much for freedom.

As it turns out, going back to the US and Airbnbing for those two weeks was the costliest option. Housing in the US is expensive. This whole journey is pretty much built on housing arbitrage. Staying longer in Tunisia was the cheapest option, but the lowest EFF. It didn’t feel like adding two more weeks would squeeze a lot more out of Tunisia after our three months there.

Istanbul? Cheap transit, cheap housing, and exceptional EFF. Thank you, Machine-That-Makes-Our-Decisions-For-Us! But two weeks in Istanbul seemed stupid, so we upped it to five weeks, to make it worth our while. Maybe the machine doesn’t make all of our decisions.

Turkey is also of a piece with what’s turning into a Muslim World Tour. Turkey is about as Muslim as it gets, with some estimates tallying 99% of the population. What’s shocking is how deep the commitment to secularism runs here, despite the fact that it’s pretty much all Muslim, all the time. Yes, Erdoğan has been eroding that bit by bit, but he hasn’t made truly significant inroads. Plus, he just took a spanking at the polls, although that’s probably related more to his strongman dreams than his Muslim nationalism.

But you can feel that secularism on the street. Sure, there’s the call to prayer, and there are niqabs and head scarves, but not as many as you’d expect. The booze situation is incredibly normal. Unlike Morocco and Tunisia, the grocery stores have it behind the registers, not locked away in a separate room, and all the restaurants sell booze, which was practically unheard of in our previous Muslim stops. I’m sure it’s different out in the country, but in the big city modest dressing doesn’t seem to be a thing. The women could be from any European capital and the men wear Western dress almost exclusively.

Honestly, if I didn’t know anything about the place and I’d just landed I’d have said Istanbul had a conspicuous Muslim minority. That’s how it feels. Ataturk’s reforms are a bedrock part of Turkish society, and even Erdoğan hasn’t been able to put a noticeable dent in Turkey’s secular culture.

Our Apartment

We’re not staying in the neighborhood we preferred, but that’s what we get for pivoting at the last possible minute. We booked our Airbnb four days before arrival and there just weren’t a lot of affordable options (note to self: next time maybe a less affordable option is a good idea). We’re in Beyoğlu in the New City, and there’s nothing wrong with the location. It’s just heavily focused on hotels and over-priced restaurants. This is not a neighborhood anyone lives in, so there’s a paucity of goods and services that aren’t tourist focused. Lots of convenience stores and travel agents, not a housewares or hardware store in sight.

On the other hand, we’re hard by Taksim Square, and are ridiculously well positioned for transit. We may not be in a hanging-out neighborhood, but we have ready access to the entire city. Public transit puts us minutes from the old city and just as close to a smorgasbord of walking neighborhoods. It’s not a bad tradeoff.

That transit system may be the best we’ve seen so far. It’s plentiful, cheap (50¢/fare), modern, and efficient. Honestly, the transit system here smells like money.

It also encompasses just about every form of public transit known to man. The Metro is a dense, sophisticated subway system, but there’s also a surface Tramway that operates on tracks like a trolley, avoiding the congested street traffic. There’s even a special class of bus that zips though traffic in dedicated lanes. There are buses, funiculars, the Teleferikler (aerial tram), and ferries, all part of the same system, and all accessible using the same pass, the Istanbulkart. Which is even good for entering public restrooms. Istanbul is one of the most livable big cities we’ve encountered.

I should note, by the way, that we’re in Europe, a short walk to the Bosporus. We can see Asia from our neighborhood. There’s a walking bridge, and you can literally walk from Europe to Asia, but we haven’t done that yet. And probably won’t. The Bosporus isn’t exactly narrow.

The apartment itself is fine. We’ve become inured to the insults of the Airbnb lifestyle. It’s a little spartan, but it’s clean, there’s regular hot water and adequate water pressure, and the kitchen is… functional. The bed is comfortable. That’s not nothing. The living room is gracious, with enough seating and the apartment’s highlight, a wall of exceptionally wacky oil paintings. There’s even a little balcony with enough room for a small table. We eat out there and enjoy the post-Soviet splendor. It is a fourth floor walkup, which we don’t love, but we’re only here five weeks.

Speaking of those crows, we’ve been adopted. They’re Hooded Crows, and Dorothy read up on them enough to be able to entice them with little dishes of food and water. There are a pair who stop by regularly, and they like nuts, fruit, and, especially, French fries. They’re quite fastidious, and rinse their food in the water before eating. At this point, they’ve taken to bringing food for later and leaving it in the food dish along with our offerings. When they’re ready to eat they come back, rinse, and dine. We could watch Crow TV for hours. And we do.

Shopping

As mentioned, there’s really nothing in our neighborhood but convenience stores. There are grocery stores nearby, but there are day-of-the-week markets scattered about the city. That’s the way to shop here.

This is the Saturday market in Beşiktaş. It occupies a two-story car park, but it pales in comparison to…

Fındıkzade Cuma Pazari, an absolutely massive Friday market in the Old City featuring everything from cheap clothes to cheap housewares. And balloon animals. This is a classic street market (no permanent structures) that takes up what feels like an entire neighborhood. I’m sure if I lived there I’d hate it. But I don’t.

While the array of goods is impressive, Fındıkzade Cuma Pazari is the best food market we’ve seen anywhere so far. In overall size it’s smaller than the Abastos in either Oaxaca or Mexico City, but it trumps both in the breadth and depth of the offerings, and the sheer density of the experience.

We also went to a Tuesday market, the Kadkikoy Sali Pazari, which is across the Bosporus in Asia. Pazari means market, by the way, which comes from the same Persian root as bazaar.

We’d attempted to go to a couple of day markets the day before, and put on six miles without ever locating them, but we were confident we’d find this market. Which we did, only to discover that it was a flea market, not a produce market. A very, very large flea market, with every manner of things. But mostly clothes.

We finally wound up in a neighborhood with quality produce stores. We referred to them as Produce Palaces, for obvious reasons.

Of course, not all the shopping was produce. While most of our artifact looting occurred in the Old City or on our road trips, Istanbul offered up this lovely little shop specializing in repurposed antique silk velvets.

Streetscape

Istanbul is big. It’s the world’s fifteenth largest city, with over 15 million residents. It’s not the capital (that’s Ankara), but it’s the beating heart of Turkey’s culture and economy. So far on this trip it has most in common with Mexico City. It’s dense and vibrant, but it doesn’t feel quite as sardine-packed as parts of Mexico City, or even the Medina in Marrakech.

Some of that is that we’ve been judicious about partaking of the Old City. There’s a cruise ship port there, so the trick to seeing the high volume sites (Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, Topkapi) is timing. We’ll do our best to hit them on days when there’s no ships in port, but even then we should be fine if we do only one a day and get there for opening, before the midday crowds clot up. We’ve been through the Old City to go other places, and the crowds at the major locations are frightening.

In the meantime, there’s plenty of street to enjoy here.

Turkish: It’s More Than Just A Delight

Turkish is by far the most rational language we’ve tried to learn so far. If we were here longer than five weeks I think we could pick up a fair bit. Spanish wasn’t bad and French was a fail. Arabic is acknowledged as one of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn, and we were dealing with two completely different dialects (Darija in Morocco and Tunsi in Tunisia). We never stood a chance.

The reason that Turkish is so comparatively rational is that it was forcibly modernized as part of Ataturk’s grand reforms on taking power post-WWI. Turkish had been written using a Perso-Arabic script for a thousand years, but that alphabet had trouble properly expressing Turkish phonemes. Ataturk set up a language commission that created an entirely new Latin-based alphabet optimized for Turkish, which was delivered in 1928. A law was passed mandating its adoption, and the government set up the training programs to teach the new alphabet and drive literacy.

Ataturk just made up a new alphabet and demanded its use. Amazing. Other than Chinese, I can’t think of another language that’s been forcibly rationalized, rather than evolving organically. English could certainly benefit from a little thoughtful pruning. OK, a complete rethink. One thing traveling the world has done is make me understand the impetus behind Esperanto.

A number of features of the Turkish alphabet contribute to its simplicity. First, each letter makes a unique sound. That means there are no diphthongs, so there’s none of that feat/feet nonsense. Neither are there consonant digraphs, so you never have to parse whether ch is for cheese or chute. And because each letter makes a unique sound, each sound is associated with a unique letter. There’s no duplication, like f and ph. And there’s nothing like the bullshit C in English, which can make the S sound or the K sound, and is both redundant and annoying. Seriously. The C should just die. It adds nothing.

The one exception to the unique sound rule is the R, which has a different sound depending on whether it’s at the beginning, the end, or the middle of a word. But even there, that sound is fixed. As far as I can tell, each of those three R sounds is firm and unyielding, not dashing to and fro as they would in English.

In addition, with one exception, every letter is voiced – there are no silent letters. So if you see a letter, you say it. And because each letter makes a unique sound, there’s a startling lack of ambiguity in how to pronounce Turkish. As opposed to, and I’m just throwing this out there, French. Which has baked in ambiguity in pronunciation specifically so you can be scorned for getting it wrong.

That one exception, by the way, is the Ğ, which serves as a transition between consecutive vowels. But unlike, say, the E in English, which can be voiced or silent, I don’t know, randomly, the Ğ is always silent. Still zero ambiguity.

You can see this in a word like kuaför. English can only make the KW sound by combining letters, like in quick or backwards. But if you voice all the letters in kuaför, you get that sound naturally. K-oo-ah-f-ew-r. Say it quickly and you get the kw sound.

The third factor making Turkish comparatively easy is unrelated to the alphabet, but absolutely related to kuaför. And that’s the shocking number of cognates in Turkish. I found one fellow on the interwebs who had compiled a list of over 3,000 English/Turkish cognates. Amatör. Spekülasyon. Üniversite (remember, that final e is voiced).

More to the point, you can’t hardly read a sign in Turkey without running windswept through a welcoming field of cognates.

What I can’t quite figure out is why. I suspect that the wealth of cognates weren’t part of the 1928 modernization, but occurred over time as loanwords made their way into the vocabulary. Honestly, some of them, like kuaför, seem less like cognates and more like transliterations.

But it’s not like English and Turkish, or French and Turkish, share any linguistic roots. They come from completely different branches. These truly are loanwords, but I don’t get why Turkish needed so many. For technology that didn’t exist when the language was formed, sure. Elektronik. Knock yourself out. But I’m pretty sure there had to be a Turkish word for sex before they borrowed seks. If anyone has some insight into this mystery, I’m all ears.

I am, of course, completely glossing over the true complexity of Turkish to an English speaker, which is syntax. Unlike English’s fairly straightforward subject-verb-object construction, Turkish features the verb at the end and a slippery relationship between subject and object. Unlike the alphabet, this is the place where Turkish is happy to wallow in arbitrary ambiguity.

But I’ve glossed over it because for our purposes it doesn’t really matter. If we get the vocabulary right, mangled syntax isn’t a massive impediment to being understood. We’re not having deep conversations about politics and ethics. We’re reading signs, shopping, and ordering in restaurants, all of which can survive toddler syntax. Thank goodness.

But I will say that I think the single most grinding thing about our adventures is being places where we don’t speak the language. It just makes everything extra hard, and not in a fun way. Our paltry language skills neatly straddle the line separating bravery from arrogance, and I honestly don’t know which it is. It feels brave, but I fear it reads arrogant. We’ve never gotten any blowback suggesting a negative reaction, and we’re careful to learn enough of whatever the local language is to at least say please and thank you. We’re not animals. But communicating with others is definitely the most fatiguing element of our journey.

And having gotten that off my chest, it warrants adding that we’ve been met with a surprising amount of English here. While French is the second language in Morocco and Tunisia, English is the second language in Turkey. Train announcements, for example, are in Turkish and English.

We’re in Istanbul and our interactions are shopping related, so that exposes us to the highest level of English we’ll find here. But it’s been surprisingly easy to get around with just English. Even when we’ve been stumped, there’s consistently been a local nearby who’s jumped in to help. Or good ol’ Google Translate.

We’ll see how far relying on English gets us when we hit Uzbekistan.