The Old City, And How It Got Its Name
The Old City is home to many of Istanbul’s greatest hits: Topkapi Palace, the Hagia Sophia, The Blue Mosque, and the Grand Bazaar. The problem is that every one of these locations is on the…
Kapadokya: Land Of Fairies
Or, as it’s Anglicized and better known, Cappadocia. Ground Zero for Instagrammable hot air balloons. If you know us you’ll be unsurprised that we didn’t go aloft. What may surprise you, and certainly surprised us,…
Strapping On The Bible Belt
Turkey has some serious Christian history. Constantine, who converted the Roman Empire to Christianity in 312, established Constantinople as the Roman capital in 330. That attracted a lot of Christians to Turkey, but there was…
We’re Not The Only Ruins Here
Hard as it is to believe, there are ruins here we haven’t seen yet. Perhaps more surprisingly, we’re still interested in visiting them. In this case, there are a pair of locations, Dougga and Bulla…
Tunisia Road Trip, Partie Trois: To The Desert & Beyond! Days Four, Five, & Six
Day Four started with an early morning camel ride before we left Ksar Ghilane for a different chunk of the Sahara. Camels: better than coffee to get the blood moving. This is the camel lot.…
Tunisia Road Trip, Partie Trois: To The Desert & Beyond! Days Two & Three…
We’ll be staying in the general area around Tataouine for Day Two, so not as harsh as getting down to this part of Tunisia from Sousse yesterday. Chenini Chenini is technically another hilltop Ksar, like…
Tunisia Road Trip, Partie Trois: To The Desert & Beyond! Day One…
Our new best friend, Mohamed from Nabeul, picked us up at 7:00 AM to start our trip to the Sahara. As a retired professional tour guide, Mohamed was an incredibly knowledgeable resource to have at…
Tunisia Road Trip, Partie Deux: Sousse
Assembling a road trip turned out to be complicated. There are so many worthwhile locations here. Nabeul was the easy part. We were expecting to lose our shit over the ceramics, and we did not…
Tunisia Road Trip, Partie Un: Nabeul
Tunisia is relatively small, but still too big to ignore. Being here for three months and seeing nothing but Carthage and Tunis would be a sin. Plus, an entire month of Ramadan left us with…
Carthage: “Oh, This Old Thing?”
Foolishly, when writing about Marrakech and Fes, I leaned into how old they felt. That take was destined to age poorly, and it didn’t take long. I take it all back. Tunisia is fucking old.…