Martha Van Mollison

With only a one day lay-over in London (how crazy is that?) we decided to orient ourselves by taking a bus tour. This turned out to be an excellent idea as we got to see many, many of the places we'd heard of--though admittedly only from the roof of the bus! So I just forgot about taking pictures as things whizzed by, and concentrated on looking and listening to our entertaining guides. Our bus got stopped and hung up for a while at Trafalgar Square because the place was being set up for the celebration that night, when it would be acclaimed that exactly 365 days remained till the Olympics opened in London, and London would be READY. We got to see this on the news later back at the hotel. Our particular bus tour included ... read more

Phil's birthday sat within a broad penumbra this year, starting with our roof terrace dinner in Istanbul (maybe starting with the entire Turkish holiday) and continuing on through our time in Kusadasi on the Aegean coast. On the actual night of the 23rd, tired as we were from scrambling over ruins all day, we set out to do something special and had a long, long walk around the hills and coastline of Kusadasi. I managed to relocate a lovely courtyard cafe/hotel I'd spotted the day before, so we sat amidst the flowers and the long view down to the town, and enjoyed a large bottle of Efes beer each, celebrating Phil at 73. We later found out that the Turkish beer is called Efes because it comes from Ephesus and has done so for centuries. Eventually ... read more

The Temple of “Artemis Ephesia” (the Ephesian Artemis), goddess of fertility, was known as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. (Can you name the others?) Built in the 6th century BC, it was said by Plinius to have had 127 columns. It is thought to have been destroyed and reconstructed 7 times, a tribute to an enduring dedication to Artemis (and female fertility?) amongst the Anatolians. But now when you visit it, there’s just one remade column standing in a swamp, with a large white nesting bird in residence at the top of the pillar. Oh well, perhaps that is a living sign of fertility. After Ephesus had exhibited centuries of dedication to the Goddess Artemis, it is said that Saint John brought the Virgin Mary to Ephesus and she lived out her remaining ... read more

When we went walking around the town of Goreme, we were intrigued to see the variety of cave houses, many of them amalgams of both human and fairy work. We were also impressed with the prevalence of solar hot water heating (we were told electricity is very expensive here) and the town was like time travel all in one place, with caves/cars/satellite dishes/hot air balloons/giant Mercedes tour buses/solar panels/restaurants/ATMs and people from all over the world. Cappadocia is the second most visited place in Turkey, after Istanbul. On our second day in Goreme we took the "Red Tour", which loops to the north. First we visited an abandoned Greek cave town. In the 1920s, Turkey experienced (sanctioned/endured) a massive population exchange. People of Greek culture were expelled to Greece and the Turks in Greece were returned ... read more

One of Phil's fascinations with Turkey is the archaeology from many different civilizations. So of course we had to go to the Archaeology Museum in the grounds of Topkapi Palace. The museum is in several buildings and separated into eras. In the oldest section, in a large display on cuneiform writing, we saw the oldest known poem, a love poem, inscribed into clay with minute writing that would have gotten a gold seal on penmanship day. There is a massive building which houses Greek and Roman marble statuary which is arranged in a very dramatic way. At the entrance you start with the older examples and as you move through gallery after gallery the statues get more and more magnificent, ending with a giant statue of Zeus facing you off as you enter the last chamber. ... read more