Time to move on. From the Ataturk Dam we continued our journey to Diyarbakir. This part of the trip was the one with the longest distance and after three hours in the bus, we finally arrived to Diyarbakir. We entered the new town and slowly were moving to the old town area within the city walls. We entered the old town through the famous "Mardin Gate". Good to know that the famous Mardin Gate is located in Diyarbakir and not in Mardin as many people think. (Including me until this moment :)) A part of the trip was a walk on the city walls. Diyarbakır is surrounded by a dramatic set of high walls of black basalt forming a 5.5 km circle around the old city. There are four gates into the old city and 82 ... read more

We left the city of Sanliurfa and started to head to Harran trough the fertile Harran plain. Impressive to see the landscape changing from a desert landscape to a fertile landscape. In about one hour we arrived to Harran. The architectual remains of Harran is very impressive. We entered the area of the old domed houses. The architecture of the houses keeps the houses cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We spent more or less then two hours and continued our way to Adiyaman. About Harran: The Ancient Anatolian village of Harran is located in Şanlıurfa Province, which lies in the southeast of Turkey, near the Syrian border. The village's official name is Altınbaşak, with the district named Harran. The city was the home of the Mesopotamian moon god Sin, under the Assyrians, ... read more

We are heading to the city Birecik, where one of the dams of the GAP project is built on the river Euphrates. When we cross the river, we enter 'Mesopotamia'. Mesopotamia means 'between the rivers' It is the area between the Euphrates and Tigris. Building of the dams gains irrigation, hydraulic energy production and a lot of job positions. On the other side, many villages and argeoligic treasures are lost under the increased level of the river. Zeugma is one of them. We had a small stop at Birecik to see birds which are threatened species. They are called Bald Ibis. ( Kelaynak ) Bald Ibis is in the Red List of Threatened Species published by IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources). These birds are almost being extinct as very few of ... read more

Enjoying the nice view of the Syrian landscape, kilometers are passing. Slowly in the desert landscape changes into inhabited area. We are approaching Aleppo. When we entered the city, we saw immediately that this is not one of the countries where I would like to drive. The traffic is a complete mess. It reminded me to the traffic of Cairo. The distance between Gaziantep and Aleppo is 120 km, but to arrive here was quite time consuming. We wanted to have a small rest before we started with orienting this city. We asked the driver to bring us to a middclass hotel close to the city center. He brought us to a 'hotel' in the middle of the center. According him it was cheap and cleaner compared to the rest of the hotels nearby. We paid ... read more

GAP Trip - (Guney-Dogu Anadolu Projesi) Southeastern Anatolia Project Day 1: After a small train trip to Amsterdam Airport, an international flight to Istanbul and a domestic flight to Gaziantep, we finally arrived to our nice hotel Buyuk Velic. After checking in and putting our luggage to the room we went outside to have a dinner and some sightseeing. The taxi driver from the hotel brought us to a nice restaurant were we had our dinner in open air. Nice when the weather here is still fine to eat in open air, while we had to start wearing our winter jackets at home. After our delicious Turkish meal we took a walk on the streets of Antep. It was about 23:00 and walking in this area didn't gave us a real safety feeling, so we decided ... read more