Blogs from Konya, Central Anatolia, Turkey, Middle East
September 21st 2011
After the balloon flight it was a quick breakfast and pack back at Walnut House and onto the bus for our trip to Konya,( 3 hours) we had broken the journey at Konya so as not to be doing too long a bus trips in one day. The Otogar at Konya is a reasonable distance out of town but there is a tram service to the city centre so that made it easier, but still can be difficult to know what stop to get off etc. Konya is said to be one of the most conservative Muslim cities in Turkey and I had read that most worman would be fully scarved, this didnt appear to be the case. After getting off the tram at what seemed to be the right place we stopped to read the ... read more
July 7th 2011
This may be my shortest blog yet. We started the day by visiting the Mausoleum of Mevlana, or otherwise known as the Mevlana Museum. It is where Rumi is buried and it contains several artifacts of his writings. Rumi was a Sufi mystic and is well known for his writings and poetry. This is also where the whirling dervishes lived and practiced their devotion. Next stop was the Karatay Theological School. This building is no longer being used but is now being used as a museum. It contained beautiful tiles on the walls and dome. The next day we visited the ruins of Hierapolis. St. Peter was killed here and many early Christians wanted to be buried in the same place as Peter, so this site had a large number of ruins that served as burial ... read more
May 27th 2011
A long day on the road today. Drove through many orchards of fruit trees, peaches, oranges, cherries, pomegranates, apricys, strawberries and opium. Lunchtime around the area where Nasrudin Hoja came from, a whimsical character that uses comical paradoxical stories to teach. Then onto overnight stay at Konya, the home of Mevlana, founder of the Whirling Dervish sect. Visited his museum and tomb.... read more
May 1st 2011
Pamukkale to Kusadasi First of all – an apology to our gorgeous guide Enis – I have been incorrectly spelling his name the past few days. Enis gave us a late start this morning which we were all grateful for the sleep in. Pity it was too cold to take advantage of the great pool – and none of us wanted to get muddy again in the thermal hot pool. After breakfast we went to the Cotton Fortress, the white calcium cascades. Pure white stone and clear blue pools of water, high on a hill. …… extremely beautiful…..We viewed it from down below before the bus took us up so we could walk barefoot on this incredible natural wonder. Also on this site is the ruins of the first spa centre and a big theatre. The ... read more
April 15th 2011
Today started better than how yesterday ended. The sun was making an effort to break through and the Mediterranean was looking calmer. It was a fairly strong wind last evening and the sea had quite a chop. Our journey today took us through the Taurus Mountains climbing to nearly 2000 metres before arriving at Konya which is situated in a very large valley 1000 metres high. On our trip today we stopped at Aspendos to explore the best preserved Roman amphitheatres in the world. Minor restoration work has been undertaken to maintain the preservation. Climbing the many steep steps certainly gives you a great work out but the view from the top is worth it. You can just imagine 16,000 cheering Romans during a performance, be it theatrical or gladiatorial. The theatre was built during Marcus ... read more
October 11th 2010
I’m in Konya, and it has nothing to do with coffee. Bummer. I was told this is the business section of town and they don’t see many foreign tourist. Sure, okay. And then Dan and I went for a walk. “Hello” “Hello” “What is your name?” “Where are you from??” All the little kids want to know. I believe that is all the English they know because they don’t answer back when you talk to them. The men look. I wave. They discreetly smile and wave back. We wonder into a few shops. No English, no prices. We go into a Pastry shop. A young male says “Guten tag” and ask where are we from? I tell him USA. He asks New York or California. “California” I say, it’s easier that way. He then proceeds ... read more
October 1st 2010
Day 6 Friday 1st October 2010 66 miles After a good sleep during the carpet sales talk, and in bed later, we had pancakes for breakfast prepared outside before setting off onto another long staight main road heading SW, need I say into the wind again. It was a bit cooler since I had to wear a jacket over my shirt for the first 5 miles and then it warmed up again into the 30's. On this road a lorry passed in the opposite direction and there was an almighty bang as though he had crashed and I turned to see his rear tyre had exploded and bits of rubber were flying all over the road. A close thing for me since they would have hit me. All got together for run into Konya City since ... read more
August 20th 2010
Finishing up during the last few days in the field always involves lots of drawing (which I had to do two trench section drawings by myself... I was very glad to be done), photos, and brushing. The excursion we went on a few weeks ago was to a few other archaeology sites, and apparently I had already been to them in Cappadocia, but it's always better when you get a guided tour from the site director. Sorry for the delay on getting this up... due to the semester starting and other issues it took a little while to get this together. Panoramic picture is from the dig house on our site. Not too much else to say other than we ended on time this year. The big finds for our team would be finding our first ... read more
August 6th 2010
I have been at the site working for the last week, and it has already been great so far - well, for me. Two Byzantine burials, although slightly disturbed, have come up and I have been working on them. It is fun! There is another burial we can see the top of, that we will also have to take out in the next week. Otherwise, we have half of a new crew this year, some from Cambridge, one from Buffalo and another from Berlin. We had our "theme" party last night, which was cowboys, indians, and red shirts - as politically incorrect as you could get, the better. Most of the women went as indians, there were some good costumes - although i didn't bring my camera, hopefully i'll post some of the photos next week. ... read more
December 3rd 2009
Stranded in Cappedocia? You might think that but we ended up buying the ticket to get to Konya which left the next morning. We went back to our hostel - and to our luck we organized a breakfast at 7 and the heating had been fixed and I had my second warmest sleep in Turkey to date. The next morning we hoped on the bus for a 4.5 hour drive to Konya. Unfortunately at Konya, though we had been promised otherwise - there were no direct tickets to Pamukale. We ended up getting the bus to Denizile. From Denizle we would change to Pamukale. Second potential problem. The first available bus was at 11pm. We booked that thinking well at least we would get the time to see the whirling dervish that evening. Unfortunately the whirling ... read more
