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Blogs from Turkey, Middle East - page 22
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Phallic rocks and cave houses in Goreme (Cappadocia)
Published: July 6th 2012Middle East » Turkey » Central Anatolia » Cappadocia » Göreme
June 25th 2012
HE SAID... We jumped into a minibus at 1pm for the three hour trip from Konya to Cappadocia. We lunched at Sultanhani Caravanserai (a medieval resting place for Silk Road travellers) at 2pm. The landscape was now flat and arid. Mountains were still ever-present on the horizon, but they no longer dominated it. We were travelling on a plateau. We dropped into Pigeon Valley at 4.30pm for a fantastic view of this spectacular landscape before continuing our journey to Goreme. We arrived at our hotel (Elysee Pension) in a rainstorm at 5pm and stayed in the minibus until the rain passed. We jumped out, checked into our rooms and then headed out on an orientation walk of the village. After walking for about half an hour, we arrived at a house carved out of rock where ... read more
Rumi’s old ‘hood and ancient Anatolia in Konya
Published: July 2nd 2012Middle East » Turkey » Central Anatolia » Konya
June 24th 2012
HE SAID... We woke at 5.30am and organised our packs for the nine hour bus trip from Kas to Konya. We headed up to the hotel’s breakfast terrace at 7am to enjoy the panoramic view of Kas while we ate. We picked up our laundry (literally – I had to crawl out on a high shingled roof to recover my socks and undies that had blown off a balcony railing during the night) and then jumped into a minibus for the first stage of our travel day – a three and a half hour trip to Antalya. As we drove along the southern Turkish coastline, I couldn’t help but compare the stark, mountainous landscape to the rugged west coast of Tasmania. We alternated between ascending high coastal cliffs and descending to sea level as we made ... read more
The Kitalar Arasi Derbi - Intercontinental Derby
Published: June 24th 2012Middle East » Turkey » Marmara » Istanbul
June 24th 2012
Sunday 12th April 2009 Galatasary 0 - 0 Fernerbache by J D Charlton. In 2009 I spent six months studying in Istanbul as part of my degree course. There were many reasons as to why I chose Istanbul over the other cities available, one of which being the chance to experience what many view as the most infamous football derby in the world. Ignoring the obvious safety concerns, I’d read enough on the Istanbul derby to want to go. The existence of Besiktas does indeed complicate matters from time-to-time, but the real antagonism lies inThe Kitalar Arasi Derbi (Intercontinental Derby) between Galatasaray and Fernerbache. Galatasaray vrs Fernerbache is in many ways the perfect storm. A cocktail of geographical, political and financial contrasts making it one of the few derbies... read more
June 24th 2012
I slept better than ever before during our trip, thanks to the ear plugs we bought the day before. The only thing on our agenda for the day was Istanbul Moden Art Museum and especially their photography exhibition. The museum was huge and we spent quite a lot of time browsing their permanent exhibition at first, which was perhaps a mistake since exhibition was not extremely interesting plus the building was quite cold. We had to go warm ourselves at the museum's café with a cool Bosphorus view terrace. The two other exhibitions were much more interesting and afterwards I wished we had spent more time and energy on those. The photographs showed Turkish life from 1950s to today, few even from 19th century. After museum we were quite tired and hungry, and started looking for ... read more
June 23rd 2012
For today we planned something completely different. We wanted to see the Asian part of Istanbul and we had read in our guidebook about a neighbourhood of Istanbul called Kadiköy on the other side of the Bosphorus with a nice little pedestrian-only city centre. So instead of mosques, sites and museums we planned for sitting at cafés drinking apple tea and reading books all day. Directly after breakfast we therefore walked down to the harbour and found a ferry that for the ridiculous price of 2TL (less than 1 €) not only took us to Kadiköy but at the same time provided a beautyful half hour cruise on the Bosphorus. Once we came to Kadiköy we quickly started to implement our plan, but had to give up after less than one hour. Even though the café ... read more
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Sunken cities and the Mediterranean love boat from Kas
Published: June 28th 2012Middle East » Turkey » Mediterranean » Kas
June 22nd 2012
HE SAID... We woke at 6am, organised our packs and headed over for breakfast. We mirrored our choice from the previous morning (fruit, yoghurt and honey and a mushroom omelette) and it was fantastic. We checked out of the hotel at 8am, took a minibus from Kayakoy to Fethiye and then transferred to a larger public bus to Kas. It was a very scenic trip along the Mediterranean coastline. We arrived in Kas at 11.30am. We walked down to the seafront, dropped our packs at the boat and headed into the small coastal village for lunch. We shared a mixed meze plate with fresh bread, which was incredibly good. We then browsed the local craft shops. Ren picked up a beautiful necklace and pendant (to replace the one that had broken earlier in the trip) and ... read more
June 22nd 2012
Turkey - 6 Weeks Turkey has become one of my favourite countries due to its exetremely friendly people, its diversity and its unique geological areas. Turkeys history is fascinating and layered (with civilisations such as the Romans, Greeks, Lycians, Thracians, Hittites, and many more having strutt their stuff here) and there are Islamic and Christian influences from more recent times. There is some amazing countryside from the Turquoise coast to Cappadocia and there are unique sites like the chimaera, flames comıng from the earth to Pamukkale, terraces of carbonate minerals left by the water flowing from a mineral rich spring - quite frankly for someone who likes variety Turkey cannot fail to impress (and no I didn't get a job working for the tourist board). The short versıon of my trip is that I spent ... read more
June 22nd 2012
First complete day in Istanbul. We didn't get very good sleep at night because the room was quite noisy and it was either too cold or hot depending on if the air conditioner was on or off. Anyway, we started the day quite early with visiting Hagia Sofia. Building was basically impressive but somehow we felt like yesterday's visit to the Blue Mosque was much nicer and didn't get that much out of Hagia Sofia after that - one reason was that we rented (quite expensive) audio guides but it was no good: many of the explanations seemed to assume u know already a lot about Turkish ancient history, and we ended up standing in front of quite a few tomb stones or spots on the floor listening to the audio guide but not really understanding ... read more
June 21st 2012
Hey friends! It’s been a while since my last post and so much has happened since then! I have travelled to Stockholm again, Paris, Finland, Russia, Holland, Iceland, London again and now I am in Turkey. Oh, I should probably mention my exchange in Sweden has come to an end, and how fast the end of the most interesting and eventful semester of my life came! I think I could write ten books about my Lund adventures alone. Anyway, Turkey! Istanbul Firstly, I had no expectations about this trip because Laura pretty much organised everything (thanks!) and I must say what an excellent surprise. Istanbul is definitely one of my favourite cities I have been to in the world. This is what I liked: the smells, the heat, the hills, the buildings, the old, the new, ... read more
Istanbul: A first glance
Published: June 21st 2012Middle East » Turkey » Marmara » Istanbul » Sultanahmet
June 21st 2012
After nine hours of traveling we finally got to our hotel in Istanbul. We are staying at a hostel called "Second home", and the owners are making an effort to ensure the guest are comfortable even though the room is really small and toilets and showers are in the corridor. But we didn't come here to stay at the room, so that's ok. When we got here we were starving, after breakfast we only had had apples, so our first goal was to find a restaurant to get something to eat. Fact 3. The addresses on the turkish street are quite confusing, especially without a proper map. This meant we didn't find the restaurant we had planned to go to, so we ended up taking the hostelowners suggestion and went to his friends restaurant. The food ... read more
