ISTANBUL FOOD TOUR: From Pide to Locum, Guest Post by Kathryn Mohrman

 52 Places to Go: Week 44

Pide, a pizza-like bread made in Istanbul

My friend, Kathryn Mohrman, an avid and excellent photographer, visited Turkey in 2014 when she was on her way to Ethiopia.  She has graciously agreed to share some of her photos and impressions of her visit to Turkey. Kathryn, now retired, was a professor at Arizona State University and traveled widely for her job as director of several projects with partner universities in China and Vietnam. You can see photos from her trip to Lalibela, Ethiopia, at her 2/17/14 post on this blog.  I have known Kathryn since we were students together at Grinnell College in Iowa. Here is her report of part of her trip to Istanbul.

Around Christmas and New Year's, 2013, I traveled to Istanbul to see the only city in the world that straddles two continents. What a fascinating place!

Breakfast with Turkish breads and other Turkish foods

One day I took a food tour with a company called Istanbul Eats.  We first had breakfast with breads, cheese and other goodies purchased at local shops by our guide (a Belgian married to a Turkish woman who had lived in Istanbul for decades--the man in the center of the photo).

Hot tea

The traditional way to serve tea and coffee is in glasses.

Baklava

We tried baklava at one of the oldest and best specialty shops in town
And we ate pide, a cross between pizza and calzone.

Pide makers--the oven is much like a pizza oven.
The results--delicious pide!

Then on to a candy shop where we sampled Turkish delight (locum).  It is really yummy when it's fresh.

Turkish Delight--in many flavors!

We also sampled a nearly extinct traditional winter drink, boza.

Boza shop

Boza

Boza is made from fermented grain, and is served with roasted hazelnuts.

Plate full of selections from dishes served at our final feast.

Late in the afternoon we ended the foodie tour with a feast at an outdoor restaurant. Fat and happy, I staggered back to my hotel.  I never would have found all of these traditional foods on my own, many in out-of-the-way places.

Note from The Intrepid Tourist:  For more about eating in Istanbul, check out my post on August 6, 2012, Istanbul: A Food Lover's Delight.

This article was first published 6/23/14

TURKEY: EPHESUS AND SIGHTS AROUND SELKUK, by Caroline Arnold at The Intrepid Tourist

The Ancient Greek City of Ephesus, Temple of Hadrianus

WEEK 3: 52 Places to Go

Until I visited Turkey, I never realized the breadth of the ancient Greek and Roman empires.  A little over a year ago, after spending a week in Istanbul for a writer’s workshop, I signed up for an add-on tour of Ephesus and other sights in Selkuk, plus a trip to the ancient city of Hierapolis and thermal baths of Pamukkele.  We flew from Istanbul to Izmir (the ancient Greek city of Smyrna) and boarded a bus from there to Selkuk, about an hour’s scenic ride along a river valley to the south. There we spent two and a half days, jam packed with sightseeing.

View of Selkuk from the path to the Cave of the Seven Sleepers on Mount Pion

Our first day included a visit to the Temple of Artemis, the caves of the Seven Sleepers, the Ephesus Museum (where many of the sculptures from the the ancient city are displayed), the House of the Virgin Mary (said to be the final resting place of Mary the mother of Jesus), and finally, a tour of the ancient city of Ephesus itself, which is just two kilometers outside the city.  Our English speaking guide narrated as we went.  Here are some selected photos from our first day:

Statue on grounds of the House of the Virgin Mary

Beginning of the mile-long ancient road through the city of Ephesus.  We walked from from parking lot at the top of the hill, down through the city to what had been the ancient port, now silted in, passing the remains of temples, fountains, public baths and lavatories, amphiteaters, a library and more along the way.

Facade of the Library of Celcus at Ephesus.  It initally housed 12,000 books.  The first human settlements at Ephesus were around 6,000 B.C. and it gradually grew into a city/state.  Alexander the Great conquered Ephesus in 304 B.C.  In the Augustan period of the Roman Empire, Ephesus was one of the most important cities of Roman Asia.  The library was built after the death of Celcus, the Roman Governor of Asia Minor, who died in 114 A.D.

Ephesus Museum in Selkuk.  Sculpture from one of the fountains at Ephesus.  In ancient times three rivers provided water at the rate of 100 liters per second.  Water was used for public baths and lavatories, fountains, and for daily use.

Ephesus, upper amphitheater, the Odeion, with the Stoa Basileios (the Royal Walk) to the left.

Mosaic floor, Ephesus

A report of our excursion to Pamukkele will be in a future post (8/12/2013).
Other posts on Turkey:

8/18/2014 Ephesus Turkey, Guest Post by Kathryn Mohrman
4/8/2013  Room With a View
8/27/2012  Ephesus: Temple of Artemis
8/20/2012  Letter from Istanbul
8/6/2012  Istanbul: A Food Lover's Delight
5/28/2012  Istanbul:  Museum of Innocence

All text and photos copyright Caroline Arnold.

EPHESUS, TURKEY: Guest Post by Kathryn Mohrman

Library of Celsus, Ephesus, Turkey. 

My friend, Kathryn Mohrman, an avid and excellent photographer, visited Turkey earlier this year when she was on her way to Ethiopia.  She has graciously agreed to share some of her photos and impressions of her visit to Ephesus, the ancient city in southeastern Turkey known for its Greco-Roman ruins. Kathryn is a professor at Arizona State University and travels widely for her job as director of several projects with partner universities in China and Vietnam. You can see photos from her trip to Lalibela, Ethiopia, at her 2/17/14 post on this blog.  I have known Kathryn since we were students together at Grinnell College in Iowa. 

Ephesus is organized along the Curetes Way, the grand marble-paved main street of the town.

The site of Ephesus has been occupied for at least 6000 years, with Mycenaean, Hittite, Lydean, Greek, Persian, Macedonian, Roman, and Byzantine citizens, up to 250,000 when the city was the capital of Roman Asia Minor. By the 6th century AD the harbor had silted up, however, so Ephesus was no longer a lively trading port. Earthquakes also damaged the city. Gradually people moved away and the site was abandoned.

Amphitheater

Today Ephesus is a national monument displaying artifacts unearthed by Turkish and European archeologists--but 80% of the ancient city remains buried. Like many Roman cities, Ephesus has a huge amphitheater.

Nike, goddess of victory.

While some walls and structures are standing, a more common sight while walking through Ephesus is a jumble of fragments, some of them beautifully carved. Most of the artifacts are simply displayed rather than reconstructed into actual buildings.

Library of Celsus, looking up

The highlight of the city is the Library of Celsus, built in the 2nd century AD. At one time it contained more than 12,000 scrolls!

Ephesus is full of stray cats, many of them existing on handouts from happy tourists (and field mice, too).

 What a fascinating place! I'd love to have the chance to see more of Turkey.

(For more about the amazing ruins of Ephesus, check out the Intrepid Tourist posts for June 10, 2013 and  August 27, 2012. )

ISTANBUL FOOD TOUR: From Pide to Locum, Guest Post by Kathryn Morhman

Pide, a pizza-like bread made in Istanbul

My friend, Kathryn Mohrman, an avid and excellent photographer, visited Turkey earlier this year when she was on her way to Ethiopia.  She has graciously agreed to share some of her photos and impressions of her visit to Turkey. Kathryn is a professor at Arizona State University and travels widely for her job as director of several projects with partner universities in China and Vietnam. You can see photos from her trip to Lalibela, Ethiopia, at her 2/17/14 post on this blog.  I have known Kathryn since we were students together at Grinnell College in Iowa. Here is her report of part of her trip to Istanbul.

Around Christmas and New Year's, 2013, I traveled to Istanbul to see the only city in the world that straddles two continents. What a fascinating place!

Breakfast with Turkish breads and other Turkish foods

One day I took a food tour with a company called Istanbul Eats.  We first had breakfast with breads, cheese and other goodies purchased at local shops by our guide (a Belgian married to a Turkish woman who had lived in Istanbul for decades--the man in the center of the photo).

Hot tea

The traditional way to serve tea and coffee is in glasses.

Baklava

We tried baklava at one of the oldest and best specialty shops in town
And we ate pide, a cross between pizza and calzone.

Pide makers--the oven is much like a pizza oven.
The results--delicious pide!

Then on to a candy shop where we sampled Turkish delight (locum).  It is really yummy when it's fresh.

Turkish Delight--in many flavors!

We also sampled a nearly extinct traditional winter drink, boza.

Boza shop

Boza

Boza is made from fermented grain, and is served with roasted hazelnuts.

Plate full of selections from dishes served at our final feast.

Late in the afternoon we ended the foodie tour with a feast at an outdoor restaurant. Fat and happy, I staggered back to my hotel.  I never would have found all of these traditional foods on my own, many in out-of-the-way places.

Note from The Intrepid Tourist:  For more about eating in Istanbul, check out my post on August 6, 2012, Istanbul: A Food Lover's Delight.

WHERE IN THE WORLD? Celebrating the Third Anniversary of The Intrepid Tourist

Greenwich, England, Prime Meridian

From the time I was young and followed the progress of our family road trips on the map as I sat in the back seat of the car, I have always been fascinated with geography–both the actual places that we drove through and the lines on the map marking arbitrary divisions between towns, states and countries. I love reading atlases and finding geographic markers on the globe. In celebration of the third anniversary of The Intrepid Tourist I would like to share a few photos that mark some of the geographic points I have personally visited.

My parents and three brothers at the Continental Divide, 1958

The oldest is a family photo at the Continental Divide I took with my Brownie camera on our trip in 1958 from Minneapolis to California.  That trip was the first time any of us had seen mountains–Minnesota, by comparison, being a relatively flat state. We were all suitably impressed.  At Monarch pass, elevation 11,312 feet, we read that water flowing to the east ended up in the Gulf of Mexico and water flowing to the west, in the Pacific.

Standing on Four States at once at the Four Corners, 1990

On that same trip our family camped for several days at Mesa Verde in Colorado. As we headed south we drove through the four corners area where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Utah meet.  Many years later I was in southwestern Colorado again researching my book, The Ancient Cliff Dwellers of Mesa Verde, with Richard Hewett, the photographer of the book.  On our way back to Los Angeles, we stopped at the Four Corners marker and took pictures.

Caroline in the Northern Hemisphere, Jennifer in the Southern Hemisphere

Another historic photo is the picture of me and my daughter Jennifer taken on the Equator in Uganda in 1971.  Two things impressed me about being on the Equator. I had expected it to be hot, but, in fact, due to the elevation, the climate in Uganda was quite comfortable even in summer. As expected, the sun was almost directly overhead at noon. What surprised me was how quickly it became dark when the sun set.  Conversely, at dawn the sun just seemed to pop over the horizon, and suddenly it was day.

When I was in Turkey two years ago, I crossed the bridge that links Asia and Europe in Istanbul. On our return, we passed a similar sign welcoming us to Europe.

Welcome sign on the Asian side of the Bosporus

In 1999, while spending three months in Australia when Art was on sabbatical, we traveled to Alice Springs where we made a point to visit the marker for the Tropic of Capricorn.  Visiting the Tropic of Cancer is still on my bucket list.  We were relatively close last summer while vacationing in the Yucatan, but not close enough to make it a destination.

At the Tropic of Capricorn, near Alice Springs, Australia 1999

I still have many geographic points I would like to visit. Who knows, perhaps they will become subjects for The Intrepid Tourist someday.  As I begin this fourth year of the blog, I thank all of my friends and family who have contributed to The Intrepid Tourist and all of you who have been my faithful readers.
To another year of Happy Traveling!

TERMESSOS, Ancient City in the Mountains of Southern Turkey, photos by Tom Scheaffer

Ruins of the Ancient City of Termessos, near Antalya, Turkey

My brother Tom recently returned from a three-week trip to southern Turkey, staying first in Selkuk (near the ancient city of Ephesus) and then in Antalya, overlooking the Aegean on the Turkish Riviera.  While in Antalya, he went with friends one day to visit the ruins of the ancient city of Termessos, located in a mountain pass in Gulluk Dagi National Park about 24 miles from Antalya.

He wrote to me in an email: “Today we hiked up to some amazing ruins called Termessos. It is an old Roman trading post on the road from the Aegean Sea to the Mediterranean where people used to cross the mountains. It was very beautiful and peaceful. The weather has been perfect and it is good to come in the off season because there are few people.”

Termessos is one of the best preserved ancient sites in Turkey and dates from the time of Alexander the Great (who was never able to conquer it due to the rugged terrain and its highly defensible position high in the mountains).  The city is built at an altitude of more than 1000 meters (3000 feet) in a mountain saddle. The mountain peak rises 600 more meters above it. The city was abandoned after the aqueduct that provided the its water supply was destroyed in an earthquake.




Termessos is only accessible by a hiking path, requiring sturdy shoes and some endurance. But once one reaches the top, the views are spectacular. Tom has graciously allowed me to post some of his pictures of his trip to Termessos.

The remains of Termessos include the city's main square and marketplace, or agora, a large theater, temples, tombs and more.
For hours, a more detailed description of the site, and more information about Termessos, click HERE.
Tom Scheaffer recently retired from a career in teaching.  He is also an artist and is currently exhibiting some of his watercolor paintings at the Blue Dot Cafe in Alameda, California.  You can read about his exhibit and see some of his paintings in my January 8, 2014 post at my Caroline Arnold Art and Books blog.

PAMUKKALE and Turkey's Ancient Greek City of HIERAPOLIS

The hot springs at Pamukkale have been used as a spa since the 2nd century BC

A year ago in May I was in Turkey, first in Istanbul, and then for a short tour in southern Turkey. Our tour base was Selkuk, the modern city at the ancient site of Ephesus.  On our first day, we visited Ephesus and other ancient sites around the city. (See my post for June 10, 2013.) On our second day, our guide took us to Pamukkale, a three and half hour bus trip through the verdant Menderes river valley, so we could visit the ancient Greek city of Hierapolis and the hot springs and travertine terraces on which the city was built.

Hierapolis was built on a plateau above the Menderes River Valley

It seemed like a long way to go, but was worth the ride. We stopped on the way at a rest stop (where I bought an absolutely delicious glass of fresh squeezed orange juice) and for lunch at a tourist restaurant where we selected food from a long buffet.

Pamukkale means “cotton castle” in Turkish and refers to the immense white terraces formed of calcium carbonate that rise above the city.  Seventeen different hot springs flow to the surface of the ground in Pamukkale and the calcium carbonate, which is dissolved in the water, deposits as the water evaporates, creating mountains of pure white mineral.  It seems otherworldly.  The terraces and the ruins of Hierapolis are a World Heritage Site.  After paying to enter, we went to the pools, which we were allowed to explore after removing our shoes.  So, taking care not to fall on the sometimes slippery bottom, we walked through the shallow water, which eventually fell to a larger pool in the valley below. The view from the terraces was spectacular.

Entrance gate to the ancient city of Hierapolis

We then entered the gate of the ancient city and had a short tour of the ruins.  It was a beautiful day, with blue skies, fluffy clouds, and red poppies on the hillside.  Nature had taken over what once had been a bustling city in Greek and Roman times, so we had to use our imagination to picture what life had been like long ago.

Our next stop was the ancient swimming pool, supposedly built by Anthony for Cleopatra, when they visited Hierapolis on their honeymoon.  The pool, filled with warm water from the hot springs, was once an elegant structure, surrounded by large marble columns.  But in an earthquake in the 7th century, the columns crumbled, and fell into the pool.

Cleopatra's Pool (note submerged column fragments)

I had brought my swimming suit, so I changed and went into the water.  How could I resist the opportunity to swim in a pool where, perhaps, Cleopatra herself might have once bathed!  The water was lovely but the main hazards were the fallen marble columns, which provided underwater seating, but also places to stub ones toes.

While I went swimming some of the other people in our group went to visit “Dr. Fish”, a spa in which you immerse your feet in a tub filled with tiny fish that nibble all the dead skin off your feet.  I was told that after initially getting used to the idea, it felt like a very pleasant massage. I didn’t try it myself.

Ancient Roman road, Hierapolis

At the end of the afternoon we had time to walk by ourselves among the ruins, following ancient paths through the city. Our final stop in Pamukkale was at a factory where they carved stone into cups, vases, plates, jewelry and more.  After watching a demonstration, we were led into the shop.  Despite the commercial nature of the enterprise, it was actually quite fascinating and many of the items were quite beautiful.

The following morning, our last day in Selkuk, we were on our own and I took the opportunity to wander around town, visiting the ruins of St. John’s on the hill, watching the storks at their rooftop nests, visiting a rug shop, buying some books and other souvenirs, and eating lunch at one of the many restaurants, where I had a delicious eggplant and pepper dish.  I wished we had had more time in southern Turkey, but this gives me a reason to return some day.

My other posts on Turkey:
4/8/2013  Room With a View
8/27/2012  Ephesus: Temple of Artemis
8/20/2012  Letter from Istanbul
8/6/2012  Istanbul: A Food Lover's Delight
5/28/2012  Istanbul:  Museum of Innocence

Poppies, Hierapolis