Globetrotting

The last two stops on my summer trip were Safranbolu and Ankara. Safranbolu is a city north of Ankara which is revered for its well-preserved Ottoman houses. It is scenicly located at the intersection of three valleys, and the houses of the old town picturesquely cling to the steep hillsides around these valleys. Entering Safranbolu from Ankara, however, nothing of that is visible: Safranbolu is a prospering town with a modern city center, and the old town needs to be searched for behind the modern part of town first. Then, however, it is really a very pretty and relaxed town. In contrast to many of the other destinations on my trip, Safranbolu seems to be a destination primarily for Turkish tourists, not so much for international visitors. This means that the city is somewhat more authentic (and prices are lower). Apart from looking at the beautifully restored Ottoman houses, Safranbolu does not offer that many sights or activities other than climbing to some of the hills around the old town. An interesting sensation is hearing the muezzin calls from these hills, echoing and reverbating from all sides of the valley.

The very last stop was Ankara, Turkey’s capital. Ankara does not provide nearly as many sights and historic buildings as İstanbul (which I visited three years ago and thus skipped on this trip), but it is nevertheless an interesting city. The shops and cafes in the Kızılay area were nice to to shop around, relax and read a book, and the citadel provided interesting views over the whole city (even though the historic buildings were really run-down and the whole area looked like it could use a bit of paint). The most impressive sight, however, was the massive mausoleum of Kemal Atatürk. This leader of Turkey’s struggle for independence after the first World War, long-time president and major reformer is really worshipped in Turkey (including portraits in shops everywhere and lots of paraphernilia, going so far as young men sporting his signature tattooed across their arms). The massive mausoleum, with a gigantic 40-ton marble sarcophagus and an accompanying Atatürk and Independence Museum is one incarnation of this worshipping. Given the descriptions of his achievements in the museum, however, this worshipping seems to be justified.

Now, after seven weeks of traveling, my summer trip is over. I have just come back to Germany, where I will pack a few things for the colder climate in France, because I will spend P4, which starts next week, on the “original” INSEAD campus in Fontainebleau. While I am a bit sad that the nice summer trip is over, I am also looking forward to going back to school and meeting all the other students again and hear their internship or travel stories from the summer!

Pictures will follow at a later point in time.

My last stop on the Mediterranean coast was Antalya. Antalya is a much larger city than most of the other recent stops had been, and so it has a refreshing non-touristiness outside of the main tourist district of the old town. I staid in a beautiful pension situated in an old Ottoman house in the middle of the old town. Antalya felt even hotter than the other coastal cities, because it was really humid, so I did some more things inside to escape the heat: I visited the beautiful Antalya Museum, which has both historic and ethnographic exhibits, and a fantastic audio guide. Also, I went to a Hamam and got a traditional Turkish bath, including being washed, massaged, and repeatedly splashed with warm or cold water by the Turkish bather – quite an experience!

From Antalya, I took a plane to Ankara and from there a bus to Ürgüp in Cappadocia. Cappadocia is revered for its beautiful rock landscape, formed by a volcanic eruption several thousands of years ago. The rocks make for a scenery that looks like a foreign planet in a Science Fiction movie. It is stunning how this country has so many exceptional natural sights. In addition to the natural beauty, many of the rocks contain homesteads and churches carved in the rocks. I went to see many of them at the Göreme Open Air museum – especially the wall frescoes in the dimly lit rock churches I found very fascinating. In the evening of the same day, I went to Mustafapaşa, a small former Greek town, which is pretty but rather unspectacular.

On the last day in Cappadocia, I went for a hike through the Devrent Valley, which is situated north of Ürgüp and boasts a lot of very strange, otherworldly rock formations. The rocks vary from giant mushrooms to wavy patterns to whole fields of cylindrical rocks that look as if a once great city had molten.

The next step on the travel route is Safranbolu, an old Ottoman town, and then as the last stop Ankara.

Some pictures follow.

After Rhodes, I headed back to Turkey, specifically to Fethiye. Fethiye itself is a somewhat bigger town on the Mediterranean coast, with a rather big marina. The town itself is not very interesting, except for an old amphitheater there is not much “old town” left – the area called “old town” on the maps is more a collection of overpriced restaurants and bars. However, there are quite a few interesting things to see in the surroundings, and the city itself has its charm as well: one example of that is the fish market. On the fish market, you can buy fresh fish and other seafood from stalls in the middle of the market, and then you can head to one of the restaurants surrounding the market stalls which will fry or grill the fish for a relatively small fee and provide bread and salad on the side – a really inexpensive, fresh and delicious seafood dinner!

Above the town, there are some Lycian tombs carved into the rocks some 2400 years ago – quite an impressive sight, with a very nice view over the natural harbour of Fethiye. Further up in the mountains, about 9 km from Fethiye (which I hiked, sweating quite a lot at constantly over 30°C), lies the “Ghost Town” of Kayaköy. As part of the resolution of the Turkish-Greek conflict in the Turkish War of Independence (1926), Turkey and Greece exchanged some parts of their population: Orthodox Greeks moved from Turkey to Greece, and Muslim Turks moved from Greece to Turkey. Because of the disparities in numbers and other factors, Kayaköy, which was formerly a Greek settlement of ~4000 houses, was abandoned and is now virtually uninhabited – only a few restaurants catering to tourists remain. It is quite interesting, how in not even a hundred years a town can decay: Many houses have completely collapsed, and the buildings that are best preserved are the churches and chapels of the town – presumably because they had stone (as opposed to wooden) roofs, which made them structurally much more stable.

Another day trip from Fethiye took me to Saklıkent Gorge, which was really another quite fascinating natural site. The gorge is quite literally a deep crack in the mountain, which is so narrow that even the hot August sun can’t fully heat it up. It is flooded by water, which contains so many minerals and mud particles that it is quite opaque. To walk through the gorge, you have to constantly wade in knee-deep, cold water, which was extremely refreshing in this heat.

The next stop after Fethiye was Kaş, further to the east along the Mediterranean coast. Kaş is a nice little town, and very laid-back. It has a nice little harbour, with many small restaurants, some of which serve really amazing Meze (small dishes) – albeit at quite touristy prices. From Kaş, I went to Patara, which has an incredibly large and nice sandy beach, and took a boat tour to the “sunken city” close to Kekova. Here, the ancient city of Simena was destroyed in the second century AD by a devastating earthquake, and some parts of the city are now located below the surface of the sea – our boat had little windows in the bottom so that you could look down into the amazingly clear water, and see parts of houses and lots of amphorae on the ground. Also, there were plenty of opportunities to swim from the boat (not among the ruins though).

After Kaş, I went to Çıralı, which is basically a big collection of hotels and pensions close to the beach, but offers another quite amazing natural phenomenon: The eternal flame of Chimaera. On the mountains above Çıralı, the rocks emit gases which combust upon contact with the air. The flames can be seen from the sea by night and have been used by seafarers for navigation. The fire has been burning for at least 2500 years, and is said to be the origin of the greek myth of the Chimaera, which was a monstrous fire-breathing creature. I walked up the steep, rocky path to the flames after sunset, and was quite impressed by the phenomenon, especially considering that some 2500 years ago Greeks and Romans looked at these same flames coming out of the rock and tried to make sense of them.

I now have reached Antalya, the last stop on the Mediterranean coast. After Antalya, I will fly to Ankara and move on to Cappadocia from there.

Some pictures follow.

My first stop in Turkey, after flying from Sofia to Izmir via Istanbul, was Selçuk. Selçuk is the city which is closest to the ruins of ancient Ephesus, and is a rather quiet and relaxed place: Old men seem to be sitting in front of tea houses all day, playing Rummikub, Backgammon, or Chess. However, it was also a very nice place to stay, eat at one of the numerous restaurants. and visit Ephesus and the mountain village of Sirince.

Ephesus was clearly a very interesting sights, albeit overrun by large tourist groups. After extensive excavations and reconstructions, the layout of the city which used to be the capital of the Roman province of Asia Minor and in its heydays had over 200,000 inhabitants, can be clearly seen and foundations or facades of some of the most important buildings from temples and tombs to shops, residential houses and fountains for water supply give a quite clear impression how the city used to look like when it was still in use. Most impressive was the huge theater with a capacity of 20,000 people, in which apostle Paul is said to have given a speech to the Artemis-worshiping Ephesans.

Another excursion from Selçuk was the little mountain village of Sirince, which is supposedly a typical representation of how villages in the area used to look like. While it is a cute little town, it is also quite touristy and shops along all streets are selling local wine, soaps, spices and handicrafts to tourists. Also, it was again so hot that walking through the village was quite exhausting, so I returned early and went for a swim in the Aegaean sea instead – the beach close to Selçuk is nice, but the water is quite muddy and it is thus not the nicest place for swimming – but there will be more places to come 🙂

Next up on the itinerary was Pamukkale, with its absolutely stunning white travertines (mineral deposits from water flowing down the mountain from the springs on top of it). While Pamukkale surely is a quite touristy site, it is nevertheless extremely beautiful and extraordinary, walking up the almost snow white mountain (Pamukkale means “cotton castle” after the white color of the mountain), the path covered by water flowing down, which has over the years has formed pools and very interesting interference patterns out of calcium carbonate on the ground. On top of the mountain, some remains of the ancient Roman city of Hierapolis can be visited, which was located there due to the healing properties of the mineral springs. The probably best preserved building is a giant hillside amphitheater.

The next stop in Turkey was Bodrum on the coast. It was described as a very touristy and party type place in the guidebook, but the town was a positive surprise. In the daytime, it is a rather laid-back place, with white houses and a nice coastline. In the old castle, it has a museum of underwater archeology, which displays archeological finds recovered from the sea, such as amphorae, tools, coins and jewelry, goods such as glassware, and even the remains of entire boats. While the museum itself was probably not the most interesting archeological museum I have ever seen, its location in the old castle is quite unique and made it well worth a visit.

Pictures will follow at a later point.