Photo TR: Turkey

[zion zig zag]

I may add some random thoughts here and there, but mostly photos as I'm no writer.

Up first was Istanbul:

Inside the Hagia Sofia:


Random Anatolian dogs roaming the streets, all very friendly and passive:


As well cats, all over Turkey as a whole. They are well fed with piles of cat food on the sidewalks and bowls of milk placed out:


Outside the Aya Sofia:


And the Blue Mosque:


Crossing the Golden Horn into Galata area:


Did a sunset cruise on the Bosphorus, which is a total tourist trap but worthwhile:




The carpet sellers in Istanbul are aggressive and unrelenting. Any thing less than a firm no gets you followed for.....ever? My wife struggled with this initially but came to terms. They are impressive though, I'd say the average carpet seller can speak 4-5 languages well enough for small talk and selling. More on this in Cappadocia.

Random awesome tile work:


We did a traditional Turkish bath. Super cool inside but no photos for obvious reasons. Neat experience.
Not sure what this sign at the entrance says, but it must be something like: "After steaming yourself to exhaustion a 65 year old power lifter will beat you mercilessly and then scrub you with sandpaper."

[zion zig zag]

On to Cappadocia. Cool area that I would compare to a smaller Moab/Goblin Valley, except that people have been living inside the rock formations for 2000 years. We stayed in a cave hotel in Goreme which was pretty cool.

Goreme open air museum:




Some of these churches had awesome frescoes inside:


We took a private tour from the hoteliers father to see some nearby sites. In between stops they want to take you to local craftsmen who educate you on the process before giving you the hard sell. I'm sure the driver gets a cut of whatever you spend? We had him skip everything but the pottery and the rug stop, as we did have some interest in those.

Rug stop was neat, you get an education, as much as you'd like, on the process of rug making. Then they take you to a room, serve you Turkish coffee, and three or four people sling rugs at you rapid fire. At one point the rugs on the floor must've been 2 feet deep.



Pottery shop. Again neat to see the process, including the hand painting.


Love Valley:

[schindlerpiste]

very cool

[zion zig zag]

Still in Cappdocia we visited the underground cities. Christians in the area built these massive underground cities that they could escape to when invaders came around. They were equipped to stay in them indefinitely with food storage and ventilation. I could never be a spelunker as just walking down the halls that connected rooms was a little much for me.


Final day was a hot air balloon tour. This had been put off for the previous days due to weather. We were unsure if we'd be able to make it as we were flying out of the area at 10am from an airport an hour away. The tour operator called his brother the taxi driver who agreed to meet us and the LZ with our bags and drive us direct to the airport. It was very tight but we walked through security and onto the plane.




12k plus peak Mt Erciyes:


Is that our taxi?:

[schindlerpiste]

My sister-in-law's grandfather was a German colonel who was tasked to head up archeological digs in southern Turkey during WWII. I think that he was looking for the holy grail ala Raiders Of The Lost Arch. Very interesting dude.

[zion zig zag]

Next up we flew to Antayla and rented a car. We had a week to make it up the coast to Izmir. This part seemed tight as there is so much to see. We picked a few things we wanted to see and crossed off a ton of stuff we wouldn't have time for.

Road side food off of the tourist trail was pretty amazing. Every meal served with a tomato salad and a huge pile of spicy arugula. This meal cost $6 usd total:


Our first stop was a beach named Oludeniz Plaji. If you love as many cigarette butts on the beach as sand, throngs of Russian guidos and their version of the Jersey Shore and bad, thumping disco music nearly till daylight, then this town is for you. We woke up early and picked a place on the map that looked like harder access, read a few reviews and hit the road.

Ah:


We spent two days in this little beach town. The beach by the hotel was great and uncrowded, but a drive up the coast 2-3 minutes led to nearly deserted beaches with some of the clearest water I've seen. I think we are officially old as this was more our speed.

Local beer:


Next up Ephesus. Ancient city and some of the most complete ruins in that part of the world.






After this it was drop off the car in Izmir and head home. Izmir-Istanbul-Paris-ATL-SLC was a 36 hour suffer fest of covid tests and layovers. Interesting fact, the IST airport is supposed to be the biggest in the world and it is massive. Walking from Domestic arrival to International gates takes while.

[zion zig zag]

My sister-in-law's grandfather was a German colonel who was tasked to head up archeological digs in southern Turkey during WWII. I think that he was looking for the holy grail ala Raiders Of The Lost Arch. Very interesting dude.

I wonder if he was working in Ephesus? That place is massive and they think they have only excavated 18% of it.

[Schemeboat]

pro tip for bosphorus water tour: take the water bus, you can link up a few back and forths from various stops, galata being one of them. I think it costs .50c
fav museum in istanbul is Modern Art, right on the water next to the palace. Super beauty.
fav resto in Istanbul is "Akin Balik" in the fish market on the galata bridge.
Russians sure do love that stretch of Coast. Every town is just horrible techno and screaming slap fights.
Crazy that the sea use to go to the entrance of Ephesus... because its rising now heyyyyyooooo

[zion zig zag]

pro tip for bosphorus water tour: take the water bus, you can link up a few back and forths from various stops, galata being one of them. I think it costs .50c
fav museum in istanbul is Modern Art, right on the water next to the palace. Super beauty.
fav resto in Istanbul is "Akin Balik" in the fish market on the galata bridge.
Russians sure do love that stretch of Coast. Every town is just horrible techno and screaming slap fights.
Crazy that the sea use to go to the entrance of Ephesus... because its rising now heyyyyyooooo

Debated asking for advice on here before we went and I probably should have.
Modern Art near Topkapi? We missed that one. We did go to the Archeological Museum and the Muslin Art museum.
Supposedly the port in Ephesus filled in from silt? They had a sign on site talking about plans to dig it back out and open it to the sea, allowing boats to come and visit.

[Schemeboat]

^ yeah man, I think it's a silt filling up an old trench thing... I'm just causing an unnecessary internet fuss.
Can't go wrong with any (non uber tourist) turkish restaurant and as you saw, the roadside ones are amazing and cheap. And sometimes I find it's better to go in blind on any vacation.
Looks like an amazing trip!

[shroom]

killer pics! looks awesome

[tgapp]

Damn, great TR zzz. Loved the pictures; that pottery is incredible. Did you end up taking any home?

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[Buster Highmen]

very cool.

[zion zig zag]

Damn, great TR zzz. Loved the pictures; that pottery is incredible. Did you end up taking any home?

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Yes. When he showed me how it would hold a liter of wine and I could wear it on my shoulder for easy dispensing, I was sold!

[Mike Pow]

Fantastic

[climberevan]

Nice. I went to Turkey a few years ago and really liked it. It's a huge country and I'd really like to see more of it. I bet it would be an awesome place to tour around on a moto. I hope they can steer themselves off of the current authoritarian rode they're on, but it looks unlikely.

The IST Turkish airlines lounge must be one of the wonders of the world. They have several restaurants and at least 6 bars in there, along with a movie theatre, pool table, library, and golf driving range. It's pretty nuts.

[cat in january]

Great TR, appreciate your share

[plugboots]

Nicely done.

[406]

Nice photos. A hotel carved in rock formation would be awesome.

[garyfromterrace]

Wow, looks like an amazing, beautiful spot. Well documented ZZZ, thanks for posting that up and putting another place on my wish list.

[Viva]

I went to Turkey a few years ago and really liked it. It's a huge country and I'd really like to see more of it. I bet it would be an awesome place to tour around on a moto.

Yup, I'm with you on that. I was contemplating Turkey and Georgia, and maybe a tour of the Balkans.

[schindlerpiste]

My sister-in-law's grandfather was a German colonel who was tasked to head up archeological digs in southern Turkey during WWII. I think that he was looking for the holy grail ala Raiders Of The Lost Arch. Very interesting dude.

He did most of his work in Bogazkale/Hattusa.
Any way, thanks for the outstanding t/r

[rod9301]

Went to turkey a few times, it and Georgia my favorite countries.

Capadocia is amazing indeed.
In northern turkey i think there is fine good heli skiing, good stable Maritime snowpack.

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[leroy jenkins]

You went to turkey and didnt see gobekli tepe?

[mtnbiker/boarder]

Super TR and a great walk down memory lane for me. Beautiful country . stoked for you and ur trip