The old town of Epheseus is spectacular: the amphitheater, the administrative areas, remnants of houses, and of course the public toilet. But, so many people!! A cruise ship docked in Kusadasi yesterday and they must have had at least a thousand people from the cruise ship - maybe more. The only advantage to having all these people, is it gives you a feel for what the town might have been like when it was home to 300,000 people.

Celsus was a collector of writings, in the olden days, it was scrolls on papyrus. After his death, son built this library and the collection gained such reknown that it rivaled the library at Alexandria. They banned the sale of papyrus to Pergamon (an ancient name for this area). No matter. In Pergamon they discovered how to make parchment and create pages / books. It was Cleopatra who demanded of Marc Anthony all of the holdings in the Library of Celsus -which he promptly gave her. And all the holding were moved to Alexandria, only to be lost in the fire that destroyed the Library there. This isn't the movies, it really happened!

Susan's new friend, after purchase of turkish wrap-around pants.

We lunched in Sirince, a mountain village. Once home to ethnic Greeks until the invasion of Turkey by Greece in 1919. Ataturk amassed an army and pushed the Greeks back to the sea, and in 1923 the new Republic of Turkey was formed. The ethnic Greeks in Turkey were forced to Greece, and from Greece ethnic Turks were sent to Turkey - they came to this village to live in the homes left by the ethnic Greeks. Got that? Anyway, lunch was great, and so was the shopping.

A home hosted meal for lunch today. At the mayor's home, his wife and daughter cooking. They live in an area of organic farming, like a historic district at home - most of the landowners had to agree to go organic, and get some official designation. Vegetable soup, green beans with tomatoes, bulgar, stew with small chunks of lamb, melon for dessert. The bus driver sat at our table and we stumbled through a conversation. We said the food was delicious and he said something about 'be good to hand' ...hmmm.... then the guide said that their saying in appreciation for a good meal is "health to your hands." Of the small table of handcrafted items, I bought a chunk of olive soap made from their olives, and Dianne bought a scarf of which the Mrs hand crocheted an edging.

Onto the school (the tour company gives $10 of each ticket they sell to the school). We met teacher Mr. Hussein, and 4th year students, learning English. They sang a song for us, and requested one in return. Someone got the hokey pokey going, which the kids found to be quite funny. And I am in their English book - a cartoon book of people talking, "My name is Judy" says one of the characters! The kids scrambled around to get their pictures taken, jostling and squealing for their turn - none of them shy of the camera. When I asked Mr H if I could take his pic, he pulled out his sunglasses and posed.

Before getting to our 5-star hotel the Charisma, we stopped at St John's Basilica in Selchuk - supposedly where John the Apostle is buried. Tomorrow, onto Epheseus.

Flew to Izmir today for all of this. Sunny, upper 70s.

Before leaving, Jackie gave us each a weathergram to hang in trees around Turkey. Today, we visited Topkapi Palace - a huge place, with many courtyards and buildings, and trees. The place is being extra special spruced up for Oct 29 which is their National Day, akin to our July 4. Added to the decorations is this weathergram, hung in a tree next to on of the rooms the family used.

The inside of these rooms are covered in tiles which is very beautiful. The tiles were made in Iznik, a location with special minerals in the soil that make the blues stand out. The 22,000 tiles in the Blue Mosque came from Iznik too.

We also visited the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Market today. The Bazaar is overwhelming in the number of shops and options for buying anything from trinkets to gold and silver jewelry. Very noisy. Hustle, bustle. The Spice Market was quite crowded too, but less hurried pace. Just outside the Spice Market is the market where the real people are buying the foods. My big purchase for the day was walnts from these guys.

Roasted chestnuts, roasted corn and breads are on every corner in the big city. Sold from carts like this one. The prices vary even though the carts seem to be a franchise of some sort.

These were being sold for 4 Lira for 100 grams. I gave him 2 Lira

and said I only wanted a small amount. Ended up with about 6. Pop the peel off. They were a bit bland, but tasty. Soft like a walnut. And still warm from the roasting.

This is the interior of the Blue Mosque, one of the shots I took. However, this one is with my little camera and the rest are on my larger camera, which I left on the bus today. I am hoping to get it back tomorrow!

Today we visited Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia, and took a boat ride on the Bosphorus Strait, which was named for a pregnant flying cow which flew away from Zeus wife and flew over this area. Thus, Bosphorus means the area the cow flew over. The myth has to do with Io and Zeus, love affair and Zeus\ wife wanting to murder Io. You can look that up yourself.


Later in the afternoon, we took the Tunel up the hill at a popular area on the Golden Horn area.

Lunch at the Pudding Cafe. I had eggplant saute with lamb, bulgar rice and water. Others, spinach and zucchini with peppers.

Weather today was about 75 with clouds, nice breeze unless you were in a building without air conditioning, and then it was a bit muggy.

Overall, a fine day!

Istanbul So Far

12M people in Istanbul.

The weather is 70s, sunny, pretty nice! Learned how to get token for the tram and went to the Turkish-Islamic Art Museum and the Turkish Archeological Museum. Pretty amazing the extent of history in this area. Saw this underground cistern from several hundred years ago. Left on our own to make it around to these places this afternoon.

Speak a little English to each other and right away you have some guy saying, "Oh, where from? America? What state? I've been there; I live there; I have a shop in the bazaar; I sell Turkish carpets;....." Not as persistent as China or Egypt, however.



Had lunch at this little restaurant. Grilled eggplant with onions and tomatoes, and some bulgar rice. Su to drink. (i.e. water).

New glasses just in time. But my old ones are going too. Just in case.

Turkey Time (try this one)

I added a clock to the links on the right side of the blog page. Click here to see. If the links don't appear, then open up the blog by typing the address in your browser - www.triporama.blogspot.com .

Testing

Testing sending a post to the blog via email, and seeing what a photo attachment looks like this way.

Weather Links

I've added 2 new links - Turkey Weather is a map of Turkey, key cities and their current high/low temps. By the Turkish Meteorological Service. Also a calculator for converting the temps to Farenheit.