We have spent the last couple days seeing various mosques and museums. Both are ubiquitous in Instanbul, with 2,944 active mosques, and (it sometimes seems) almost as many museums. Most mosques are topped by a dome that looks ordinary from the outside, but is elaborately ornate on the inside. Many are painted, others have frescoes, […]
Turkey 14 – A Dervish Delight
Today we watched a Whirling Dervish performance in Istanbul. The dervish were a Muslim sect that originated in Konya, but were outlawed by the first Turkish president, Mustafa Kemel Atatürk, in 1923. The whirling was part of a religious ceremony, in which the person was supposed to lose his ego to the wider universe. The […]
Turkey 13 – The Turkish Pinch
We spent today with Aysin, from Cookistan to learn how to cook a 6-course Turkish meal. We traveled there using Uber for the first time, which worked well in getting us directly to the meeting point, though it took 93 minutes to travel 27 km (about 16 miles) in Istanbul traffic. With Aysin’s directions, we […]
Turkey 12 – Grand Bazaar
Today we visited the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. This is the largest covered market in the world, covering 61 streets and more than 3000 vendors. In addition, there were many more vendors on the outside surrounding this market. There is no way that anyone can visit more than a small portion of the bazaar in […]
Turkey 11 – Tulips in Emirgan Park
Dead? Dead! OMG, they are all dead! ☹ Emirgan Park is the largest park in Istanbul, and famed for the tulips that are planted each Spring, filling the park with color from early April until early May. As with much of the world, this year has been unusually hot, causing the tulips to bloom earlier […]
Turkey 10 – Pera Museum and Sunset
Today was another day of exploring the European side of Istanbul, and testing our new lenses. We planned to start off with a visit to the Pera Museum, which meant once again using the metro subway and ferry to get there. The subway comes every 5 minutes on Saturdays (“1 DK” and “6 DK” indicate […]
Turkey 09 – Camera Mania!
Today was an adventure in exploring transportation around Istanbul, shopping, dining, getting lost, and spending way too much money on stuff we can’t get in Ecuador. Let’s see how it unfolded… Evelyn decided she wanted a new camera bag. She is in love with luggage, and still searching for the ideal bag that will weigh […]
Turkey 08 – St. Nicholas and Kale
Unfortunately, the threat of terrorism did have an impact on our trip. Due to the threats of ISIS kidnappings, we diverted from our original plans of going to Adiyaman and Sanliurfa. Always ready to react to changing circumstances and opportunities, Mehmet took us to Demre and his favorite fishing village, Kale instead. This blog post […]
Turkey 07 – Cappadocia Enroute to Antalya
The chimney fairies were our last photo stop in Cappadocia. But first, a word from our sponsor… It seems that some people are a bit confused about this blog, and believe that Burt (aka “me”) is the source of all photographs and writing. Actually, at least 1/3 of all photographs shown were taken by Evelyn, […]
Turkey 06 – Cappadocia Balloons and Fairy Castles
We spent last night in an exotic “cave hotel,” where the rooms are carved out of the hillside, and lived much like the ancients did. Of course, those early inhabitants did not have lights, indoor plumbing nor internet, but we were only willing to go so far in “roughing it.” ☺ Yesterday, we pored over […]