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Peter & Melissa in TürkiyePeter & Melissa in Türkiye
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Peter & Melissa in Türkiye

May – June 2024
  • Fred Dinn
  • melissa dinn
A 30-day adventure by Fred & melissa Read more
  • Fred Dinn
  • melissa dinn

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  • Peter & Melissa in Türkiye

    We have arrived!!

    May 23, 2024 in Turkey ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    Checked into our arty hotel located in city centre after being picked up in a pimped out private car driven by ‘Hatip best driver’. We spent the day exploring Taksim Square and walking one of the busiest streets in Istanbul called İstiklal which was full of locals, tourists, restaurants, Turkish cafes, fruit shops, flowers, music and the famous Turkish tram. Strong police presence with police cars, buses and of course a police Ferrari parked outside the central mosque. What a contrast! Bizarre. The smell of Turkish coffee and market spices is strong. Turkish people very friendly and the architecture old, intricate and beautiful. We found a nice cafe, Peter enjoyed Turkish kebabs with spicy yoghurt, lamleh cheese and roasted stuff capsicums and Melissa loved her vegetarian delights. It was only after we had ordered that we realised it was a shisha bar, so many people sitting around smoking sisha pipes and being served with ‘flavoured coal’ which is added to their hookah pipe over hours. We walked through Gezi park- one of the smallest parks in Istanbul and the last ‘green space’ in Beyoğlu, a district near Taksim. Loving the people we are meeting and practicing our Turkish which always gets a smile.Read more

  • Peter & Melissa in Türkiye

    stray dogs, cats and Galata Tower

    May 24, 2024 in Turkey ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    Today we went on our own walking adventure, up and down hills, through Istanbul Beyoglu district, past the cafes and shops , down some curly narrow roads and up some too, and found the Galata tower. Built in 1348 -and called tower of christ - as a fire tower/watch tower, once a prison and now a museum with 360 degree views of Istanbul from top observation landing - truly beautiful to see from the outside as unfortunately closed today for renovation :(
    We also visited the largest catholic church in Instanbul - St Anthony of Padua - we bought a candle and lit it with our prayers said for Trudy/Mum/grandma and melissa’s dear Dad Garry/poppy.
    We sat with the stray dogs, kangal breed (mix large breed) which are everywhere laying about and very well behaved, together with the Instanbul cats which are in shops, walk ways and you can hear the kittens in bushes. It seems the locals, on the whole, look after the animals and consider it kind to care for them - steeped in Instanbul’s history. Look it up as it’s very interesting reading their history and current debates.
    We walked down to the Golden Horn (natural inlet to the Bosphorus Türkiye) and sat watching the ferries and boats, train on the bridge above and locals finishing up at the nearby mosque call to prayers. We found a nice place back up the hills for coffee and well earned yummy blueberry cake! We met a lovely shop keeper and bought our fruit - she gave us free apricots. delicious. We have ended our day people watching in Taksim square while having an early yummy dinner. Tomorrow we start with an official small tour group to continue our adventures through Türkiye.
    ps for kevin and rebecca - ‘our neighbour’, opposite the road from us and also four stories up , nursing his pug out the window for a good hour - pug happy watching the people/cars below- quite the scene.    Read more

  • Peter & Melissa in Türkiye
    21

    day 4- Blue mosque, Sophia Hagia, Grand

    May 26, 2024 in Turkey ⋅ 🌬 21 °C

    What a beautiful full day we have had!!! walking, walking, walking - glorious weather and day one with our tour. So far we are really impressed. our tour guide is knowledgeable and communicates so much about türkiye easily. A really nice collection of people in the group too.
    we began our day being dropped off in the old town - traffic is horrific - not surprising given population in instanbul is over 20 million in a space slightly bigger than new york. We went to the beautiful hippodrome- a sporting and entertainment ground built in 203 AD - with a rich roman, greek and turkish history and many monuments including the monolithic obelisk which has bronze made from roman soldiers shields during battles!!! We visited the BEAUTIFUL Blue Mosque and learned so much about architecture, islam and Türkiye followed by a tour of the Sophia Hagia of 532 which has been the grand mosque, a church and museum and still a mosque now. The mosaics were amazing, the painting and rendering incredible especially the history of what lay beneath some paint - images of christ and angels faces and the history of architecture so interesting - ie dome design etc
    then we went to the basilica. unbelievable! a water filtration and storage system built underground by about 7000 slaves in 532 and held 80,000 cubic metres of water! it’s massive. it’s beautiful and obviously now empty except for the water under the walk way - the columns and arches are beautiful and now home to sculptures and art work. Amazingly over time the underground basilica was forgotten until an old lady kept complaining of hearing water dripping under her floor. they dug it up and found this basilica cistern. it has 336 columns - each one different - is referred to as the sunken palace. photos don’t do justice.
    then we walked forever and ever through the busy streets and bizarre to the golden horns bridges and caught a ferry. The ferry was amazing - rocky, windy, and choppy water owing to the fact that it connects the Black Sea with the Marmara Sea and Dardanelles Strait. on one side of ferry was europe and the other side asia. Lots of boats out including two tankers on the way to the Ukraine:(
    after our 1 1/2 hour ferry ride we walked to the grand spice bizarre - wow wow wow! words escape me- incredibly beautiful!
    Then we walked to a roof top restaurant for dinner and to watch the sunset over a grand mosque and the old city. We have had the fullest day and enjoyed it so much.    Read more

  • Peter & Melissa in Türkiye

    ANZAC Cove and Troy

    May 27, 2024 in Turkey ⋅ ☁️ 24 °C

    Day 5
    We began our day very early with a hearty turkish breakfast - spinach/cheese/humus/fruit for melissa and traditional turkish spicy tomatoe omelette called meneme for peter before a three hour bus ride to Gallipolli (Gallipoli) located in the south west of Türkiye. Our guide, Ikud, is very knowledgeable and we are so lucky - he has studied history, economics and architecture - so we are sponges. Gallipoli is so sad, not least because wars continue with senseless loss of the like. the monuments to ANZAC and Turkish soldiers are beautiful with meaning behind all decisions in planting (pine, rosemary ,poppy etc), prayer, aspects and testimonials/poems. The trenches that our ANZACs dug, lived in and fought and died in remain - very very sad.
    We then visited the archeological site of Troy. wow wow wow! Located in Hisarlik, and first settled in 3600 bc but due to a number of events over the years was destroyed and rebuilt. Now, thanks to archeology digs there are nine layers which have been uncovered, each reflecting a specific time, wealth, skills and life of the Trojans (probably of greek descent but not turkish) who lived there. The site is unesco world heritage listed. Troy is linked with greek mythology and the story of the trojan horse, archilles and other mythology gods/goddesses.
    we arrived at our beautiful hotel located on the dardenalles strait in cannakale and went for a lovely walk on the wharf around sunset (830 pm ish) watching many local families picnic near the water and tourist exploring. All seems very laid back. We will sleep well tonight!    Read more

  • Peter & Melissa in Türkiye

    Ancient hospital ruins in Bergema

    May 28, 2024 in Turkey ⋅ 🌙 20 °C

    Beautiful road trip today down the west coast of türkiye where we can see the greek islands off the coast. the landscape is like a patchwork of green agriculture (figs, fruit, vegetables) but mostly olive trees (bear olives for olive oil 7 years after planting and live for 2 thousand years) - they are everywhere and the olive oil is delicious!
    We drove to the ruins of the Asklepion medical centre or healing place in Bergema, it is one of the most important centres of healing of the Roman world. To keep its reputation of successful healing high it did not accept people who were near death and only admitted people who were rich. It was amazing to see the treatment rooms, mental health ward which used music, dance, dream interpretation, herbs and mythology to treat ‘ill health of the head’. We learned about the first recorded use of placebo in treatment. The healing place had a library, isolation rooms, ampitheatre, cubicles, prayer rooms, healing water, portico and ruins still show the layout. We could have stayed there all day, built in 302 bc and which honoured Asclepius the first doctor-demigod in Greek mythology.
    We ate the most delicious lunch at a local cafe which was DELICIOUS and then travelled onto Izmir, a busy fishing city on the coast side which gave us a magnificent sunset. Ended our day with another walk water side, thankful for our experiences in beautiful Türkiye    Read more

  • Peter & Melissa in Türkiye

    Virgin Mary’s house and Ephesus

    May 29, 2024 in Turkey ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Our drive to ancient land and the house of the virgin mary, a very special place in Ephesus where the first female warriors, the amazons once lived (one breasted to make using a bow and arrow easier ) and then later the greeks. We then drove past fields of ancient time fruits (figs, olives, peaches ), and beautiful white storks making nests in tall pillars and teaching their chicks how to fly to arrive at the amazing ruins of ancient Ephesus, a UNESCO World Heritage. The area is huge and the preserved ancient city, including large slabs of marble (very slippery) and reconstructed impressive library was incredible . We ate a beautiful lunch ( peter had traditional lamb kebabs and melissa had a spiced lentil soup) in a local once famous wrestlers cafe in the village. We met Ikuts friend who owned a shop called ‘Genuine fake brands’ before driving further inland to the beautiful remote Cotton Castle of Turkey, Pamukkale. we drove past houses with empty glass bottles on some roofs- each bottle indicating to other muslims a daughter who is ready for marriage and an invitation to bring their son for introductions. 70 per cent of marriages are arranged in türkiye and once the daughter is matched the glass bottle is shot off the roof. we are staying in an old, very traditional village tonight before exploring the thermal waters and travertines tomorrow.Read more

  • Peter & Melissa in Türkiye

    Aqua, Hierapolis, tiles and Sufism

    May 30, 2024 in Turkey ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    We set off early today and spent the morning exploring the huge ancient city of hierapolis and seeing the beautiful mineral rich aqua waters which are in the snow white travatines and overlook a patchwork of green land with terracotta roofed houses in the pamukkale region far below. it is breathtakingly beautiful. we then swam in cleopatras thermal bath which was about 38 degrees celsius and rich in minerals and sulphur. it was beautiful and our skin was very soft afterwards, apparently the healing properties are great. sitting in an ancient city and imagining life before is incredible. we felt refreshed enough to walk up a huge mountain afterwards, with frequent stops to catch our breath, and view the most incredible amphitheatre of the city which could sit 15,000 roman’s in its day. it was awesome!
    We drove through so many villages, further east, more traditional people from agricultural backgrounds and strict muslim culture. we stopped and ate local delicacies such as yoghurt/honey/ground poppy seeds (opium) and it was so delicious. We are heading towards Konya, home of the famous whirling dervishes - members of the Sufism order. It was particularly special and AMAZINGLY Beautiful to visit two special places. 1)center of education and architectural beauty, Karatay Madrasa and 2) Museum and Mausoleum of Mevlana. Here we paid our respects to Rumi - scholar, poet and theologist of the 13th century, and the teachings of sufism. The feeling, rooms, exhibitions, TILES and stories were beautiful. We ended our night late at a turkish restaurant in the village of Konya - soup was yoghurt with mint!    Read more

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