Turkey

Photo Link:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/AbEfH1qZYxdf95MU6

Finally went back abroad and it felt fantastic. As nice as it was to take some road trips out west in the US and see some amazing parks, there’s really something different about going to a new culture and getting a slight shock to the system that way.

I had a few weeks back home before flying out to Turkey – spent one weekend visiting a friend in Boston and another weekend visiting another friend in NYC. I did a ~5 mile walk in loafers (terrible idea) from Penn Station to his apartment on like 125th and 3rd, and it reminded me of why NYC is my all time favorite city in the world. Very few cities actually compare – I’d say that my top tier of cities are just NYC, Moscow, and Saint Petersburg (I hope this list doesn’t land me on Rachel Maddow’s dossier!). And just behind that in my 1b tier would probably only be London, Delhi, and Istanbul.

I first went to Istanbul for a week with my family 8 years ago, in December 2012. I remember loving it back then, so was excited to go back for a few days while doing a 2 week trip through Turkey. It’s one of the only places you can go to from America right now, and no PCR test was required which is nice given how PCR test turnaround times are unpredictable. I went with my dad since he’s antibody positive and also a big history nerd like I am…my mom didn’t go due to her Indian mom philosophy of needing at least one person in the country while my sister is in college, even though she’s also antibody positive (as is my sister…all 3 were most likely asymptomatic after our trip to the South of France back in March).

Istanbul

Istanbul was amazing. It was busier than I thought it would be (and honestly probably as close to “normal” as a city can get in these times), yet still on the emptier side. So far, COVID has led me to enjoy places due to the lack of tourists – South of France, Bali, all the national parks I saw in the US, and now Turkey. Food was amazing here, the sites were obviously top notch, and Turkey is the only country I’ve been to that even comes close to rivaling India with their sweets store culture. Had a ton of sweets whose names I don’t even remember, but it’s always hard to top a good Turkish Delight. Another thing that we had a ton of was this salted yogurt drink called Ayran which was delicous – also super refreshing given that everywhere we went was 80 degrees plus and we were walking 10-15 miles a day.

Some of the highlights from Istanbul were the Galata Tower and that area (which is probably my favorite part of the city), the mosaics at Chora Church, and the whole Sultanahmet historic old town area. The Topkapi Palace area was also awesome with the gorgeous Islamic style of architecture that was on display. One minor disappointment was that the Blue Mosque was completely under renovations, so we could not see a single thing, while the 2nd floor of the Hagia Sophia was also off limits due to restoration work so we weren’t able to see the mosaics there. Despite that, had no real complaints with Istanbul. I just love how it combines the crazy wealth of history that you can see in any given corner with the actual vibes of a fun and happening city.

One of the cooler things we did in Istanbul was take a day trip via ferry to the island of Buyukada. It was a nice laid back island that is what I would picture the Greek Islands to be like, but the absolute highlight here was a massive abandoned orphanage that is allegedly the world’s second largest wooden structure after a temple in Japan. After recently beating The Last of Us Part II (one of the best games I have ever played, would highly highly recommend), this giant building was especially cool to see with it being abandoned and derelict. Unfortunately we could not enter (we walked like 20 minutes around the entire perimeter but it was fully barb-wired) since it’s close to collapsing, but it was still amazing to see. In terms of logistics, this was pretty straightforward…can just google the ferry location for Istanbul to Buyukada, and then show up in the morning around 9am for the ferry – they are fairly frequent as well.

We also did a day trip to Edirne from Istanbul – the Selimye Mosque in Edirne was incredible, and definitely the coolest mosque I’ve ever seen (though I wasn’t allowed inside the Jamma Masjid in Delhi and that’s probably the coolest exterior of a mosque that I’ve seen). While the inside is not quite as towering as the Hagia Sophia, because it was built as a mosque and not converted, when you walk in the Selimye Mosque you’re just taken aback by the colors and artwork of the giant domes and how they all interplay together. We also went to another cool mosque in Edirne called the Old Mosque, which had some really neat, giant Arabic writing as artwork along the pillars and the ceiling. One really cool feature about these mosques is how Arabic calligraphy is used as art to decorate the mosques…I can not imagine English (or any language using the Latin alphabet) to look remotely as cool as Arabic calligraphy in an artistic manner. For this, we had to cab it to the main bus station (the Otogar), and catch the hourly bus to Edirne. We also bought our return ticket here since those weren’t as frequent in the evenings.

Izmir

After Istanbul, we flew to Izmir for a few days to use as a base for a bunch of day trips, mostly to see Roman ruins. The first day, we just walked around Izmir, which is a pretty decent coastal down that gave me some riviera-esque vibes. We also saw a decent Roman ruin there – the agora, or marketplace. Izmir is one of the oldest cities in the world (formerly known as Smyrna), but unfortunately a lot of the city is new due to extensive damage from the early 1900s.

Overall, I will say that the Roman ruins were great, but definitely a tier below Preah Khan (my tourism holy grail) and the other Cambodia temples, Hampi, the Ellora Caves, and the Chola temples of India, and even some of the temples in Luxor, Egypt. That said, the second half of my Turkey trip was still incredibly enjoyable, and honestly Turkey might be my favorite country in Europe after Russia (though it would be a distant second). I think a lot of that has to do with it being just European enough to be familiar yet very much an Asian culture. The weather definitely helped as well…early to mid October and across the entire trip it never once dipped below the high 70s during the day in any of the spots we were at. One interesting thing about Turkey for me was that they have phonetic spellings for English words that became Turkish, yet these Turkish spellings make so much more sense than the English spellings (an easy example is minit vs. minute).

We used Izmir as a base to see Greek/Roman/Byzantine ruins in both Ephesus and Bergama (formerly Pergamon). If you google image “Roman Ruins Turkey” (my travel research is like 95% google imaging and then going from there), the first few things you see are the Library at Ephesus. Once again, the benefits of COVID showed here as both sites (like all the ruins we saw) were devoid of tourists. Of these two sites, I think I preferred Ephesus just a little, as you got the picturesque court area with the Library, plus a pretty cool and giant amphitheater. We also saw what was left of the Temple of Artemis – just one pillar and a few things strewn about – which was one of the original seven wonders of the world. In Bergama the main highlight was Trajan’s temple – it was partially restored and up, but enough so that you could clearly visualize the outline of the entire temple. It was also a gorgeous view on top of a hill overlooking the modern town of Bergama. Another highlight of Bergama was this old Roman/Byzantine villa which had incredible mosaics still preserved.

For Ephesus, we took the Izmir metro with a couple of connections to get to and from the ruins. For Bergama, we again took a cab to the Izmir Otogar and hopped on their hourly service, and then got a return ticket at the bus stand in Ephesus after arriving there.

We also did a day trip to the towns of Alacati and Cesme from Izmir. Even moreso than the Buyukada island in Istanbul, Alacati is very Greek-island esque (again, having never been, but comparing Google images to what we saw I’d say it’s very accurate). It’s a quaint little town with pretty cobblestone alleyways and cool architecture. Definitely worth spending a few hours in if you’re in the area. From there we went to Cesme, from where you can see the Greek island of Chios pretty clearly. Cesme was also a nice town, and was very stereotypically Mediterranean with all these offwhite houses with red tiled roofs getting soaked by the sun on the coast of the sea. It was definitely scenic but a bit “generic” European. Two other desert highlights from this Izmir area was this delicious honey-soaked almond cake, and a pastry called an Izmir Bomba which is basically a hot pastry stuffed with leaking Nutella. Another dessert item that we had which I had never had before and was beyond decadent was honeycomb. To get to Alacati, we went to a different bus station that was in western Izmir and got a frequent bus there. Then we grabbed a minibus from the dropoff point that was heading further west to Cesme, and later on walked to the Cesme Otagar to buy return tickets to Izmir.

Antalya

After Izmir, we went to Antalya to use as a a base for a few more day trips. Antalya itself is an awesome city, and it honestly felt like what I would imagine Croatia to feel like (again, having never been). It was basically a way cooler version of Cesme – so still a generic Mediterranean city, but a nicer one. Probably the highlight of Antalya was their museum, which had a super impressive collection of Roman statues and sarcophagii, primarily taken from the nearby site of Perge.

Our first day trip was to Sagalassos, and this was a pretty good adventure. For all of our day trips from Antalya, we used this site which wound up being largely accurate: (https://thetravelingi.com/2019/02/08/how-to-independently-travel-to-antalyas-main-archeological-sites-on-a-budget/). For Sagalassos, we took a ~2+ hour morning bus ride from the Antalya Otagar to a town called Isparta, which dropped us off in the city square for some reason. We then cabbed to the Isparta bus stand but they told us the bus to Sagalassos was in another smaller bus stand, which we then had to go to. We then had a 2 hour wait to catch the next bus to Sagalassos, so wandered around the area for a bit, and caught what is probably the most authentic market outside of India that I have ever been to. There were sellers there that literally had 30+ different types of olives that they were selling. Anyways, we eventually made it to Sagalassos and it was a nice site. They had a reconstructed fountain which was done in order to help visualize what the square might have been like back in the day. The setting was also cool, as it was up in the mountains and you had a nice backdrop of the vast valleys to the ruins.

The next day was definitely the ruin highlight of the trip. Definitely the closest I’ve come in Turkey to Cambodia and India, but I think the difference is that those temples actually have statues and carvings, while all the statues here are in museums and the only thing that has survived are the base structures and not the decorative aspects (though to be fair, Greco-Roman ruins are at least 500+ years older than their Cambodian and Indian counterparts). That said, Termessos was awesome. This was the only one where we didn’t go local, and hired a cab to take us there and back for like ~40 USD equivalent. This turned out to be a smart choice…had we taken the bus, we would have been dropped at the foot of a ~1k foot mountain where cabs “usually” are situated for that last 10km leg but were not there at this time. Termessos was the only ruin where you had absolute dereliction combined with still standing structures (so more than just mindless rubble), with bushes growing all around the ruins. It wasn’t quite like Cambodia where you have trees in the ruins, or like Hampi where the ruins were still ornately decorated, but it still definitely satisfied my itch. Honestly, after Istanbul, I would say Termessos was the highlight of Turkey, and that says a lot given how great this entire trip has been.

Our 3rd day trip from Antalya was to the ruins of Perge and Aspendos. We basically took public transport the entire way (tram lines and busses). Perge was nice – was basically like a slightly less impressive Ephesus, as there was no landmark quite as cool as the library facade. There were a bunch of pretty impressive colonnaded streets here with pillars lining up on both sides, and we got a nice aerial view of this after hiking up a hill at the northern tip of the site. Aspendos itself was mostly “eh” except for the amphitheater, which apparently is the most well-preserved Roman theater in the world. It was incredibly impressive, and I felt like Russell Crowe in Gladiator while walking through the entrance to get in. My dad and I also nicked a few pieces of rubble throughout this trip, with the highlights being what seems to be a piece of a turtle shell and the top of a jug (a pottery shard with part of the handle sticking out and a curved top for the opening) to add to our tomb raider collection of a mosaic tiled floor from Hadrian’s Villa and a floral lentil piece from the Koh Ker temple in Cambodia. In addition to some tomb raiding, my dad was also big on foraging and we were able to munch on some wild pomegranates, figs, dates, kumqats, oranges, and grapes.

Our last day trip was to the seaside town of Side (pronounced Sea Day). This was also an easy destination to reach, as we took the tram to the main Otagar in Antalya and then grabbed a bus to Side. Side had some decently impressive ruins and a surprisingly nice museum. There was also a pretty cool ruin of the Temple of Apollo that was right on the harbor and beachside, which was pretty scenic. The town itself was yet another generic-ish Mediterranean town with narrow streets and photogenic houses, but to be honest we were sort of over that whole vibe by this point of the trip.

Overall, Turkey is definitely as open as you can get given COVID. That said, the tourist sites are all empty (which is great for sightseeing), but it definitely is a little depressing to see all the empty tourist shops and restaurants. In hindsight, it would have been smarter to simply rent a car and drive down the coast of Turkey while hitting up the ruins from Izmir to Antalya, instead of using a base and taking public transport. My dad is heading back home while I’m going to Ukraine for ~10 days. I am super pumped to see Chernobyl, and the plan is to also spend some time in Kyiv, Odesa, and Lviv. Maybe I’ll run into Hunter Biden out there!