After about two weeks in each country we found it interesting to contrast the two. Comparisons maybe somewhat skewed by the fact that we spent our time in Turkey in its largest city, but our time Greece in its most far flung islands, and generally in the less-visited harbours on those islands.
Turkey seems full of energy, a country on its way up, determined to prove itself. The population seems much younger and full of vigour, the Greeks are older and more laid back. Young Turkish men all have their hair neatly cut, perhaps because they've been in the army. In Greece we saw pony tails on men. In Turkey, no tattoos, some in Greece although not as prevalent as they seem to be becoming back home. Ancient ruins in Turkey seem to be better cared for and have more explanatory material. There was generally an entry fee, whereas there were sites in Greece you could wander for free, but we always felt we were getting our money's worth in Turkey. Food and diet are closely related, although we found rather more variety in Greek food.
A very noticeable difference is in the amount of bureaucracy. In Turkey this seems to be minimal and efficient. Provided you have your €15 in cash handy, it takes about 30 seconds to get your entry visa. Queues were long for some of the popular sights but were handled efficiently. In Greece we were given a thick folder of ship's papers for the yacht, full of official forms of all sorts. The day we left we wanted to leave our bags at the Marina Office after checking off the boat. It required the entry of a transaction into a computer system and the printing of an A4 sheet so that they could charge us €3.85 for the use of the left luggage room.
The biggest contrast was the ferry crossing between Kos and Bodrum, which is also a border crossing. Processing of our booking voucher on the Turkish side was quick and efficient, and they had a pleasant lounge area and duty free shop once you'd gone through passport control and security. In contrast on the Greek side, there were six ticket offices outside the terminal. Security guard sent me out to exchange my ticket voucher for boarding passes. Which one? Any one. Headed for the first, but was beckoned over by the second (first was already serving someone). She looked at voucher, sent me to first office. Looked at voucher, sent me to fourth office. Voucher finally accepted, passports checked, but then I was asked for €6 port tax, €3 each. Offered €20. Did I have change? No I didn't (Peter did, but he was back in the terminal, minding the bags and wondering what on earth I was doing). Bloke takes the €20 note, strolls slowly over to the snack bar in the terminal, strolls slowly back with change and I finally complete the transaction. Once through security and passport control we sit on one of the few seats on the quayside, engulfed in diesel fumes from another ferry taking about 10 minutes to depart. If the Greek economy is going to recover they need to revolutionise their systems.
Our tour guide gave us some interesting information about the Turkish economy. Wages are low, so most Turks share a cheap apartment. But the Turkish government provides cheap credit to help people buy apartments, and other things from cars and cows to solar hot water systems. As a result there is solar hot water and sometimes solar power everywhere in Turkey, despite the fact that they can only use it for 9 months of the year (they have to drain the hot water systems in winter as it can freeze overnight). We also saw a number of wind farms as we travelled. Greece also has wind farms, but less than half the houses have solar hot water, nothing like as common as in Turkey. All light globes in Turkey seem to be low energy, and we think it is the same in Greece, but we spent less time inside buildings.
On the subject of being green, both countries have some degree of rubbish separation and recycling, but the green bag has not yet arrived. You get a plastic bag with every purchase, however small. I have done my best to recycle them myself as rubbish bags. Another interesting feature of the coastal towns in both countries are signs in all the loos requesting that you don't put used loo paper into the bowl, but instead into a bin. Hard to change lifetime habits (found myself fishing soggy paper out a few times), but a good idea as I think the sewage treatment may be fairly minimal.
Would I want to live in either country? If I wanted a quiet place to write a novel, I'd stay in a studio apartment in a small village on a Greek island, Maltezana on Astypalaia, say. But if I was going to live and work in a real job, I'd choose Turkey, more energy, less bureaucracy.
13 June 2012
09 June 2012
Sailing in Greece Part 2
Our first stop in week two of our sailing holiday in Greece is Livadhia on Tilos, reached after a long motor trip from Syrna (very little wind). It is different again from the islands we have already visited, more of a resort town. There are groups of umbrellas all along the beach in front of the various hotels, studio apartments and tavernas. There are signs of sophistication like an ATM, the first we've seen since we left Kos, and a postbox. There are a number of mini markets, and little boutiques selling items for the tourists to buy, like jewellery, beach wear, hand made soaps, etc in interesting back streets up behind the harbour. We ate a wonderful meal for €35, two vege starters which we shared then roast goat with chick peas. And as usual there was complimentary cake, which you feel you should eat and it's delicious anyway. So once more we stagger back to the dinghy, return to the boat and fall down exhausted by a surfeit of sun, wind, food and drink.
Finally the supposedly prevailing NW wind does actually prevail, and we have a good sail to Khalkhi, slightly marred by jamming the main in the in-mast furler, but there is enough wind to make good speed under headsail alone. Khalki augments its limited mooring space with a pontoon jetty in summer and we are whistled in by the harbour master, instructed to moor stern-to on the outside. After three attempts at getting holding, he gives up on us and we moor alongside. Next boat in, properly moored at right angles, contains a bunch of young public school Poms, friendly and interesting. One is sluicing down the deck of their boat with a bucket that has too short a line, so he loses hold of it on one dip into the water. He goes over the side hanging on to the gunwales, catches the bucket with his foot, heaves it back on deck, then pulls himself back on board over the scuppers, no mean feat. Watching amazed, we were joined by an older, moustachioed, very proper English chap who'd walked the length of the jetty to say to them, "Jolly good to see the flag flying chaps, but you're flying it upside down - would you mind reversing it, please!" whereupon they took down their very large Union Jack courtesy flag and put it back right way up. Unlike all the other harbourside towns, Khalkhi has stone houses with terracotta tiled roofs, and plastered houses painted all colours, yellow, pink, blue, lavender, olive, giving it a quite different character. It also has two tall towers, one a church, very different from the standard blue dome. The area along the harbour in front of the tavernas is also wide, rather than being just a narrow road, but seems to be pedestrian only, giving the place the feeling of an elongated plaza. About half way along there are primary school kids practising their Greek dancing, with tourists enjoying the music, taking pictures, and some of the locals (and tourists?) joining in towards the end. When they finish we eat at a restaurant specialising in Cretan dishes. We chat to the Cretan proprietor and learn enough Greek so that at least we can give and return greetings. The moon is full and the sight of it rising is stunningly beautiful. As we return to the boat a brass band (live? recorded?) strikes up with, of all things, "That's amore", followed by a couple more Italian numbers and finishing with the Mexican Hat Dance. Very strange choice. Khalkhi is a pedestrian town whose narrow passages don't permit even a motorbike, so it has a medieval feel.
Next morning we enjoy exploring the town and patronise the cafes again before heading off on a beam reach to Palon on Nisiros. We stop at Tilos again on the way, but only to break up the journey and don't go ashore. We need to get to Palon early in the day as there is nowhere to anchor, you have to do a Mediterranean stern-to moor in the harbour. But the wind is kind and there is plenty of room, and this time we berth without difficulty, with a bit of help from the guy on the next boat who takes our lines. In contrast to Khalkhi, Palon is full of vehicles, with four car/motorbike hire places in between the tavern on the harbour front, and tourists on rented motorscooters everywhere. We opt for the safer option of a very small car, and drive around the island, visiting the other harbour town Mandraki, then driving inland to the crater of a dormant volcano, then up to Nisia, a town perched high on a ridge with the sea on one side, the crater on the other. There is a parking area just outside the town, then you walk through passageways designed for people and goats. We eat in the village square, or more properly circle, a tiny space with a church, two tavernas and not much else clustered around a stone mosaic circle.
We explore Palon itself next morning, before heading out on our last leg from Nisiros to Kos and the marina. It is blowing hard for the first time, and once we get the sail set right we fly along at 6-7kt, reefing progressively as the wind rises to over 35kt. Inevitably once we round the end of Kos and head toward the marina we have the best part of an hour of motoring into a headwind, but there are windsurfers and kite surfers moving at amazing speeds to watch as we slog through the chop to the fuel jetty, where we come alongside easily with an on shore wind. Getting into the marina berth in the wind is trickier, but the pilot boat is there to assist with advice and a push at the critical moments, and we are finally safely berthed. We are here a day early so that we can see something of Kos before we leave Greece, and because we hope to catch up with a Greek friend from Tasmania, Dionissis. We've found his boat Hector on the hard stand here, but no sign of him yet.
We unwisely leave starting our exploration of Kos until about 11am next morning so much of it is done in the heat. Kos was razed by an earthquake in 1933 which gave archeologists the opportunity to start digging in the ruins. As a result Kos is a town of consistent modern and rather boring architecture wrapped around about seven archeological sites, one or two quite large. The only ancient monument that appears to have survived the earthquake is the castle built on the point by the knights of St John which is large and impressive, but is more ruined and less well cared for than Bodrum Castle. In the evening we drink our last gin and tonics aboard Astraea, go ashore for our last dinner in Greece. Tomorrow at 5pm we catch the ferry back to Bodrum, the start of our 24 hour transit to Millepetit in France.
Finally the supposedly prevailing NW wind does actually prevail, and we have a good sail to Khalkhi, slightly marred by jamming the main in the in-mast furler, but there is enough wind to make good speed under headsail alone. Khalki augments its limited mooring space with a pontoon jetty in summer and we are whistled in by the harbour master, instructed to moor stern-to on the outside. After three attempts at getting holding, he gives up on us and we moor alongside. Next boat in, properly moored at right angles, contains a bunch of young public school Poms, friendly and interesting. One is sluicing down the deck of their boat with a bucket that has too short a line, so he loses hold of it on one dip into the water. He goes over the side hanging on to the gunwales, catches the bucket with his foot, heaves it back on deck, then pulls himself back on board over the scuppers, no mean feat. Watching amazed, we were joined by an older, moustachioed, very proper English chap who'd walked the length of the jetty to say to them, "Jolly good to see the flag flying chaps, but you're flying it upside down - would you mind reversing it, please!" whereupon they took down their very large Union Jack courtesy flag and put it back right way up. Unlike all the other harbourside towns, Khalkhi has stone houses with terracotta tiled roofs, and plastered houses painted all colours, yellow, pink, blue, lavender, olive, giving it a quite different character. It also has two tall towers, one a church, very different from the standard blue dome. The area along the harbour in front of the tavernas is also wide, rather than being just a narrow road, but seems to be pedestrian only, giving the place the feeling of an elongated plaza. About half way along there are primary school kids practising their Greek dancing, with tourists enjoying the music, taking pictures, and some of the locals (and tourists?) joining in towards the end. When they finish we eat at a restaurant specialising in Cretan dishes. We chat to the Cretan proprietor and learn enough Greek so that at least we can give and return greetings. The moon is full and the sight of it rising is stunningly beautiful. As we return to the boat a brass band (live? recorded?) strikes up with, of all things, "That's amore", followed by a couple more Italian numbers and finishing with the Mexican Hat Dance. Very strange choice. Khalkhi is a pedestrian town whose narrow passages don't permit even a motorbike, so it has a medieval feel.
Next morning we enjoy exploring the town and patronise the cafes again before heading off on a beam reach to Palon on Nisiros. We stop at Tilos again on the way, but only to break up the journey and don't go ashore. We need to get to Palon early in the day as there is nowhere to anchor, you have to do a Mediterranean stern-to moor in the harbour. But the wind is kind and there is plenty of room, and this time we berth without difficulty, with a bit of help from the guy on the next boat who takes our lines. In contrast to Khalkhi, Palon is full of vehicles, with four car/motorbike hire places in between the tavern on the harbour front, and tourists on rented motorscooters everywhere. We opt for the safer option of a very small car, and drive around the island, visiting the other harbour town Mandraki, then driving inland to the crater of a dormant volcano, then up to Nisia, a town perched high on a ridge with the sea on one side, the crater on the other. There is a parking area just outside the town, then you walk through passageways designed for people and goats. We eat in the village square, or more properly circle, a tiny space with a church, two tavernas and not much else clustered around a stone mosaic circle.
We explore Palon itself next morning, before heading out on our last leg from Nisiros to Kos and the marina. It is blowing hard for the first time, and once we get the sail set right we fly along at 6-7kt, reefing progressively as the wind rises to over 35kt. Inevitably once we round the end of Kos and head toward the marina we have the best part of an hour of motoring into a headwind, but there are windsurfers and kite surfers moving at amazing speeds to watch as we slog through the chop to the fuel jetty, where we come alongside easily with an on shore wind. Getting into the marina berth in the wind is trickier, but the pilot boat is there to assist with advice and a push at the critical moments, and we are finally safely berthed. We are here a day early so that we can see something of Kos before we leave Greece, and because we hope to catch up with a Greek friend from Tasmania, Dionissis. We've found his boat Hector on the hard stand here, but no sign of him yet.
We unwisely leave starting our exploration of Kos until about 11am next morning so much of it is done in the heat. Kos was razed by an earthquake in 1933 which gave archeologists the opportunity to start digging in the ruins. As a result Kos is a town of consistent modern and rather boring architecture wrapped around about seven archeological sites, one or two quite large. The only ancient monument that appears to have survived the earthquake is the castle built on the point by the knights of St John which is large and impressive, but is more ruined and less well cared for than Bodrum Castle. In the evening we drink our last gin and tonics aboard Astraea, go ashore for our last dinner in Greece. Tomorrow at 5pm we catch the ferry back to Bodrum, the start of our 24 hour transit to Millepetit in France.
04 June 2012
Sailing in Greece Part 1
We are half way through our two weeks sailing in Greece on our chartered Bavaria 39 yacht Astraea. We are enjoying the luxury of having two people on a six berth boat, we are using the spare cabins as a dressing room each and we each have our own head (bathroom). In-mast furling and roller reefing make her easy to sail, and we are gradually learning how to get a nice sail set with the unbattened main sail. As is the norm for cruising, the winds haven't always come from the right direction, or at sufficient strength to get us where we want to go in a day, so we have done more motor sailing than anything else, with one unpleasant afternoon of slogging into a chop under motor alone, and a couple of good 5-6kt sailing spells. The motor is low revving and quiet, so motor sailing is not tiring, and has the advantage that it keeps the batteries charged and the fridge cold. What it doesn't do is heat the hot water, and as we haven't yet stopped at a jetty with power, cold showers have been the order of the day, not really an issue in this climate. I have swum most days, and the water on board is as warm as the sea anyway.
Since leaving the busy Kos Marina, we have stayed at six islands, in harbours of varying character, but we've enjoyed them all.
Xerokambos on Leros was typical of a harbour depending on the passing cruise boats. There were two sets of free moorings set up by the two main tavernas ashore. We'd anchored before we worked this out, but that gave us freedom of choice of taverna. We made a good choice because not only did we have a large and excellent meal, but the taverna owner towed us back to the boat when we couldn't get the outboard to start (our problem, Peter had misfitted the safety switch in the dark.)
Grikou on Patmos had a sleepy holiday feel, a very pretty harbour with a bit of a beach and people sun baking, tavernas here and there. We dined on delicious fish at one, had coffee and cake next morning at another before moving on. The Dodecanese islands are very rugged and barren - it's like sailing round the Maatsuyker group in Tas but without the ocean swell, much warmer, and with not much chance of 70kt winds.
Our next stop was at Levitha small island with no houses, a single taverna. To our horror the narrow cove was already packed with charter yachts when we arrived, all moorings taken and a couple of boats at the end of the row anchored with lines ashore. It was so narrow that after going down the line of moorings we had to back out again. But there was another smaller inlet at the other end of the harbour, out of sight of the main part, which we anchored in and had all to ourselves. We had to eat aboard, but in the morning I was able to fulfill a long-held fantasy and skinny dip before breakfast.
After the solitude of Levitha, Katapola on Amorgos was all hustle and bustle. It has a quay with a ferry terminal and lots of charter yachts moored stern-to. We were too tired to try a Mediterranean moor, and after a few failed efforts found holding in a bay just along from the main port, where we were helped to put a line ashore by a Belgian live-aboard couple on a Beneteau. We spent two nights there, enjoying the day in between walking right round the harbour, stopping here and there for meals, drinks and to re-stock provisions at the various shops and supermarkets. Peter spent some time watching the day's new arrivals attempting their stern-to mooring: after watching them we are somewhat less nervous about it as we couldn't do a worse job. Amorgos was picture postcard Greece, full of typical architecture of whitewashed square houses, little steps winding up the hills, blue doors, window frames, shutters and domes of the churches, the blue and white punctuated by the vivid reds, pinks and yellows of geraniums, bouganvillea, hibiscus. The sweet resiny small of some unidentified plant, and peppermint gums here and there to make us feel at home. And of course, cats everywhere. One calico cat constantly importuned us over dinner, digging its claws into my leg to make sure I understood that it would like a share of my food, particularly when I was eating rabbit stifado.
Maltezana on Astapalaia was a mixture of fishing village, subsistence farming (goats and hens), and holiday venues ranging from large hotels to studio apartments, all of which appeared entirely unoccupied. We saw goats being brought ashore from a small fishing boat, probably being brought back from one of the more barren islands like Levitha or Syrna where they are left to graze. Everyone was very friendly, although their English was often limited, and we haven't even mastered good morning in Greek so just have to do our greetings in English and hope they understand. We were offered a share of a plate of fruit by some workmen, and one of the three cafes happily agreed to plug in my charger for my camera battery while we went off to see the ruin of a 5th century basilica, with mosaics, returning it to us when we stopped for coffee on the way back.
Ay Ioannis on Syrna was our Saturday night stop, and it must be one of the quietest Saturday nights ever spent. We knew it was going to be barren like Levitha, but feared the might be many other boats there ahead of us again. Instead we had the whole harbour (and presumably the whole island) to ourselves. We picked up the solitary mooring (used by fishermen sheltering from a blow), cooked aboard and watched the sun set and an almost full moon rising. Once again I was able to have my morning swim without bothering with bathers. Clear blue water, blue sky, what more could you want?
Since leaving the busy Kos Marina, we have stayed at six islands, in harbours of varying character, but we've enjoyed them all.
Xerokambos on Leros was typical of a harbour depending on the passing cruise boats. There were two sets of free moorings set up by the two main tavernas ashore. We'd anchored before we worked this out, but that gave us freedom of choice of taverna. We made a good choice because not only did we have a large and excellent meal, but the taverna owner towed us back to the boat when we couldn't get the outboard to start (our problem, Peter had misfitted the safety switch in the dark.)
Grikou on Patmos had a sleepy holiday feel, a very pretty harbour with a bit of a beach and people sun baking, tavernas here and there. We dined on delicious fish at one, had coffee and cake next morning at another before moving on. The Dodecanese islands are very rugged and barren - it's like sailing round the Maatsuyker group in Tas but without the ocean swell, much warmer, and with not much chance of 70kt winds.
Our next stop was at Levitha small island with no houses, a single taverna. To our horror the narrow cove was already packed with charter yachts when we arrived, all moorings taken and a couple of boats at the end of the row anchored with lines ashore. It was so narrow that after going down the line of moorings we had to back out again. But there was another smaller inlet at the other end of the harbour, out of sight of the main part, which we anchored in and had all to ourselves. We had to eat aboard, but in the morning I was able to fulfill a long-held fantasy and skinny dip before breakfast.
After the solitude of Levitha, Katapola on Amorgos was all hustle and bustle. It has a quay with a ferry terminal and lots of charter yachts moored stern-to. We were too tired to try a Mediterranean moor, and after a few failed efforts found holding in a bay just along from the main port, where we were helped to put a line ashore by a Belgian live-aboard couple on a Beneteau. We spent two nights there, enjoying the day in between walking right round the harbour, stopping here and there for meals, drinks and to re-stock provisions at the various shops and supermarkets. Peter spent some time watching the day's new arrivals attempting their stern-to mooring: after watching them we are somewhat less nervous about it as we couldn't do a worse job. Amorgos was picture postcard Greece, full of typical architecture of whitewashed square houses, little steps winding up the hills, blue doors, window frames, shutters and domes of the churches, the blue and white punctuated by the vivid reds, pinks and yellows of geraniums, bouganvillea, hibiscus. The sweet resiny small of some unidentified plant, and peppermint gums here and there to make us feel at home. And of course, cats everywhere. One calico cat constantly importuned us over dinner, digging its claws into my leg to make sure I understood that it would like a share of my food, particularly when I was eating rabbit stifado.
Maltezana on Astapalaia was a mixture of fishing village, subsistence farming (goats and hens), and holiday venues ranging from large hotels to studio apartments, all of which appeared entirely unoccupied. We saw goats being brought ashore from a small fishing boat, probably being brought back from one of the more barren islands like Levitha or Syrna where they are left to graze. Everyone was very friendly, although their English was often limited, and we haven't even mastered good morning in Greek so just have to do our greetings in English and hope they understand. We were offered a share of a plate of fruit by some workmen, and one of the three cafes happily agreed to plug in my charger for my camera battery while we went off to see the ruin of a 5th century basilica, with mosaics, returning it to us when we stopped for coffee on the way back.
Ay Ioannis on Syrna was our Saturday night stop, and it must be one of the quietest Saturday nights ever spent. We knew it was going to be barren like Levitha, but feared the might be many other boats there ahead of us again. Instead we had the whole harbour (and presumably the whole island) to ourselves. We picked up the solitary mooring (used by fishermen sheltering from a blow), cooked aboard and watched the sun set and an almost full moon rising. Once again I was able to have my morning swim without bothering with bathers. Clear blue water, blue sky, what more could you want?
On tour in Turkey
We allowed about four days to go from Istanbul to Kos, where we were picking up our charter yacht. Plan A was to take a ferry across the Sea of Marmara, take a train to Izmir, bus to Selcuk, visit Ephesus, then bus to Bodrum and a ferry to Kos. Normally we plan and book all our own travel via the web, rarely resorting to travel agencies. But the information about trains in Turkey was somewhat confusing and the blog comments from other travellers contradictory, so we sought advice from local agents in Istanbul. The first seemed quite bemused that we should even be considering a train trip, and recommended against. When we got a similar reaction from the second agency, we abandoned Plan A and since the bloke was particularly helpful, agreed to let him plan and book our complete itinerary from Istanbul to Kos.
The pluses were that we didn't have to make any further effort or worry about missing connections, or trail about in the heat with luggage trying to find the right bus stop or whatever. Instead we would be picked up from the hotel and one end and dropped at the ferry at the other, everything in between organised for us. And because we were to fly to Izmir we would have more time on the way and would be able to visit Pamukkale as well as Ephesus. The downside was that our visits to Ephesus and Pamukkale would be as part of a bus tour, working to a schedule.
The Grand Wonders agency who organised our activities around Selcuk were not quite as efficient as the agency in Istanbul. The days for the tours were swapped without telling us, so we weren't ready for the first day. Hotel pickups to take us to the bus and ferry station were late, causing minor panic as we were afraid of missing our connections. But the Nazar hotel we stayed in Selcuk was lovely, with excellent home cooked meals each night, and the tour guide, a retired English teacher, was most informative not only about the historic sites, but also about Turkish life in general.
We had enough free time in Selcuk to visit the Ephesus Museum (interesting) annd the ruin of the vast Byzantine church where St John is supposedly buried (impressive). From the rooftop dining area of our little hotel on our first night we saw and heard a noisy procession, which we were informed happens when young men are called up for national service - it is a send off from the town or village. At the meal we found ourselves in company with other Aussies. Interesting contrast: an American group and a Chinese couple picked at the Turkish food, but the Aussies, both we and the other group of six, ate everything with great enjoyment. Most noticeable was the beetroot salad, left by the others, eaten with enthusiasm by us. The other Australians came from Bairnsdale, so there was a bit of conversation about sailing on the Lakes.
Pamukkale is amazing, both to see the natural wonder of the of the limestone cascade down the valley that has been created over a period of thousands of years, but also to see the ruins of Heiropolis. It has a beautiful theatre in the process of a major restoration - currently you can only go into the upper half of the seating area, but the view from the back stalls was well worth the climb to get there. There are other ruins that we walked through but with only about 3.5 hours there we didn't have the time and/or energy to walk all the way to the north gate or visit the museum. A less attractive sight was masses of bare tourist flesh: because you can swim at Pamukkale many people were walking around in shorts or bathers, often not a pretty sight. One found oneself thinking that the Muslim customs of covering up have a lot going for them.
Our second day's tour was to Ephesus in the morning, then "Mary's House", the house where (supposedly) the Virgin Mary lived in her old age and died. Interesting coincidence (?) that Ephesus was formerly the centre of worship for important pagan goddesses, first Kybele, then Artemis. Finally we were to go to what's left of the Temple of Artemis, the Artemision, once one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I visited Ephesus in 1978, so was interested to see how much more had been excavated or restored. We found it still wonderful and even more impressive, but absolutely teeming with tourists. We had to keep watching for our guide and waiting while she gave us very interesting information, and were typically only given a short time to wander off on our own to look at things. If we ever come again we wouldn't take a tour, but would bring some lunch so that you could stay for a whole day and look at more things more slowly. I could have given Mary's House a miss altogether, ditto the leather factory that we visited between that and the Artemision, although the jackets were beautiful and the reversible ones that could be folded into a small bag quite astonishing. And the Artemision is also a bit disappointing because there is nothing left after the Brits who excavated it took all the good bits back to the British Museum. Our guide tells us that the locals call it the British ditch, now containing a couple of small ponds and families of geese. The solitary restored column has a storks' nest on the top, as do the bits of ancient aqueduct in various spots in Selcuk.When the tour ended we strolled around town and were introduced to the game of okey, played at every table in every cafe, a sort of number version of bananagrams, with a bit of rummy or poker thrown in. Would be very good for your mental arithmetic.
Selcuk has a country town feel, Bodrum is a resort with hundreds of hotels, and something that passes for a beach, strewn with pale poms sun baking. Other poms are walking the arcades of tourist shops in their socks and sandals. Our hotel was typical, with two pools and a poolside bar where they played head-banging music. We spent minimum time there, eating lunch and dinner out and exploring Bodrum. Main attraction for us was Bodrum Castle, which, as well as being an interesting medieval pile, also houses a wonderful underwater archeology museum, with collections of astonishing artefacts fished up from three shipwrecks, including one bronze age ship which contained objects which were already some 300 years old in 1300BC. Not only was all this fascinating, but one also got to see a rather splendid rooster and several peacocks, one of which obligingly did the whole tail raising bit. Although we were exhausted from climbing all over the castle we had trouble sleeping when we returned to the hotel as the bar stays open till midnight. At about 10:20 we called to complain about the volume of the music and they reluctantly turned it down. Not a hotel experience to remember. But that was the only sour note as we reflected on eleven great days in Turkey as we crossed to Greece on the Bodrum-Kos ferry.
The Grand Wonders agency who organised our activities around Selcuk were not quite as efficient as the agency in Istanbul. The days for the tours were swapped without telling us, so we weren't ready for the first day. Hotel pickups to take us to the bus and ferry station were late, causing minor panic as we were afraid of missing our connections. But the Nazar hotel we stayed in Selcuk was lovely, with excellent home cooked meals each night, and the tour guide, a retired English teacher, was most informative not only about the historic sites, but also about Turkish life in general.
We had enough free time in Selcuk to visit the Ephesus Museum (interesting) annd the ruin of the vast Byzantine church where St John is supposedly buried (impressive). From the rooftop dining area of our little hotel on our first night we saw and heard a noisy procession, which we were informed happens when young men are called up for national service - it is a send off from the town or village. At the meal we found ourselves in company with other Aussies. Interesting contrast: an American group and a Chinese couple picked at the Turkish food, but the Aussies, both we and the other group of six, ate everything with great enjoyment. Most noticeable was the beetroot salad, left by the others, eaten with enthusiasm by us. The other Australians came from Bairnsdale, so there was a bit of conversation about sailing on the Lakes.
Pamukkale is amazing, both to see the natural wonder of the of the limestone cascade down the valley that has been created over a period of thousands of years, but also to see the ruins of Heiropolis. It has a beautiful theatre in the process of a major restoration - currently you can only go into the upper half of the seating area, but the view from the back stalls was well worth the climb to get there. There are other ruins that we walked through but with only about 3.5 hours there we didn't have the time and/or energy to walk all the way to the north gate or visit the museum. A less attractive sight was masses of bare tourist flesh: because you can swim at Pamukkale many people were walking around in shorts or bathers, often not a pretty sight. One found oneself thinking that the Muslim customs of covering up have a lot going for them.
Our second day's tour was to Ephesus in the morning, then "Mary's House", the house where (supposedly) the Virgin Mary lived in her old age and died. Interesting coincidence (?) that Ephesus was formerly the centre of worship for important pagan goddesses, first Kybele, then Artemis. Finally we were to go to what's left of the Temple of Artemis, the Artemision, once one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I visited Ephesus in 1978, so was interested to see how much more had been excavated or restored. We found it still wonderful and even more impressive, but absolutely teeming with tourists. We had to keep watching for our guide and waiting while she gave us very interesting information, and were typically only given a short time to wander off on our own to look at things. If we ever come again we wouldn't take a tour, but would bring some lunch so that you could stay for a whole day and look at more things more slowly. I could have given Mary's House a miss altogether, ditto the leather factory that we visited between that and the Artemision, although the jackets were beautiful and the reversible ones that could be folded into a small bag quite astonishing. And the Artemision is also a bit disappointing because there is nothing left after the Brits who excavated it took all the good bits back to the British Museum. Our guide tells us that the locals call it the British ditch, now containing a couple of small ponds and families of geese. The solitary restored column has a storks' nest on the top, as do the bits of ancient aqueduct in various spots in Selcuk.When the tour ended we strolled around town and were introduced to the game of okey, played at every table in every cafe, a sort of number version of bananagrams, with a bit of rummy or poker thrown in. Would be very good for your mental arithmetic.
Selcuk has a country town feel, Bodrum is a resort with hundreds of hotels, and something that passes for a beach, strewn with pale poms sun baking. Other poms are walking the arcades of tourist shops in their socks and sandals. Our hotel was typical, with two pools and a poolside bar where they played head-banging music. We spent minimum time there, eating lunch and dinner out and exploring Bodrum. Main attraction for us was Bodrum Castle, which, as well as being an interesting medieval pile, also houses a wonderful underwater archeology museum, with collections of astonishing artefacts fished up from three shipwrecks, including one bronze age ship which contained objects which were already some 300 years old in 1300BC. Not only was all this fascinating, but one also got to see a rather splendid rooster and several peacocks, one of which obligingly did the whole tail raising bit. Although we were exhausted from climbing all over the castle we had trouble sleeping when we returned to the hotel as the bar stays open till midnight. At about 10:20 we called to complain about the volume of the music and they reluctantly turned it down. Not a hotel experience to remember. But that was the only sour note as we reflected on eleven great days in Turkey as we crossed to Greece on the Bodrum-Kos ferry.
31 May 2012
Impressions of Istanbul 3: from shopping to sights
On our first day we lunched at one of the many restaurants on the lower level of the Galata bridge, then crossed over to the other side where we found a street full of shops selling boat stuff. Here we made our first observation of two features peculiar to shops in Istanbul: extreme specialisation and clustering. Shops here sold just rope, or just paint, or just nuts and bolts. No equivalent of a chandlery selling everything, yet every shop in the street sold something related to boats. Later we found ourselves in other equally specialised areas: a street in which all the shops sold some kind of fasteners: several shops selling nothing but buttons, several more selling eyelets, one selling zips. A jewellery street with more than one shop selling nothing but gold bangles, not a ring, not a necklace. As our hotel room contained the world's smallest cupboard with but a single wire coathanger, we were on the hunt for some plastic hangers. We enquired in a couple of shops that sold plastic items, but without success. I told Peter that sooner or later we would find the shop that just sold coathangers, and we did, although it was a street stall rather than a shop. The ultimate in specialisation and clustering is the Spice Bazaar, which contains hundreds of shops that sell one of three things: spices, tea, or Turkish sweets and dried fruits. The smell is just wonderful.
The other major shopping experience in Istanbul is the Grand Bazaar, with about 4000 shops selling Turkish ceramics, pashminas and scarves, leather goods, jewellery, and the ubiquitous Turkish carpets. Stunning to walk through and look at, but nothing we wanted to burden ourselves with for the remaining eleven weeks of our holiday. Our big purchase that day, apart from the coathangers, was a Turkish made cotton nightie for about $9. Last of the big spenders, me.
We may not have done the tourist thing by buying something at the Grand Bazaar, but we did go there and to pretty much all the Sights with a capital S: Haghia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Topkapi Palace, etc. Most memorable and favourites include:
"Little Haghia Sophia", aka the church of SS Sergius and Bacchus. This little gem is contemporary with its big sister, but in better condition. Its beautiful proportions are slightly marred by the off-centre mihrab and correspondingly slanted prayer lines put in when it was converted into a mosque, which give it a slightly cockeyed look.
The library at Topkapi Palace, a small stand alone building with comfortable couch-lined recesses on three sides, entrance on the fourth side, with cupboards to hold the books in between. Like everything else from the Ottoman period the interior is clad in beautiful blue tiles. Despite the absence of books, it had that lovely restful feeling that good libraries have.
The Blue Mosque which wins the prize for biggest and best blue tile display. After it and the Harem at Topkapi even Peter who really likes blue as a colour for interior decoration felt that he had had enough, was perhaps "beyond blue".
Roman civil engineering of waterworks, notably the aqueduct of Valens, quite a bit of which still stands, including a section spanning the multi-lane Ataturk Boulevard, and the aqueduct's destination, the Basilica Cistern, a vast underwater cavern with supporting columns throughout, one of many city reservoirs. Down there it is cool, slightly drippy, with floodlights at the foot of each column bathing the whole place in an eerie glow. The water is quite shallow, but there are fish swimming about in it. We also saw men in waders wielding huge brooms to move the fine silt collecting on the floor of the basin.
The city walls, built by the Byzantine emperor Theodosius. These stretch from the Bosphorus to the Golden Horn. Big chunks have been reconstructed, but quite a bit is still original. We found a place where you could climb up on to the wall, and from thence to one of the watchtowers via three flights of stairs. All three flights were scary, but the middle flight was straight up, about as steep as Nahani's companionway, but with no rail of any kind and with some of the stone steps broken away. But we made it with due care, and the view from the top of the tower was spectacular. Coming down the middle flight of steps was even hairier than going up, definitely requiring one to go down backwards, clinging to the steps with your hands, feeling for the broken steps with your feet before transferring weight, rather like rock climbing. We were very relieved when we were both safely down.
We spent a whole day at the Archeological Museum, which has an enormous and fascinating collection of antiquities from various archeological excavations in Turkey. In addition to the amazing content, it also has the attraction of not being on the standard tourist bus and cruise liner itinerary, so no queuing to get in and it was comparatively empty. It was also cheap, a mere 10TL compared to 25TL for the palace and Haghia Sophia. We didn't even mind having to pay the entrance fee twice as there is no functioning museum cafe so we had to go out for lunch and come in again. The story of the key player in the establishment of the collection is as interesting as the heritage he has left. He was a pub serv who found himself in charge of the old museum when it was a "messy pile". He seems to have then single-handedly organised the existing collection properly, got new buildings built, organised excavations to add to the collection, and had a law passed forbidding the removal of historic items found in Turkey, stopping the wholesale pillaging of historic sites that had preceded this.
Our last treat was a visit to the Pera Palace Hotel. Built especially for the travellers on the Orient Express, it still contains the sedan chair used to carry passengers from the station, and one of the first lifts installed in a hotel. After enjoying tea, coffee and a delicious muffin served in fine bone china with real silver in the patisserie, we used a trip to the loos to look into the lounge, dining room, bar and the appropriately named Agatha's restaurant, and soak up more of the 1920s atmosphere.
All in all we loved Istanbul, even if our feet and knees suffered from all the walking and stair climbing (four flights every day in our hotel).
We may not have done the tourist thing by buying something at the Grand Bazaar, but we did go there and to pretty much all the Sights with a capital S: Haghia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Topkapi Palace, etc. Most memorable and favourites include:
"Little Haghia Sophia", aka the church of SS Sergius and Bacchus. This little gem is contemporary with its big sister, but in better condition. Its beautiful proportions are slightly marred by the off-centre mihrab and correspondingly slanted prayer lines put in when it was converted into a mosque, which give it a slightly cockeyed look.
The library at Topkapi Palace, a small stand alone building with comfortable couch-lined recesses on three sides, entrance on the fourth side, with cupboards to hold the books in between. Like everything else from the Ottoman period the interior is clad in beautiful blue tiles. Despite the absence of books, it had that lovely restful feeling that good libraries have.
The Blue Mosque which wins the prize for biggest and best blue tile display. After it and the Harem at Topkapi even Peter who really likes blue as a colour for interior decoration felt that he had had enough, was perhaps "beyond blue".
Roman civil engineering of waterworks, notably the aqueduct of Valens, quite a bit of which still stands, including a section spanning the multi-lane Ataturk Boulevard, and the aqueduct's destination, the Basilica Cistern, a vast underwater cavern with supporting columns throughout, one of many city reservoirs. Down there it is cool, slightly drippy, with floodlights at the foot of each column bathing the whole place in an eerie glow. The water is quite shallow, but there are fish swimming about in it. We also saw men in waders wielding huge brooms to move the fine silt collecting on the floor of the basin.
The city walls, built by the Byzantine emperor Theodosius. These stretch from the Bosphorus to the Golden Horn. Big chunks have been reconstructed, but quite a bit is still original. We found a place where you could climb up on to the wall, and from thence to one of the watchtowers via three flights of stairs. All three flights were scary, but the middle flight was straight up, about as steep as Nahani's companionway, but with no rail of any kind and with some of the stone steps broken away. But we made it with due care, and the view from the top of the tower was spectacular. Coming down the middle flight of steps was even hairier than going up, definitely requiring one to go down backwards, clinging to the steps with your hands, feeling for the broken steps with your feet before transferring weight, rather like rock climbing. We were very relieved when we were both safely down.
We spent a whole day at the Archeological Museum, which has an enormous and fascinating collection of antiquities from various archeological excavations in Turkey. In addition to the amazing content, it also has the attraction of not being on the standard tourist bus and cruise liner itinerary, so no queuing to get in and it was comparatively empty. It was also cheap, a mere 10TL compared to 25TL for the palace and Haghia Sophia. We didn't even mind having to pay the entrance fee twice as there is no functioning museum cafe so we had to go out for lunch and come in again. The story of the key player in the establishment of the collection is as interesting as the heritage he has left. He was a pub serv who found himself in charge of the old museum when it was a "messy pile". He seems to have then single-handedly organised the existing collection properly, got new buildings built, organised excavations to add to the collection, and had a law passed forbidding the removal of historic items found in Turkey, stopping the wholesale pillaging of historic sites that had preceded this.
Our last treat was a visit to the Pera Palace Hotel. Built especially for the travellers on the Orient Express, it still contains the sedan chair used to carry passengers from the station, and one of the first lifts installed in a hotel. After enjoying tea, coffee and a delicious muffin served in fine bone china with real silver in the patisserie, we used a trip to the loos to look into the lounge, dining room, bar and the appropriately named Agatha's restaurant, and soak up more of the 1920s atmosphere.
All in all we loved Istanbul, even if our feet and knees suffered from all the walking and stair climbing (four flights every day in our hotel).
27 May 2012
Impressions of Istanbul 2: from cars to carpets and cats
We think locals must be discouraged from bringing vehicles into the old part of the city, as most of those we saw were minibuses or delivery vans. There are some "otoparks" with private cars in them, but you could walk in the side streets for much of the time without danger of being run down. Locals tell you the traffic is mad, but we thought that it was less stressful than (say) Rome or Paris. And they seem to have banned motorbikes and scooters from the city, removing another major hazard for the unwary pedestrian crossing the road looking the wrong way. The only difficulty is getting across major roads, especially if they are multilane. Traffic lights are few and far between, and pedestrian crossings seem to serve no purpose, except perhaps to give your grieving relatives the right to sue after you've been run down on one. Drivers certainly don't stop, even if you are half way across. A driver who did stop for us was honked at by the cars behind. They haven't banned horns here yet so everyone toots every other vehicle that might possibly obstruct them, and they honk continuously in traffic jams to give themselves something to do.
The natives are very friendly and helpful, sometimes almost too much so. You get into a conversation with someone who asks where you are from and then tells you he has a cousin/brother/uncle in Australia, but then you discover that he wants to sell you something, usually a Turkish carpet. There are carpet shops everywhere, and many of the carpets are so beautiful you want to stop and look, especially at the silk ones. But if you do, you then have to deal with very persistent salesmen who want you to come in to the shop and look at more. We found a defence against their persistence - we tell them we live on a boat. Even then they are likely to tell us that they have some very small rugs, but by then it is a bit of a game and we can usually get away without having to be rude. We did get taken in by a very friendly and helpful shoeshine man when we were just off the plane, lugging our bags from the tram stop in search of our hotel, a bit jetlgged and not yet really across the value of the Turkish lira relative to our dollar. We realised later we had the world's most expensively cleaned shoes, having paid about $50. No wonder he insisted on kissing our hands as we went on our way, we probably kept his entire Kurdish village for a month.
As tourists we always walk much more than we would at home, but in Istanbul you are just doing as the Istanbullus do. Not only do they obviously walk a lot (tram, bus and metro stops are a long way apart), but they carry heavy loads, usually in plastic garbage bags, or they push them on handcarts. Streets are very clean: cleaners pull trolleys with huge rubbish bags into which they put the litter they collect. Perhaps as a result of all this walking we've seen very few overweight locals: men in particular are largely slim and good-looking. Having watched a whole service in a mosque, it is not surprising that the men are fit-looking: I couldn't possibly get down on my knees and up again without putting a hand to the ground as they do, and they do it a couple of dozen times each time they go to pray. Another aid to keeping fit is the presence of sets of ruggedised, non-electronic exercise machines in public parks, alongside the kids play area with the usual swings and slides. One image that I wasn't quick enough to capture on camera, but which stays in the mind nevertheless, is of a Muslim woman in headscarf and overcoat working away on the walking machine.
The other natives you see in the streets everywhere are cats. Cats prowl around the outdoor restaurants, sleep on ancient monuments, in pot plants, on carpets outside the carpet shops. Our Ephesus guide told us that the Turks rarely own cats, but like them. So the cats live on the streets, but are fed and and to some extent looked after by people in the area. It seems neither sex is neutered, so mother cats and kittens were a common sight. As we were heading out to look for places to eat on our second evening, we saw a dog being chased by a very aggressive cat, a mother protecting her five kittens, for whom home was a rug in the window of a carpet shop. We immediately decided to eat at the Aloran restaurant next door where we could watch the kittens feed and play and mother make the occasional foray back into the street to see off another dog or cat. She was unusual in that she was owned by the carpet shop man, who told us he had brought her with him from his home town in Van, in the Kurdish far west of Turkey.
Aloran proved to be a good restaurant and very reasonably priced, so we ate there each evening. Menus don't vary much from restaurant to restaurant, but we really enjoyed all the dishes we tried. Turkey would be a vegetarian's paradise because so many of the tastiest dishes are an interesting presentation of vegetables: spinach, peppers, potatoes, seaweed, eggplant, tomatoes, beans, chickpeas, and salads. The last are especially delicious because they put liberal amounts of fresh herbs in, parsley, dill and lots of mint. At the end of our week we were best friends with all the waiters and they gave me a Turkish "eye" charm as a thankyou because I put a favourable report up on TripAdvisor.
The natives are very friendly and helpful, sometimes almost too much so. You get into a conversation with someone who asks where you are from and then tells you he has a cousin/brother/uncle in Australia, but then you discover that he wants to sell you something, usually a Turkish carpet. There are carpet shops everywhere, and many of the carpets are so beautiful you want to stop and look, especially at the silk ones. But if you do, you then have to deal with very persistent salesmen who want you to come in to the shop and look at more. We found a defence against their persistence - we tell them we live on a boat. Even then they are likely to tell us that they have some very small rugs, but by then it is a bit of a game and we can usually get away without having to be rude. We did get taken in by a very friendly and helpful shoeshine man when we were just off the plane, lugging our bags from the tram stop in search of our hotel, a bit jetlgged and not yet really across the value of the Turkish lira relative to our dollar. We realised later we had the world's most expensively cleaned shoes, having paid about $50. No wonder he insisted on kissing our hands as we went on our way, we probably kept his entire Kurdish village for a month.
As tourists we always walk much more than we would at home, but in Istanbul you are just doing as the Istanbullus do. Not only do they obviously walk a lot (tram, bus and metro stops are a long way apart), but they carry heavy loads, usually in plastic garbage bags, or they push them on handcarts. Streets are very clean: cleaners pull trolleys with huge rubbish bags into which they put the litter they collect. Perhaps as a result of all this walking we've seen very few overweight locals: men in particular are largely slim and good-looking. Having watched a whole service in a mosque, it is not surprising that the men are fit-looking: I couldn't possibly get down on my knees and up again without putting a hand to the ground as they do, and they do it a couple of dozen times each time they go to pray. Another aid to keeping fit is the presence of sets of ruggedised, non-electronic exercise machines in public parks, alongside the kids play area with the usual swings and slides. One image that I wasn't quick enough to capture on camera, but which stays in the mind nevertheless, is of a Muslim woman in headscarf and overcoat working away on the walking machine.
The other natives you see in the streets everywhere are cats. Cats prowl around the outdoor restaurants, sleep on ancient monuments, in pot plants, on carpets outside the carpet shops. Our Ephesus guide told us that the Turks rarely own cats, but like them. So the cats live on the streets, but are fed and and to some extent looked after by people in the area. It seems neither sex is neutered, so mother cats and kittens were a common sight. As we were heading out to look for places to eat on our second evening, we saw a dog being chased by a very aggressive cat, a mother protecting her five kittens, for whom home was a rug in the window of a carpet shop. We immediately decided to eat at the Aloran restaurant next door where we could watch the kittens feed and play and mother make the occasional foray back into the street to see off another dog or cat. She was unusual in that she was owned by the carpet shop man, who told us he had brought her with him from his home town in Van, in the Kurdish far west of Turkey.
Aloran proved to be a good restaurant and very reasonably priced, so we ate there each evening. Menus don't vary much from restaurant to restaurant, but we really enjoyed all the dishes we tried. Turkey would be a vegetarian's paradise because so many of the tastiest dishes are an interesting presentation of vegetables: spinach, peppers, potatoes, seaweed, eggplant, tomatoes, beans, chickpeas, and salads. The last are especially delicious because they put liberal amounts of fresh herbs in, parsley, dill and lots of mint. At the end of our week we were best friends with all the waiters and they gave me a Turkish "eye" charm as a thankyou because I put a favourable report up on TripAdvisor.
Impressions of Istanbul 1: from boats to burkas and buses
For us, the first and lasting impression of Istanbul is of a city on the water, a busy port with hundreds of ships lying at anchor in the Sea of Marmara on the south side an dozens of ferries flying back and forth across the Golden Horn on the north side. There are lots of small and large fishing boats in the surrounding waters but no yachts - unsurprising when you learn that the Bosphorus has a constant 6kt current running out of the Black Sea. There are also people fishing everywhere, off the Galata bridge, off the rocks around Seraglio Point and any other accessible piece of shore line.
Non-boaties would be more likely to think of the skyline of mosque domes and minarets as the most characteristic image of the city. Our hotel was perfectly positioned between the Blue Mosque and Haghia Sophia. From our room and balcony we looked out on the latter, from the breakfast room and roof garden we had a wonderful view of both, especially at night with all the lights of Istanbul behind.
Istanbul is definitely an Islamic city - our sleep was disturbed at about 4:30 each morning by the competing calls of the muezzin from the three mosques within earshot. More than half the women you see are wearing modest Muslim dress. Many of those wearing western dress are obvious tourists, so it is difficult to judge how many Turkish women are wearing western dress. Women wearing Muslim dress vary from a very few fully covered in black enveloping garment and long black headscarf. Even fewer wear a veil so that only their eyes show - more of those in black just have their headscarf pinned together to cover their mouths. The most common dress by far is a head scarf and overcoat, even on a warm day. Coats vary from shapeless and drab to smart and belted, in black or navy. Young women's coats often have some individuality, interesting fastenings, or some muted decoration on cuff or collar, or some other colour rather than black or blue, deep indigo seems to be popular. They are always at least knee length, usually calf or ankle, worn over pants or a long skirt, so no flesh shows anywhere. If the 1960s maxi comes back in, the coats will be high fashion. Headscarves are carefully worn so that no hair shows, but are pretty, patterned and coloured, even on the older women. I have some trouble reconciling these modest outfits with bridal outfitter shops full of "meringue" dresses, not just in white but every colour from pink to purple. There seem to be far too many of them just to be catering for the non-Muslim female population of marriageable age. Then I saw a young girl waiting on a tram stop wearing a kind of hybrid outfit: a long white overcoat that had about 10 layers of frills from the waist down - a Muslim meringue?
Speaking of tramstops, the public transport system in Istanbul is excellent. There is a metro and light rail using a common ticketing system of plastic tokens that allow you through a turnstile onto the station or tram stop. A token costs about a dollar, and pays for one trip. Other passengers offer assistance if you look as though you are lost or confused. There are also public ferries going back and forth across the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. They travel very fast and there are so many of them buzzing back and forth that you expect to see a collision at any moment. We went on the tourist ferry that goes all the way up the Bosphorus almost to the Black Sea, drops you off on the Asian side for lunch, then you reboard for the return trip. It was a nice break on our second day after we'd walked for hours on the first day. We used the light rail all the time, the metro on our first day to come in from the airport, and made two bus trips on our last day. Bus and ferry tickets are bought before boarding. Bus tickets are proximity cards which are charged up with whatever you request, and are probably rechargeable, but we didn't make enough trips to find out. It's all very simple and makes you wonder why we needed our myki mess.
Non-boaties would be more likely to think of the skyline of mosque domes and minarets as the most characteristic image of the city. Our hotel was perfectly positioned between the Blue Mosque and Haghia Sophia. From our room and balcony we looked out on the latter, from the breakfast room and roof garden we had a wonderful view of both, especially at night with all the lights of Istanbul behind.
Istanbul is definitely an Islamic city - our sleep was disturbed at about 4:30 each morning by the competing calls of the muezzin from the three mosques within earshot. More than half the women you see are wearing modest Muslim dress. Many of those wearing western dress are obvious tourists, so it is difficult to judge how many Turkish women are wearing western dress. Women wearing Muslim dress vary from a very few fully covered in black enveloping garment and long black headscarf. Even fewer wear a veil so that only their eyes show - more of those in black just have their headscarf pinned together to cover their mouths. The most common dress by far is a head scarf and overcoat, even on a warm day. Coats vary from shapeless and drab to smart and belted, in black or navy. Young women's coats often have some individuality, interesting fastenings, or some muted decoration on cuff or collar, or some other colour rather than black or blue, deep indigo seems to be popular. They are always at least knee length, usually calf or ankle, worn over pants or a long skirt, so no flesh shows anywhere. If the 1960s maxi comes back in, the coats will be high fashion. Headscarves are carefully worn so that no hair shows, but are pretty, patterned and coloured, even on the older women. I have some trouble reconciling these modest outfits with bridal outfitter shops full of "meringue" dresses, not just in white but every colour from pink to purple. There seem to be far too many of them just to be catering for the non-Muslim female population of marriageable age. Then I saw a young girl waiting on a tram stop wearing a kind of hybrid outfit: a long white overcoat that had about 10 layers of frills from the waist down - a Muslim meringue?
Speaking of tramstops, the public transport system in Istanbul is excellent. There is a metro and light rail using a common ticketing system of plastic tokens that allow you through a turnstile onto the station or tram stop. A token costs about a dollar, and pays for one trip. Other passengers offer assistance if you look as though you are lost or confused. There are also public ferries going back and forth across the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. They travel very fast and there are so many of them buzzing back and forth that you expect to see a collision at any moment. We went on the tourist ferry that goes all the way up the Bosphorus almost to the Black Sea, drops you off on the Asian side for lunch, then you reboard for the return trip. It was a nice break on our second day after we'd walked for hours on the first day. We used the light rail all the time, the metro on our first day to come in from the airport, and made two bus trips on our last day. Bus and ferry tickets are bought before boarding. Bus tickets are proximity cards which are charged up with whatever you request, and are probably rechargeable, but we didn't make enough trips to find out. It's all very simple and makes you wonder why we needed our myki mess.
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