2006 Greece Turkey

Hakan (“ha con”) was our tour guide on the land (Bora tour) part of Turkey. He also answered to “how come” as in “How come we’re lost?”

The plot (itinerary)

The trip was mostly a Wind Star cruise, but it was also mostly Turkey, after four days in Greece. The land part in Turkey was handled by Bora Ozkok’s CA-based Cultural Folk Tours.

Info: http://www.boraozkok.com/

Mischel did the flights, using frequent flier miles to upgrade from coach to first/business.

Date	Place
Sept. 21	San Francisco to New York to …
Sept. 22	… Geneva to Athens, Greece
Sept. 23	Athens, Greece
Sept. 24	Wind Star: Mikanos (Delos), Greece
Sept. 25	Wind Star: Santorini, Greece
Sept. 26	Wind Star: Rhodes, Greece
Sept. 27	Wind Star: Bodrum, Turkey
Sept. 28	Wind Star: Kusadasi (Efis), Turkey
Sept. 29	Wind Star: at sea
Sept. 30	Wind Star: Istanbul, Turkey
Oct. 1	Istanbul, Turkey
Oct. 2	Goreme via Kayseri, Turkey
Oct. 3	Goreme (Cappadocia), Turkey
Oct. 4	Istanbul via Kayseri, Turkey
Oct. 5	Istanbul to London to LA to SF

Thursday Sept. 21: Departure

We flew first or business class on every segment (except the last return hop from LAX to SFO, but that’s another story – see Oct. 5 below). Business class on British Air (Istanbul to London) was a disappointment, with just an extra 3 inches of leg room; seats on the other flight were like recliners.

The flights that departed from San Francisco and New York used plastic silverware and cups. All the other flights, including the return from London to Los Angeles, used metal silverware and glass cups.

Times are the nearest hour (PDT is Pacific Daylight savings Time):

4 am: The alarm goes off. Mischel is already up. 5 am the limo arrives. We pick up Lynn and Steve Irving in Cupertino and head to SFO. 7 am: sunrise. 8 am: AA flight to New York JFK. 1 pm PDT (4 pm local) arrive JFK. 5 pm PDT (8 pm local) Swiss Int’l flight to Geneva. 11 pm PDT: dawn.

Friday Sept. 22: Arrival

The Alps

1 am PDT (10 am local) arrive Geneva. 3 am PDT (noon local) depart Geneva on Swiss International (used to be SwissAir). 5 am PDT (3 pm local) arrive Athens. 7 am PDT (5 pm local) arrive Ledra Marriott hotel.

Times from here on are local. Greece and Turkey are the same, 10 hours later than California.

10 pm: Have a snack at the Panorama Lounge and go to bed.

Saturday Sept. 23: Athens

Athens city tour, Acropolis on left

Greece has a population of 11 million, and almost half of them live in Athens. They’re mostly Greek Orthodox Catholics, after the 1920 “separation”, when lots of Christians in Turkey moved to Greece, and lots of Moslems in Greece moved to Turkey.

Greece is in the EU (European Union), and so uses the Euro, but we had no problem with dollars or English on the tourist route.

Half of the Greek taxis were Mercedes, as were lots of trucks and busses, but few regular sedans. Gas is about $7 a gallon; most cars were sedans with 4-cylinder engines. I saw a Mercedes E150, a small car with a 1.5 liter gas engine not sold in the US. Still, there are lots of cars, and in parts of Athens the traffic and parking were horrendous.

For the morning, the hotel found us a taxi and driver for a city tour. We went to a stadium, a monastery, an Acropolis lookout, the changing of the guard at the Presidential palace, through the “Rodeo Drive” ritzy area, and then to the Acropolis (acro + polis = high town).

Restored Olympics stadium

This stadium is solid marble: cold hard seats.

Lynn photographing chapel

The monastery buildings and grounds were very pretty, but apparently non-functional; just a tourist stop.

Monasteries are important to Greece because during some occupation, the common people had to speak the occupiers’ language, and it was the monks who kept the Greek language going.

Monastery: Lynn & Mischel

Monastery: Mischel

Monastery cells

Driving across town:

Median art: Olympic runner

Scenic lookout: Mischel

The Acropolis is at the top.

Lynn, looking out

We stopped at a lookout (see big picture above), through the ritzy residential/shopping area, and got to the Presidential Palace just in time for the changing of the guard, but with so many tourists in the way I didn’t get decent pictures.

Palace guard (left) and John

The new guards marched like regular soldiers down the street, but for the changing ceremony they switched to a really strange step: each guy would lift a leg high, with knee bent, straighten out the knee, then sort of fall forward to step.

Theater at the Acropolis

This theater is used: you can see a guy setting up sound equipment.

Acropolis: gate to the Parthenon

The gate area was so overrun with tourists that we never got to the Parthenon.

Another temple, from the Acropolis

Acropolis: Mischel, car & driver

After the city tour, we had lunch.

Lunch

I had a salad, meat plate, and a baked cheese & pasta something that was just great.

The star of the show was probably the Wind Star. It’s a smallish cruise ship, with 142 passengers and 96 crew. It’s part of the Wind Star cruise line; the other ships are the Wind Surf and the Wind Spirit, all built in France about 20 years ago.

They usually run it under both sail and engine power, using the engine for the power the sails don’t generate. They steer straight; they don’t tack back and forth. The sails are automated; an evening unfurling is accompanied by floodlights and canned music.

Steve and Lynn had taken two other cruises on the Wind Star.

On this cruise, most people spoke English, and were from the US and Commonwealth nations; there were about a dozen French or French-Canadians, who hung out together. The captain was English, and most of the servers and stewards seemed to be Philippino.

Restaurant (dinner)

Wind Star layout

We had a good cabin (224?), midships on deck 2, near the stairs (no elevators), port side. Steve and Lynn were further aft on deck 2.

Entrance Hall & Reception, deck 3

I guess that pole is one of the masts.

Breakfast and lunch (if on board) were in The Veranda, deck 4. Dinner was in The Restaurant, deck 3. No “seatings”; just walk in. They also had a light breakfast in The Lounge, deck 3 aft.

The captain at the auxiliary bridge

The captain, here docking the ship, smoked all the time. The ship in front is the Wind Spirit.

They had one entertainer, who played piano in The Lounge, a pool about twice as big as the hot tub, and an “arcade” consisting of one gift shop.

The casino had a staff of two, with two tables and about a dozen machines, open when at sea.

Wind Star cabin key

Note: John is my middle name.

Like other cruise ships, the cabin key was used to get off and on the ship when in port.

I just noticed: if you look sideways at the cabin key, the background is a picture of the ship.

The shops are off to the right, with narrow (5-8 feet) passages serviced using three-wheeled carts like the one on the right.

Mikanos harbor detail: Bilingual mail box

We took a shore excursion to Delos, so after the Wind Star anchored, we took a tender to shore and then a ferry to Delos, about a half-hour ride.

Ferry to Delos; Mischel & John

Delos

The ruins were… ruined: not much restoration.

Delos was a commercial (slave trade, etc.) and religious center over 2000 years ago.

Delos: Dolphin & anchor floor mosaic

After Delos, lunch and shopping of course:

Bracelet from Mikanos

We never again saw this style. Mischel should have bought a few more for souvenirs.

The white pelicans are still there >>

Mikanos shops; Mischel

Chamber of Commerce guy in pelican suit

Overnight we sailed from Mikanos to Santorini.

Arriving Santorini, 7 am

Greece was occupied by various factions at various times. “Santorini” is Italian for “Saint Irene”; the Greek name is “Thira”.

We took a shore excursion by bus around the island, including the towns of Ia, Zafora, and a winery...

Sigalas winery; Steve and friend

The wine was so-so; we didn’t buy any.

Santorini: “The island that launched a thousand posters”…

Santorini shopping; Lynn & Mischel

Santorini lunch; Mischel & John

Hydrofoil ferry

We didn’t take a shore excursion on Rhodes, but we did do a self-guided tour of the old city, and took a city tour by “train”.

Sidewalk mosaic… courthouse?

Old Town; Mischel

Old Town; Sea horse fountain

In the old town, we found the synagogue, but were too early to go in.

Jewish war memorial

Jewish war memorial (detail)

We missed the first train, because it holds 48 people and 60 or 70 showed up, but caught the second one.

It’s only 3 Euros, but I don’t advocate it, because the tour isn’t worth the pushing and shoving it takes to get on.

The “train”

Waiting for the next train, I checked out the beach.

Topless beach

Some women were topless; I was careful to not photograph one, like a boorish American.

An aquarium is at the far end of the beach. At the right of the picture there’s a diving platform (not a crashed 727), with a hydrofoil behind it.

Later, there was folk dancing on the ship:

Overnight, the Wind Star sailed to Bodrum.

Bodrum harbor & castle; Mischel

A path not taken: Most of the boats in the harbor are of a type called “gullet”. We didn’t take the gullet excursion because we thought it was a little one-sail open boat. Turns out “gullet” means any locally made wooden boat, mostly two-masted schooners that sleep 4 or 6.

Lynn at open-air market

We took a shore excursion with stops at a farmer’s market and the Divan Palmira resort hotel. Then Mischel and I toured the castle.

Mermaid, dolphin & Mischel

Before dinner, there was Turkish folk dancing on the ship.

Dolphins & folk dancers

The dance troupe did a couple numbers, in different costumes, and were followed by:

Dolphins & belly dancer

This started out as a class act, but then she got trainees involved:

Whales & belly dancer

Overnight, the Wind Star sailed from Bodrum to Kusadasi, both on Turkey’s Mediterranean side.

We took a shore excursion to Ephesus (Efis, in Turkish).

Angel

Houses- roof & walkway; Mischel

We were lucky: only a few weeks earlier they opened an area of houses next to the main drag that had a roof and a set of walkways and platforms, so you could see but not touch.

Navigator, on duty (Sept. 26)

Mischel talked to the Navigator and found out she’s from St. Helena: not the town in Napa Valley, but the British island somewhere in the South Atlantic.

Rock: snake

The modern symbol for medicine includes a snake because they used venom as an anesthetic.

The city wasn’t destroyed, like Pompeii; it fell into disuse as the harbor silted up- it’s two miles inland today.

Navigator, off duty (Sept. 28)

Terraced houses: Hallway mosaic

After lunch on board, Mischel took the galley tour. The food’s from Athens; no sushi for us.

Evening lightning

On our arrival Saturday morning, Hakan met us. He would be our Cultural Tours guide for the next five days, handling all the reservations and entry fees and such, and had vans and drivers in Istanbul and Cappadocia. His English was excellent, learned in Turkey, but he’s been to the US, and is coming again next year.

Turns out that when the Shannon-Humphriss foursome touristed Turkey a few years ago, as part of a larger group, Hakan was their guide.

Anyway, we stayed two nights in the Historia Hotel in the Old City part of Istanbul. The location was good, but frankly it’s a third- or fourth-rate hotel, more of a “pension”, with 27 small rooms and a breakfast-only restaurant.

Historia Hotel: Entrance; John

The hotel is on the side of a hill; the entrance is the middle of five levels. The elevator buttons go from -2 to +2.

A sign in the bathroom said to not drink the water. We didn’t, even though Hakan said Istanbul water was OK now.

We were on floor +1, so we usually took the stairs, which were outright dangerous:

Historia Hotel: Spiral staircase

A commuter train ran behind the hotel:

Historia Hotel: balcony view

To the left of the minaret is probably a harbor radar tower.

There are thousands of mosques in Istanbul, mostly the neighborhood one-minaret kind.

We were off the ship and into the hotel by 9 am, where Hakan met us, with his van and driver.

We just put our luggage in the room, and were off on a city tour, starting with the Spice Bazaar.

Spice Bazaar: Mischel & Lynn

The Spice Bazaar has two main walkways. They cross near the other end of the one shown above. There are spice shops, of course, but there are also shops for tea, jewelry, caviar, rugs, leather goods, musical instruments, gardening tools, you name it.

Spice Bazaar shop; Mischel & Lynn

Mischel found some pocketbooks, shawls, a watch-ring (for Edna), and something called “Turkish delight”, a kind of soft candy in various flavors.

Turkish delight (adult version)

Spice Bazaar: Mobile police station

Then we stopped at the Grand Bazaar, like the Spice Bazaar, just a lot bigger (4,000 shops). Mischel found a nice pair of earrings:

Grand Bazaar earrings

About this time I started a sniffle that turned into a cold that lasted the rest of the trip.

Then, lunch at the Tea Garden outside the Grand Bazaar. There are lots of WCs on the tourist route, usually not this obvious.

Lunch; Lynn, Mischel & Steve

Then a van ride to the Dolmabahce Palace, still on the European side of Istanbul but across the Golden Horn waterway. What can I say: it was palatial: opulence on a ridiculous scale.

Palace parquet floor (detail)

Next, a ride to the Kumkapi restaurant row, and dinner at the Aphroditi restaurant. Hakan introduced me to Raki, a Turkish anise liqueur. Raki is clear; add water, and it turns milky. I was telling Gary, our handyman, about this, and he said it happens with all anise-based liqueurs.

We continued touring the Old City. It’s a rabbit-warren of 1-lane 2-way streets; whoever starts first wins the road – for ties, uphill wins.

The currency in Turkey is the Lira, although the Euro and the Dollar work just as well on the tourist route. The ratio is 5 Euros to 7 Dollars to 9 Lira, and every shop clerk has a calculator.

I just didn’t get a decent photo of St. Sophia. It was a church (the biggest for 100s of years), then a mosque, and now a museum. The structure is intact, but the art has suffered from the Iconoclasts (no human representations of Christ), the Moslems (no crosses) and weather eroding the frescos.

The Blue Mosque is named for the blue stained-glass windows; it’s an active mosque. There’s a bigger mosque somewhere, with 7 minarets.

Blue Mosque, blue windows

The obelisk (next page) was brought overland from Karnak, Egypt by a tourist about 100 A.D. It’s now about 3500 years old.

Dust accumulates: ground level is now about 8 feet higher than the base of the obelisk.

Hippodrome: Obelisk

The Basilica Cistern, 532 A.D.

The Basilica Cistern was the public water supply for part of the Old City. It was used for a power boat chase scene in one of the Bond movies (From Russia with Love?).

The current water level is just above the original ground level. The stone columns and brick roof were built in a valley, then covered over with dirt, to form the new ground level. The columns (hundreds of them) were salvaged from other structures, and don’t match.

Topkapi Palace: cased miniature.

The Topkapi Palace seemed a comfortable place to live, if you have a harem and lots of slaves.

The big draw is the Treasury, a series of rooms with display cases built into the walls. Finally, in the fourth room, you get a glimpse (through the crowd of locals and tourists) at the knife and the diamond. The knife’s handle consists of three huge rubies, the size of ping-pong balls. The diamond is the size of an egg. I was more intrigued by the spare parts: a basket of 100s of unmounted rubies, of various sizes and shapes.

The harem is a complex within the complex: not just a dormitory, but also a kitchen and dining room, a school (for the kids), a pool, quarters for the African eunuchs, etc. Harem girls were slaves. One Russian slave (Katrina?) worked her way up to #1 wife, and was influential in Turkish economic and military policy.

Topkapi Palace: reception room

After lunch at the Konyali restaurant we walked back to the hotel, maybe 20 minutes, because the van was hopelessly stuck in traffic.

Soliman mosque: entrance to grounds

Dinner was at the Daruzziyafe restaurant in a building attached to the Sultan Soliman the Magnificent Mosque. Good food, no alcohol.

The building was once the mosque’s religious school. Turkey shut down all the religion-only schools, requiring kids to go to normal schools. The public schools aren’t very good; the private schools are better. Turkey has issues with joining the EU: One is that the EU wants Turkey to open a Christian (probably Greek Orthodox) seminary. Hakan said Turkey can’t stay on the fence: ten years from now it will either have joined the EU or have changed from a secular to a religious state -- it’s now 92% Moslem, 5% Christian, and 2% Jewish.

Another issue is a minimum wage, which would eliminate the handmade rugs and ceramics.

Soliman mosque: restaurant

By the time we left, it had gotten dark:

Soliman mosque: Ramadan message

Cappadocia is an area in central Turkey. The town we stayed in is Goreme. The hotel is Bora’s Cave Hotel Suites. I guess he’s doing OK: besides the van and the bus, he bought adjacent land and is expanding the hotel.

We took the room above the Irving’s.

Cave hotel; Mischel going to our room

The hotel is mostly blocks and mortar, although some parts are built into the surrounding rock - ash deposited 10s of millions of years ago - that gives Cappadocia its character.

The top of the rock tower behind Mischel is a church (a tiny chapel) carved out centuries ago.

One of Bora’s claims to fame is that he’s an architect. The evidence is some anomalies in the hotel, such as the stairs down to the restaurant that end right at a gate, so you have to stand on about the third step and reach down to your knees to turn the handle. Also, in our room there was an armoire in front of a niche that should have held the TV, but apparently the cable was run to the wrong wall. Curiously, the bathroom had an extension phone, but no shower curtain.

Cave hotel; Steve on the Internet

Cave hotel; Mischel in our room

Overall: comfortable, good food, good location, but watch your head going through arches.

Info: http://www.cappadociacavesuites.com/

We went by Turkish Air to Kayseri, then by bus to Goreme, and checked into Bora’s Cave Hotel.

The waterway separating the Asia and Europe parts of Istanbul is the Bosporus. The Old City is the peninsula in the upper center. Istanbul has about 15 million people, about 10 million on the Asia side. Of the 5 million on the Europe side, about 1 million live in the Old City, which is surrounded by a wall; the 4-lane road between the wall and the sea is John F. Kennedy Street.

Anyway, the main attraction in the Cappadocia area is the “fairy chimneys”, cones formed by erosion of a thick layer of ash from nearby volcanoes active 10s of millions of years ago.

There are three stages: first, where the harder top rock is intact, and entire cities can be carved from the relatively soft ash; second, where a capitol rock protects the cone; and third, where the cap rock has fallen off, leaving just the cone.

First stage: Cave city

Underground cities were used by Christians for protection. Round rocks were used as doors:

First stage: Cave city door; Lynn

These cave cities had ventilation shafts, food storage and preparation areas, wine presses, etc. They weren’t permanent settlements, but temporary shelters, with round rocks to block the entrances.

Second stage; tourists

Third stage; camel

Camel (detail)

Mostly, holes were dug for practical purposes: storage of grains, grapes, etc., although there are lots of churches and a few cities.

More typical scenery:

Farm houses

We went out before breakfast for a balloon ride over the Cappadocia area.

Inflating our balloon (1)

It’s quite an operation, with maybe 18 balloons taking off at about the same time. Ours held 28 people.

Inflating our balloon (2)

In our balloon; crew & pilot

In our balloon; takeoff

Balloon and sun in overcast

Chimney canyon; Coca Cola balloon

Chimney canyon; Kia balloon

Six balloons

With some combination of luck and skill, the air currents reversed, and we landed within 100s of yards of where we took off.

The aircraft carrier

The ground crew grabbed ropes, then the basket, and we landed on the trailer. The tractor then pulled us to where the passengers could get out and they could deflate the balloon.

Outside our hotel

Back to the hotel for breakfast. Some balloons were still up, maybe not so lucky about finding a place to land. Next The open air museum.

Open Air Museum: church

Some of these climbs were outright dangerous.

Open Air Museum: Mischel & John

Museum: Jandarma & bicycle tourists

The Jandarma (like “gendarme”) are the Turkish military police. I asked Hakan what they were doing at a tourist site; he said cutting down on illegal trafficking in antiquities. Next: the rugs.

Making silk thread from cocoons

They get 2- to 8,000 feet of silk filament from a cocoon; 20 or more filaments make a thread.

Silk-on-silk rugs; salesman

At long last, lunch, then another scenic outlook.

Rocks; Lynn

Then, off to the ceramics place.

Spinning a plate; Steve & Mischel

Ceramics salesroom; Lynn & Mischel

Hotel; Hakan; Turkish airliner hijack

Before dinner, I found Hakan watching TV in the hotel dining room. Seems a Turkish airplane, heading from Albania to Istanbul, had been hijacked, and landed in Italy.

The first speculation was terrorists, but it turned out to be a single Turk who didn’t want to serve his military duty. If you think he’s in trouble, imagine the airline security people who let an airliner be hijacked by one guy with a knife.

After dinner, off to see the Whirling Dervishes.

Carevanserai: caravan stop; Lynn

The Whirling Dervishes perform at a nearby restored caravan stop. These spice road caravan stops were spaced at about 80 miles, one day’s camel ride. They were built like forts, for safety. The interior is covered around the sides, for people to camp, and open in the middle, for camels. The far end has a mosque-like structure.

More photos: www.sarihan1249.com

The dervishes are Sufi followers, a philosophy, not a religion; still, dervishes are mostly Moslem, and the dancers are mostly men. The “Sema” ceremony is a quasi-religious service, so talking, cameras, and applause were not allowed; this was the only tourist attraction without souvenirs.

There are nine performers: four guys in a band, four dancers, and a lead dancer. The band consists of a sort-of reed flute, a sort-of guitar (like a big lute or mandolin), a sort-of bass (like an oversize banjo), and a pair of drums.

In the mosque-like structure, there’s a square ground-level stage, with seats arranged bleacher-style off the four sides, holding two or three hundred people. The front rows of two sides are reserved for the band and dancers.

From a brochure:

Whirling Dervish

The hand up signifies acceptance of God’s gifts; the hand down signifies sharing those gifts with others.

The white outfit signifies a funeral shroud and the tall brownish hat signifies a tombstone: “You can’t take it with you.”

A full day.

Balloon, uphill from our hotel

The next morning, the balloons were up again.

Stonemasons, downhill from our hotel

We left the Goreme hotel about 9 am for an 11 am flight to Istanbul, then to the Eresin Topkapi hotel, which had been holding our large bags.

Cappadocia: Rogues gallery

Hakan flew with us to Istanbul, where we parted ways as he took another flight to meet his next Cultural Tours group.

Istanbul: Eresin Topkapi hotel

The Eresin Topkapi hotel is nowhere near the Topkapi Palace; it’s about halfway to the airport. It’s one of a Spanish chain; the staff is Spanish, with English as a third language.

Mischel, Lynn and I took a taxi to the waterfront, intending to take a ferry ride up the Bosporus, but we missed the last one.

So, next door was another ferry, and we just bought tokens and got on. It went across the harbor to the Asian side of Istanbul, a 20 minute or so ride. We were off the tourist route. I don’t think anyone on that ferry spoke English.

We looked around the area for a while, then got a snack at a harborside cafe. The waiter had to find the manager, who spoke a little English.

Ferry landing, flower vendor; Lynn

The ferry was a sizeable 2-deck ship, holding 500 or 1000. The fare was 1.30 Lira, about $1.

Turkish ferry token, British coins

Then we took the return ferry back, and got a taxi to the hotel. The hotel had a small convention going, so the Picasso restaurant was buffet style, not what we wanted, but the dessert selection was great. I tried honeycomb: sweet.

PS:

Solar water heaters (Greece)

Both Greece and Turkey are overrun with these roof-top solar water heaters. In Greece, every one of the water tanks is horizontal. In Turkey, they’re all vertical. Go figure.

We flew British Air from Istanbul to London, and had a four-hour layover.

Our next flight was American business-class, so we took advantage of the lounge. Terminal 3 at Heathrow is huge. This was one of ten lounges, and the duty free shops went forever. Mischel got a couple bottles of Oscar perfume.

The 11-hour flight from London to Los Angeles (LAX) was daylight all the way, but they treated it like a night flight, serving dinner, showing movies (your choice, on your personal TV), then turning out the lights. They were out of Steve’s choice for dinner, so they gave him a bottle of “excellent” champagne, which he gave to us, because they don’t drink champagne.

At LAX things got messy. The short version is that we didn’t transfer the champagne and perfume from our carry-ons to our luggage, resulting in Steve, Lynn and all the luggage going on American to San Francisco. We lost the champagne and perfume to security, missed the flight, and took a later Alaska flight to SFO.

Fortunately, Steve and Lynn collected the luggage, found the limo driver and met us at Alaska. We found Steve waving a sign:

Steve’s sign at SFO

Then it was a short drive home.