tcreath goes to Turkey...a trip report
Feb 24th, 2009 | 05:35 PM
#21
Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 454
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Tracy,
I am enjoying your report. Keep going please.
Amanda,
If you like dogs, there are also dogs running around. It's amazing and scary to watch them dodge traffic. The ones with the tags in their ears have been checked and are ok to pet, or so I heard. They seem to be taken care of.
I am enjoying your report. Keep going please.
Amanda,
If you like dogs, there are also dogs running around. It's amazing and scary to watch them dodge traffic. The ones with the tags in their ears have been checked and are ok to pet, or so I heard. They seem to be taken care of.
Feb 24th, 2009 | 07:35 PM
#23
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 2,556
Likes: 0
Hi Tracy
Me too..reliving some fond memories. Maybe that kofti restaurant was Tarihi Sultanahmet Koftecisi 12 Divanyolu Caddesi. Located opposite Sultanahmet Square. Yes the kofti and pilaf was great. A local recommended Sultanahmet for kofti and I had read about the Tarihi and was not disappointed. The Old City gets carpeted (oops sorry) alot for being too touristy. However zone out this tacky side and it has a more traditional feel and much less frenetic than the European flavoured Beyoglu area. And the call to prayer at 5.30am was at first hard to take but I then enjoyed it as part of the atmosphere. Looking forward to your next instalment.
Me too..reliving some fond memories. Maybe that kofti restaurant was Tarihi Sultanahmet Koftecisi 12 Divanyolu Caddesi. Located opposite Sultanahmet Square. Yes the kofti and pilaf was great. A local recommended Sultanahmet for kofti and I had read about the Tarihi and was not disappointed. The Old City gets carpeted (oops sorry) alot for being too touristy. However zone out this tacky side and it has a more traditional feel and much less frenetic than the European flavoured Beyoglu area. And the call to prayer at 5.30am was at first hard to take but I then enjoyed it as part of the atmosphere. Looking forward to your next instalment.
Feb 25th, 2009 | 03:23 AM
#24
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Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 6,052
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Hello everyone! I will add to the report soon, hopefully, but in the meantime our pictures are finally loaded. They can be found at www.kodakgallery.com/tracybates. Turkey is the top album. Warning: we are not great photographers. But since TedGale couldn't tag along to take our photos for us (he takes amazing pictures, for those who haven't had the pleasure of viewing them) we had to make due.
Enjoy!
Tracy
Enjoy!
Tracy
Feb 25th, 2009 | 05:32 AM
#28
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Joined: Jan 2004
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And on to day 3....
Today our plan was to visit the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque again and the Archeological Museum. We get up early, to another dreary day, and make our way upstairs to fill up on breakfast. I know this has been said time and time again, but the Turkish yogurt really is good! I dumped big heaping spoonfulls of some kind of fruit jam (raspberry, maybe?) and honey into mine and after I consumed enough sugar to last me at least the next three days we were on our way.
Again, I won't get into too many details about the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque because if you are headed to Turkey and haven't read about these yet than you really shouldn't be going! The Hagia Sophia is huge. You know how sometimes you visit sites and they are about as big as you pictured them? Well, Hagia Sophia was a lot bigger than I imagined. There is 20 story high scaffolding in there, so you can imagine. The site is a work in progress, even after all of these years, and from what I read I don't think it's expected to be completed for another 10 maybe? But it truly an amazing sight. And, of course, there are a few cats in there that, embarrassing enough, caught my attention before the beautiful frescoes did. And I swear these cats knew how to work their audience because everyone was taking pictures of the cats posing.
The Archeological Museum is a must, in my opinion. Although a lot of Turkey's treasures wound up in other museums (the British Museum, etc) there are some great things in there, including some wonderfully preserved sarcophaguses (is that a word? sarcophagi, maybe?). It gives a deeper appreciation of what we saw in Istanbul and what we would see in Ephasus the next day. However, be prepared because it is quite large. I will confess, though, that I can only handle so much museum at one time before I get bored. Luckily my dad wasn't with us or we would have been there all day...I started getting flashbacks of hours and hours spent at the St. Louis Historical Museum in my younger days while my dad explained each and everything in brutal detail.
We decided that we wanted to try pide, the Turkish version of pizza, for lunch and so we stopped at one of the many pide restaurants somewhere in the Sultanhamet area on our way to the Galata Bridge. The pizza was good. I just got plain cheese and Matt got the minced meat version.
The weather started to clear up nicely and this afternoon ended up being the best of our entire trip. The sun was shining and everyone was out enjoying it. I should have mentioned above that my other great regret was not taking a short Bosporus cruise that afternoon, as we were approached numerous times. We had a plan to see the Spice Market and the New Mosque that afternoon and decided to wait until our last day in Turkey to do this. Big mistake because it ended up raining the entire last day. Oh well...next time.
The spice market was, in my opinion, much better than the Grand Bazarre because it wasn't nearly as crowded and the salesman didn't seem as pushy. And the smells...all of the spices together created a nice aroma in the air. We bought a nice coral bracelet for Matt's grandmother and some embroidered pillow cases for my mother-in-law and then went to the New Mosque, which was lovely of course. Tiles everywhere, and the sun was flooding in through the stained glass windows which gave it a nice glow.
After another nap that afternoon we had dinner this night at a restaurant near Topkapi Palace. There was an Anatolian woman sitting on the floor in the window rolling out flat bread and yet, it was touristy but the food was good and the atmosphere nice with lots of pillows on the benches and heavy woods. My adana kebab was great, but the highlight was the guzleme, a Turkish crepe made with the flat bread. They stuffed it with a white Turkish cheese and we watched it bake on a stone. It was delicious. We drank Efes beers and then polished off our meal with a delicious rice pudding.
Afterwards we strolled around the streets of the Sultanahmet area for awhile before calling it a night. We wanted to get to bed early because we had an earlier morning flight to Izmir in the morning.
Today our plan was to visit the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque again and the Archeological Museum. We get up early, to another dreary day, and make our way upstairs to fill up on breakfast. I know this has been said time and time again, but the Turkish yogurt really is good! I dumped big heaping spoonfulls of some kind of fruit jam (raspberry, maybe?) and honey into mine and after I consumed enough sugar to last me at least the next three days we were on our way.
Again, I won't get into too many details about the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque because if you are headed to Turkey and haven't read about these yet than you really shouldn't be going! The Hagia Sophia is huge. You know how sometimes you visit sites and they are about as big as you pictured them? Well, Hagia Sophia was a lot bigger than I imagined. There is 20 story high scaffolding in there, so you can imagine. The site is a work in progress, even after all of these years, and from what I read I don't think it's expected to be completed for another 10 maybe? But it truly an amazing sight. And, of course, there are a few cats in there that, embarrassing enough, caught my attention before the beautiful frescoes did. And I swear these cats knew how to work their audience because everyone was taking pictures of the cats posing.
The Archeological Museum is a must, in my opinion. Although a lot of Turkey's treasures wound up in other museums (the British Museum, etc) there are some great things in there, including some wonderfully preserved sarcophaguses (is that a word? sarcophagi, maybe?). It gives a deeper appreciation of what we saw in Istanbul and what we would see in Ephasus the next day. However, be prepared because it is quite large. I will confess, though, that I can only handle so much museum at one time before I get bored. Luckily my dad wasn't with us or we would have been there all day...I started getting flashbacks of hours and hours spent at the St. Louis Historical Museum in my younger days while my dad explained each and everything in brutal detail.
We decided that we wanted to try pide, the Turkish version of pizza, for lunch and so we stopped at one of the many pide restaurants somewhere in the Sultanhamet area on our way to the Galata Bridge. The pizza was good. I just got plain cheese and Matt got the minced meat version.
The weather started to clear up nicely and this afternoon ended up being the best of our entire trip. The sun was shining and everyone was out enjoying it. I should have mentioned above that my other great regret was not taking a short Bosporus cruise that afternoon, as we were approached numerous times. We had a plan to see the Spice Market and the New Mosque that afternoon and decided to wait until our last day in Turkey to do this. Big mistake because it ended up raining the entire last day. Oh well...next time.
The spice market was, in my opinion, much better than the Grand Bazarre because it wasn't nearly as crowded and the salesman didn't seem as pushy. And the smells...all of the spices together created a nice aroma in the air. We bought a nice coral bracelet for Matt's grandmother and some embroidered pillow cases for my mother-in-law and then went to the New Mosque, which was lovely of course. Tiles everywhere, and the sun was flooding in through the stained glass windows which gave it a nice glow.
After another nap that afternoon we had dinner this night at a restaurant near Topkapi Palace. There was an Anatolian woman sitting on the floor in the window rolling out flat bread and yet, it was touristy but the food was good and the atmosphere nice with lots of pillows on the benches and heavy woods. My adana kebab was great, but the highlight was the guzleme, a Turkish crepe made with the flat bread. They stuffed it with a white Turkish cheese and we watched it bake on a stone. It was delicious. We drank Efes beers and then polished off our meal with a delicious rice pudding.
Afterwards we strolled around the streets of the Sultanahmet area for awhile before calling it a night. We wanted to get to bed early because we had an earlier morning flight to Izmir in the morning.
Feb 25th, 2009 | 05:37 AM
#29
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Joined: Jan 2004
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Opaldog, hopefully it will warm up but if not I highly, highly suggest something warmer. On the coast the temperature got up to the low 50's but the rain and cloudiness made it feel much cooler and I still bundled up with my scarf and gloves most of the time. The rain gave the air a damp cold to it that gave me the shivers most of our trip. We had a fabulous time anyhow, but without a proper coat I would have been freezing and would have ended up buying one.
Feb 25th, 2009 | 11:56 AM
#32
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Joined: Jan 2004
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Barb, the food was super. I really, really enjoyed it. Of all my travels, I think I enjoyed the food in Turkey the best overall. I'm a fairly picky eater but there wasn't a meal that I didn't like. Everything was very fresh, with lots of condiments such as parsley and onions on the side for those that want it. The flat breads that they use are very good and a fave of mine. And the fruit...they have lots of fruit orchards and you can get a glass of fresh squeezed pomegranate juice on the coast for like $1.00. We purchased some fruit wine (quince and mulberry) and some mulberry jam in Sirince. I'm not a seafood eater, but the seafood is supposed to be really good as well.
Tracy
Tracy
Feb 25th, 2009 | 05:02 PM
#35
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Joined: Jan 2004
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Kris, no problem at all. We used our debit card to withdraw lira out of the ATM daily. Some places accepted debit/credit cards but most did not, and our hotels requested payment in cash as well.
Barb, I thought that prices in Turkey were very reasonable, especially outside of Istanbul. I think our hotel in Selcuk was around $35 or $40 a night with the exchange rate. Food was also very reasonable, especially when compared to western Europe or even Croatia. However, the sites were on the pricy side. I think we spent $20 lira per person to get into many of the major sites, which comes out to around $12 pp.
Tracy
Barb, I thought that prices in Turkey were very reasonable, especially outside of Istanbul. I think our hotel in Selcuk was around $35 or $40 a night with the exchange rate. Food was also very reasonable, especially when compared to western Europe or even Croatia. However, the sites were on the pricy side. I think we spent $20 lira per person to get into many of the major sites, which comes out to around $12 pp.
Tracy
