Mt Ida-- Kazdagi: Gods Watched the Trojan War and the Botanists Watched the Plants

6 August 2014
Once the Apailes Congress ended in Istanbul, we left town with a portion of the botanists on an"excursion." These are great opportunities for the botanists to see plants in an new area, and to visit with each other informally. I like them because you cannot separate plants and culture, so we also see the countryside in less touristy areas.

Today we visited a national park in Kazdagi in the Ida Mountain area. This is the area of Troy, so several plants have the specific epithet (sometimes younger students call this the "last name") of trojani, or something like it. A fun example is the Trojan fir (Abies normandiana ssp. trojani) that is reputed to be the wood that the famous horse was made from. Some myths talk about the gods watching the Trojan War from this mountain, while other myths refer to it as the location of the first beauty pageant between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite.

Today's walk was on the south side-- and it is dry and late in the season. We spent the day on a mountain road hopping in and out of vans, letting them do most of the altitude climbing. To visit an area with thirty or so botanists, the first thing you have to remember is to watch where you step. You may easily trip over one of them photographing  or observing closely.

The lower altitudes of this park were filled with old olive trees in an area terraced for probably hundreds of years. Mark and I have been amazed to see fig trees growing in the wild-- escaped from cultivation, the figs are beginning to ripen. When I quoted a New York price of about a dollar a fruit to Mark's Turkish botanical colleague, Emine, she was amazed.

The best part of the terrain, with a 3K walk, was at the top of a mountain. Many people have left fabric tied as a way to ask for a wish to come true.The plants at this high of an altitude are always exquisite and interesting, anywhere in the world. You have to be willing to get down on the ground to see them, and they are not always aparent at first-- but once you sight one, more pop into view. The winner of today's beauty pageant was not Aphrodite, but this magenta Dianthus (in the pink or carnation family.)

The trip down was longer than the trip up, Our driver had a rhythmic, doze inducing way of pressing the brake, but the dozing was ended at the smell of burning rubber. The brakes had had enough. (I think the driver needs to discover downshifting if he keeps this job....)

A very wonderful part of Turkish culture is that there are shared wells or fountains everywhere. This carries over to the trail, most definitely. When I was young, and hiking with my family, if my younger sister complained about being thirsty, my father would tell her that there was a drinking fountain just around the next bend. Were we Turkish, this actually would have been true!

The traditions of cleanliness and hospitality, plus just the necessity of water in a warm climate makes these fountains a very common site. They are quite old, but many have recent inscriptions that I understand to be dedications or memorials. This one, at our lunch spot, had a watermelon places in it by a visitor, to cool for his picnic.

 We walked and were shuttled and visited  small town to have tea. Turks drink tea. Every town and corner has tea shops. Tea is served in tulip shaped, small glasses with two cubes on the side, and it is always brewed quite strong. This afternoon, though, I had Turkish coffee which might be called cowboy coffee in the US: it is boiled in a small pot, and the grind sludge settles to the bottom. The preparer adds sugar for the customer, and even those who drink Americano black, may prefer a bit of sugar in this version. When we finished, Mark's colleague Emine read my fortune in the coffee grinds. I had ten evil eyes followed by a clear future.

Dolmabahace Palace and Minaturk

2 August 2014

What brought us to Istanbul and not some other destination this summer was Mark's meetings with the Apiales Society at Istanbul University. So, on my own, I joined a tour to on the Golden Horn, to the European side of the city, to see the newer palace-- Dolmabahce Palace. It was built between 1843 and 1856 and meant to awe. No photos are permitted inside, and there is not self touring. In fact, we really only saw a handful of rooms and those at a quick pace. The modus operandi is gawk and walk.

This palace was built to be more modern that Topkapi-- and also more luxurious. There is little that looks Turkish-- some arabic here and there-- but it mostly looks like it was designed for shock and awe. Our guide pointed out over and over that the furnishings were from what was considered the best in the world-- English crystal, French trompe l'oeil paintings, but carpets from Turkey! The cost in US dollars-- 1.5 billion. It's difficult to stomach, actually, as that amount was a quarter of the yearly tax revenue at the time.

On the other hand, the palace had a more recent, reverential history. When the republic was founded, ownership was transferred to the Turkish Republic. The capitol of the new Turkey became Ankara, but when the founder and first president of Turkey (Mustafa Kemal Ataturk) was in Istanbul, he used a few rooms of this palace. He died in the palace on 10 November 1938 at 9:05am,and all the clocks in the palace have been stopped at that hour. So, what could have stood as an Ozymandius lesson of hubris and decadence leading to decay, has a bookend of respect.

I had a funny conversation with the guide about the name of the palace, since I saw the word dolma in it. Stuffed grape leaves couldn't have much to do with a palace. Actually, it does since the translation of dolma is filled, and the second half of the palace name means garden, so this palace's name is garden-filled.  ((It only is a little bit-- the palace took up so much of the building site that there wasn't too much space left for garden.) They funny part was that the guide was shocked that as an American I knew anything about dolmas! He should have seen me the day before on the walking tour. I smiled and told him I had actually made dolmas.

 

The next tour stop was to Miniaturk-- an attraction that has miniature replicas of the wonders of Turkey. You could call it "Laura sets her sights on a return trip to this county..."

  It's cute and the replicas are pretty detailed. I was given a ticket with a bar code, and at each replica that I wanted to know more about, I'd wave the ticket in front of the scanner and probably, a British man would start to talk and explain. So, the background noise was a mixture of English and Turkish explanations of the sites. The other backgroud was the ominous sky-- from the low lying coastal area where Miniaturk was, I could see thunderheads and lightening on two hills.

The end of this tour was in a torrential downpour. The streets filled in five minutes. Either Istanbul is not used to monsoons or the storm sewers are showing their age.

Istanbul Eats

1 August 2014

Today was one of the most unique and interesting travel days I have every had. That's saying a lot. I booked a tour with Istanbul Eats-- the particular tour is called Culinary Backstreets of the Bazaar Quarter.

For about eight hours, a small group (I was one of seven) followed an expert guide, Benoit, through narrow streets and most interestingly up into the first, second and even the rooftop levels of the Bazaar. These were not the places where tourists shop, but rather the places where the tradesman work. Every fifteen minutes or so, we'd arrive at a new location, hear about the customs and the food, and then sample. While the tasting was important, what was most fascinating was how much more I understand about Turkey's history and culture now.

Our morning meeting spot was the old arrival station of the famous Orient Express. It now serves only as the departure point of the shuttle across the Bosphorus, so was very quiet. The rooms we were in are well maintained, though.

 We entered a small side room and saw this spread:

 Before we started walking we had a leisurely breakfast together. It was an excellent way for the group to feel acquainted while right away getting an orientation to Istanbul food.Turkish breakfast takes advantage of wider array of foods than American ones. And, the choices are little more likely to be salty than sweet-- although sweet has a role. So, we had cheese and olives, a pickled herb, and the sesame topped ring of a plain cookie textured bread that is as common in Turkey as a bagel or pretzel would be in New York.

Our breakfast nook had an interesting story. It had been a busy tea room of the station, but when the train stopped running, it was much more difficult for the tea shop to find customers. In the streets outside the station, however, truckers meet to negotiate contracts. They began to visit the tea room, however, the station masters were not terribly pleased to have teamsters hanging around all day. In what Benoit explained as a great example of the Turkish sense of bargaining and compromise, an agreement was reached. Our tea preparers serve their tea through the window and a runner brings it to the truckers. The tea shop now makes its rent, and the atmosphere is preserved for the station master. Our morning visit must have been made by a similar arrangement since Benoit brought the food and we only were customers for the tea itself.

Before we left the tea room, we tasted four types of honey from different areas of Istanbul. Most USA honey is label clover and jars have a similar. uniform taste. If you look in special areas, you can find honey from bees that have visited primarily one type of plant when it is in flower. (Orange blossom and lavender are two USA examples.) The two that I tasted today that were notable were rhododendron honey and chestnut honey. The rhododendron was not as sweet (this is all relative!) and had a creamy palate. The chestnut honey was surprising-- it was dark and had a sweet attack, and a more bitter, tannin flavored finish. The owner of Istabul Eats has a passion for honey, and I can understand it as a hobby as interesting as wine tasting after getting to taste four in a row.

A chronological description of the walk is not the right way to go about relating the day. Here is the tale of another highlight of the day.

These men are making us pide, the original pizza. The dough is hand-stretched, filled with finely minced meat or with cheese, and baked in a brick fire-heated oven. One gentleman specializes in working the dough while the other in turning the pie in the oven to cook evenly.

This was a tradesman's shop--I'd never find it again-- but the priceless part of this snack was where we ate it. Up a steep stone stair, to a roof with a view.

 We sat upon solicitously provided cushions, our backs against the wall, under the small overhang of a rooftop hat workshop and munched.

Pide

Two of the stops provided tastes that were excellent but would not be found on a non-Turkish menu. The first was a grilled minced meat sandwich that almost lost its place in Turkish cuisine. It is a combination of sweetmeats and intestines from a milk fed lamb. After the mad cow disease scare, it almost became an illegal food--even though you can't get mad cow disease from a lamb (or even a cow that is so young it's still milk fed.) 

This also provides an example of how valuable meat is. Meat is expensive in Turkey, and so there are numerous ways to stretch it and use its flavor in combination with vegetables and grains. It's smart and healthy and sooner or later we are all going to have to eat meat with as much respect since its production for the level of consumption we have in the USA is not ultimately sustainable.

With that in mind, understand the concept of why my second very non-Western taste would be invented in the first place. After climbing to see this view

 Benoit offered us spoons of a sweet, white pudding. It is called chicken breast pudding and really made from chicken breast, cooked for a long time. It doesn't taste like chicken--unless you are deliberately hunting for that flavor. It is cool and sweet like any milk pudding with bit of very fine stringy consistency-- that is the chicken's more obvious contribution. Benoit reminded us that chicken is meat, meat is expensive, as was sugar, so combining two very dear food products together made sense. Anyone who ever dipped a chicken nugget in ketchup probably had a less healthy and more sugary morsel than this pudding, which has a calcium from the milk also to its credit!

I haven't described much of the day, really. Our guide, Benoit was excellent. He did not flag in energy or enthusiasm for a moment, and never went on "autopilot" either. He has the knowledge of a native after more than twenty years in Turkey, the passionate enthusiasm of an immigrant, and the patience and understanding of a teacher when interpreting Istanbul for the group.

Blue Mosque, Basilica Cistern and some Grand Bazaar

31 July 2014

The Blue Mosque is considered a must see for visitors to the old part of Istanbul. It was comissioned by Sultan Ahmet I, who did not have any great wars won, so decided to use the treasury fund and built a mosque to rival Aya Sophya. They are both buildings to fill visitors with awe, although Aya Sophya broke ground architecturally (with a dome that appears to be unsupported)  while the Blue Mosque did not. What Blue Mosque does have, though are six minarets-- and at the time it was built, the only other mosques with this many were in Mecca.To avoid the accusation of being presumptuous, he donated an additional minaret for Mecca.

What is interesting about visiting is that this is a working mosque, so people attend prayer there several times a day. Visitors are only permitted to stay in one section and have a strict dress code. I did pass muster on the head scarf, but my dress was too short (even though it hit below the knee) so I was handed a cloth to wear to cover my legs. Mark did much better passing muster-- he only had to take off his hat.

The name Blue Mosque comes from the tile, which did not photograph well in the dark and distance. The carpet did though, and apparently the repeating pattern helps observers to orient for pray and equal spacing.

Mark and I usually like to see religious spaces as they are used by the people who worship there, if we can. This visit had so many tourists, and so much hustle to get ready to enter, it didn't really feel contemplative, though.

We walked to see the Basilica Cistern next. This was an excellent choice in the hot afternoon. The Cistern was engineered to hold tons of water underground in the Justinian time and Topkapki Palace also used the water. It is beautiful and eery-- the ceiling is held up by reclaimed Roman columns and they reflect in the water so it looks like they go on forever. Two of the columns have Medusa heads as their bases--and the heads are set upside down and sideways. No one knows where they were recycled from (hard to advertise for a missing Medusa.) They were probably placed upside down and sideways for the superstitious reason that looking at Medusa can turn one to stone.

We are going to watch From Russia with Love again when we get home. Sean Connery chases someone through the cistern in that movie. This was definitely a visit that made us think of the boys back home.

We visited Hagia Irene which was the church built in honor of peace (Sophya was for wisdom.) It's ironic, though, that although the Ottomans left if standing, it because used as an armory and as a storehouse for the spoils of war. We had the place to ourselves and it is cool and damp and far from what must have been splendid in its day. It does have a peaceful use now-- because of its acoustics, it is used as a concert hall.

Late in the day, we finally shopped the Grand Bazaar. There is no seeing it all, and the kiosks get repetitious. We did barter when we made a purchase. I would never separate from a party and arrange to meet-- and I feel sorry for any small child that gets separated from a parent! Anyone who knows how to shop there, though,  must have incredible fun.

The holiday is over and the ratio of local tourists to international tourists has shifts toward the international.There is a different feel to the city today as people went back to work, and more of the many apparel stores near our hotel were open. They have interesting names like "Discover Underwear," and "Ano Domini," and "The Call Chop." Being a trade center of civilization for so long really shows here.

Topkapi Palace

30 July 2014

One palace, our entire day? Yes, and we didn't even see the whole of it.

 Top corner of divan in the sultan's private room in the haram.

The sultan Mehmet II, known as the conquer, built Topkapi between 1459-1465. The sultans who followed added on, all the way up to the ninteenth century. (Topkapi was "abandoned" in 1853 by Sultan Abdul Mecit I who moved to a palace across the Bosphorus.) It's a complex-- not a building. An awful lot of the culture of being a sultan is avoiding people. Viziers did the face-to-face. If heads of state visited, an anteroom was decorated and the sultan sat inside and saw the gifts presented at a window. When important domestic matters were discussed, the vizier sat in another part of the complex while the sultan sat one floor above and listened through a window grill.

 Window grille above the vizier's place.

 The most famous part of the palace is the harem where all the women lived-- perhaps fours wives and then many concubines. Concubines could not be Muslim because it is against the religion to take a believer into slavery. Any of of the male children could rise to be the next sultan-- it depended on which mother was the most in favor, and also, I guess, who survived the palace plotting and assassinations.

Even as old as it is, and in need of even more preservationn and restoration,the interiors of the rooms are very pleasing to the eye. Many rooms have domed ceilings, so they were light and colorful. Walls are all tiled and the hues are still vibrant and complimentary. They are repetitive and have symmetry. When seeing 'old' buildings in North America and Western Europe, many interiors that were colorful have faded over time and seem dark. Tile color has stood the test of time and seems like new. When we walked into an interior we tried to imagine what it would have looked like with carpeted floors-- there would have been patterns absolutely everywhere then-- like being dropped into an exponential kaleidoscope!

The lines were so, so long to see the treasury and the relics, that we diverted, ate lunch in view of the Bosphorus, and spent a longer time in less popular buildings. We outlasted the crowds by looking at portraits of the sultans. There was no one in that gallery, and if you ask me, the last two sultans look worried in their frames.

By 5:00pm we saw hoards leaving and zigged while they zagged.  Therefore, we have seen the treasury-- jewel encrusted everything: water flasks, turban jewels, writing boxes, and thrones. Gifts of medallions from other empires: France, Britian, Iran, Saudi Arabia. One of the fanciest thrones was made just 200 years before the Ottoman Empire fell.

What we missed were the relics. The lines to see the staff of Moses and the beard hairs of the prophet, among others, was not shortening at all, so we departed in search of dinner.

We had dinner on a terrace and it was cooked in a clay pot that was cracked open at the table. We also shared meze-- the original dips (like hummus, eggplant, yogurt with cucumber and salt-- they are terrific, especially when it is hot outside.)

After dinner we walked around the hippodrome with thousands of other people. The marker where the chariots turned the corner still stands. It is not quite as tall since the ground has been built up around it over the centuries, but it is as close as I have come to those ancient races. And almost no one else was looking at it-- even though there were thousands of people strolling through the hippodrome and the plaza in front of the Blue Mosque.  As we returned to the trolley, we also stumbled upon the milion-- the stone marker that indicated distances to parts of the Roman empire!

Aya Sofya and Archaeology

29 July 2014
Our first stop was Aya Sofya, it's Turkish name, but also seen as Hagia Sophia, it's Orthodox name. As a sanctified space, we can't call it a church, cathedral or mosque,but it has been all of those since 537. The land it sits on has been used for a church since the year 360.

Little cat in the corner of one door leading from the former narthex to the sanctuary.

Aya Sofya's long history makes it interesting and compelling to many,many visitors. The space itself feels as familiar as any large cathedral or basilica.  But the orientation of some of the interiors were angled toward Mecca when the building became a mosque. Islam does not show faces in art so the mosaics were covered up, although with plaster and pieces of them have been restored. They must have been incredible since the gold backgrounds on the pieces that exist still have a glow. The dome overhead is the most impressive because it is light inside and the dome is 184 ft high. There are huge Ottoman medallions that look new (they aren't) and so it is possible to see Islam calligraphy and Christian pictures side by side in the space. 

Difficult to photograph from my distance and small camera.

Medallion on right and mosaic on left.

 

A couple from Pakistan (they'd actually been to Woodstock NY!) who we shared a hired guide with thought that this side-by-side of two major faiths was most significant. Our guide spend much time on the tour focusing Mark and I on Islam and how much he wanted peace. He also gave Mark a pocket size English copy of the Koran.

Last amazing view for this part of our day: There are stones from the ruins of the older buildings the predated the current Aya Sophya and they are just collected into areas on the grounds and people walk among them and sit on them This just amazed us! Ancient artifacts are so rare in the States, this seems so cavalier!

We spend the afternoon at the archeological museum-- parts of it at least. We took a look at the Troy exhibit since we are heading there next week.

Back for a dip in the roof top pool with amazing views of minarets and then we went back to the old city for dinner.

The streets are packed in the old part of the city, but many shops (and there are more shops here than anywhere I have ever been) are closed. Eid is still being celebrated. We had a slow meal at a restaurant that cooked food in the style from Ankara. I loved my eggplant and lamb dish, but the waiter told me I would have to come back to his restaurant or else go to Ankara if I ever wanted to have it again.

Our tram ride back was full of humanity-- actually, it was just full of humans. Three trams came and went before we were able to squeeze on one. I was surrounded by men in their 20's, all strap hangers. One had his plastic bag of take-out dinner on his wrist which kept banging into my ear. Mark looked down and said, "That's sort of in in your way..."--well, not more than all the arm pits around me. I could barely keep a straight face.

 

Arriving in Istanbul

 July 28,2014

 We're here! We have the jet lagged feeling of having pulled an all nighter, coupled with, as usual, not much sleep on the plane.

Once in Istanbul, though, this has been one of the easiest countries to enter. Quick, multi-tasking immigration officer, and no one really cared at customs. Our driver found us-- poor guy had been waiting two hours because our flight was so delayed.

Today is Eid, the end of Ramadan. It is a family visiting day and the streets around our hotel are very, very quiet.  After we unpacked (twice because our first room has a heavy smoker next door), we stepped out in our disorientation to find some dinner.

My first hours in another country always make me feel like I am watching a movie instead of living my life. This afternoon was no exception. When everything is unfamiliar, two things happen at once.  The brain finds ridiculous reference points (I keep reading the word Fatih (a municipality in Istanbul)  as "fath," for example.) And, almost nothing gets screened out. We were lucky that today is a holiday and so quiet. There was less to take in since so few people are on the streets.

 We are staying near The Prince's Mosque. We heard the call to prayer when we were at our early dinner. Service continued although they turned off the music and it seemed quieter all around.

Our neighborhood is filled with textile stores-- drapery, clothing and lots of shoe stores. The shoe stores were open even into this evening, for some reason,  but little else.

We probably will not ever get used to the ancient side by side with the new.

Blogger is giving me directions in Turkish-- not very helpful-- and I am hoping this will post in English.