Catalhoyuk - 9000 year old city

September 25, 2015

Well when you think of age and history, how about a city built around 7500 BC. Today I visited Catalhoyuk, discovered on a hill in 1961 near the city of  Gunesinir  in mid Western Turkey. The city is the oldest city yet discovered in the world and now a World Heritage Site. The intriguing part of viewing the city ruins is the many, 16 total, layers of each evolution of cities in time that were built upon each other!  The ruins are still under archaeological work. This tedious work will go on for many years in the future exposing more and more of the city.

Cappadocia - Underground Cities

In central Turkey is an area called Cappadocia. It's a magical badlands landscape that looks like a fairytale Hobbit rock city. It was formed by two nearby volcanoes millions of years ago that created some highly compressed sandstone. Eroded over millions of years by rain wind and ice, the result was a Grand Canyon like landscape with thousands of mini-mountain peaks. Locals as long as 3000 years ago found it relatively easy to carve out rooms and even mini-cities to seek protection from mauraders and weather.

In the early Christian Era, Christians used these cities to seek protection from Roman invaders. There are underground churches, homes with rooms and kitchens. These were later added to in the Byzantine Era,  with beautiful religious frescoes painted on the walls. Very Impressive:

Ataturk - Father of the Turkish Nation

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was literally the father of modern Turkey. Bronze statues or busts of him are found all over Turkey. Turkey was on the losing side of WWI, but Atartuk was the only undefeated commander at the end of the war. His military leadership resulted in him winning the battle at Gallopoli against England and troops from Australia and New Zealand. His leadership proved important in winning independence for Turkey after that war when allies were attempting to carve up Turkey (no pun here).

There is no equivalent leader in our country that quite matches what he did for Turkey. He was more like a Washington, Jefferson, Eisenhower, and Kennedy all rolled into one.

He brought sweeping reforms including replacing the Sultantate with a secular based government of which he was the first president.

We visited his grave site and memorial at Anitkabar outside of the capital city of Ankara. It is an impressive site, and in a very respectful way is a wonderful tribute to the man so important to all Turks. Here are a few photos at the site:

More Istanbul

The "Blue" Mosque - Nicknamed for the cool hues of the tiles that decorate its interior, the Blue Mosque was Sultan Ahmet I’s 17th-century answer to Hagia Sophia. It is amazing inside:

Officially named for its patron, but nicknamed for the cool hues of the tiles that decorate its interior, the Blue Mosque was Sultan Ahmet I’s 17th-century answer to Hagia Sophia.

old town park:

1500 year old Mosiac in the Hagia Sofia:

Look at the detail:

Istanbul - Between two continents

Hi all,            September 21, 2015

Been so busy arriving and touring haven't had a chance to write. Just left Istanbul and arrived in Ankara.  

Istanbul - the name conjures up many thoughts of intrigue, the past, from Europe to the Orient. I stayed in the old city with some incredible historic Mosques and sites covering three empires of time. The Roman, the Byzantium, and the Ottoman empires. Spanning some 2500 years in time, it's so hard to comprehend these long terms of history judging from our North American history stretching only 400 years since Columbus.

Istanbul is the only city that was the capital of both a Christian and Islamic empire.

Istanbul lies on the Marmara sea with the Bosphorus Straits connecting the Black Sea with the Mediterranean. If you cross the Straits you can literally be in two continents on the same day - Europe and Asia.

One of the most amazing structures I visited in Istanbul was the Hagia Sofia. Following a couple of destroyed versions earlier, the structure you see today was built in 537 AD by emperor Justinian. At the time it was the largest man made structure in the world except for the Wall of China! The dome alone could house the entire Notre Dame Cathedral. Originally a church in the Byzantine period it was converted in to a Mosque when the Ottoman Turks took it over in1453. Today it is a museum. It certainly deserves its World Heritage Site status. See for yourself:

I'll be back to Istanbul at the end of the trip, now on to the Cappadocia region in central Turkey.