All posts by karenfranza

I let go

Travel, Turkey,

beinghere2014's avatarBeinghere

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We visit Topkapi Palace, entering the Gate of Salutation. The Topkapi Palace was primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for about 400 years (1465-1856) of their 624 year reign.

I looking for an image that will touch you in the place that connects you to the unseen world. Most objects in this tourist attraction are mundane (porcelain, clothing, historical artifacts, kitchenware) but the “holy relics” are spiritually powerful. I learn that photography is prohibited.

Security is tight. There was a robbery in 1999 and a terrorist attack in 2011. Guards keep watch in every room, prohibiting photographs. They are extremely vigilant, putting their hands in front of people’s cameras and shouting loudly whenever a tourist attempts to take a photograph.

Karen is extremely clever and takes various photos when the guards are not watching but I decide to merely observe. The photos I include have been downloaded off the internet…

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Istanbul – Trains and Whirling Dervishes

Travel, Turkey, , , ,

12/4 – We have only a few more days in Istanbul. Friday we will pick up our passports from the Chinese Consulate, and Saturday we head south to see other parts of Türkiye. We walked north today to get our train tickets to Izmir, which will get us close to Selçuk and the ruins at Ephesus. On the way, we passed a restaurant advertising a Whirling Dervish demonstration, not too far from our pension. Jim said, “I think this is something you would like to see.” So, we are going tonight!

When we arrived at the train station, the ticket seller had no English, and seemed to be telling us there was no train to where we wanted to go. I had spent a lot of time researching on line, and knew we had to take a ferry to a Metro to a bus to catch the train 20 miles east of Istanbul (there are no trains running directly into or out of Istanbul until their rail upgrade is completed sometime next year). We had one more travel day on our EuRail pass, and this would be our last chance to use it.

We went next door to Tourist Information, and asked again. No, the man said firmly, we would have to take a bus. Remembering our nightmare entry into the country, we allowed that this might be true. He directed us to a travel agency two blocks away. This didn’t feel right… We’ve always dealt directly with the train company, not a private agency. The travel agent said we could take a 10 hour bus ride, but why not fly and get there in an hour? And why not hire a shuttle to and from the airport? And better also arrange a tour, as people can’t get from Selçuk to the ruins of Ephesus on their own. Jim thanked the man for the information, and marched us out of there. It was too slick, and smelled fishy.

Back we went to the train station. This time we got another agent, and determined that there WAS a train after all, just like I had researched. Whew! 20 minutes later we had our tickets for the train from Pendik to Eskisehir, and the overnight sleeper to Izmir. We walked next door to the ferry terminal to make sure that wasn’t going to be any sort of a problem. Looks like our Metro Card will get us across the Bosphorus for 2 lira. Yay! We’re back in business.

While we were in the city, I wanted to see if I could get a refill on my allergy prescription. Unlike other countries we’ve visited, it is not clear what a pharmacy looks like here. We went into a likely looking shop that had a vitamin display in the window, and found a guy in a white coat behind the counter – a good sign. I showed the package to the pharmacist, and he brought out the exact same name brand med, no prescription needed, and charged $7 for a bottle that costs $120 back in the US of A. Don’t know what to say about that, except I’m glad to have my medicine. Maybe I should stock up?

After supper we walked to the restaurant to see the Mevlevi, or Whirling Dervishes. The restaurant folks were disappointed that we were not eating in their establishment, but we figured the $40 cover charge was all they were going to get from us tonight. Lighting was provided by a very-80s disco ball, which gave the whole place a colorful, pulsating and surreal quality.

Followers of the poet Rumi, the Sufi whirl in ecstatic joy. First came three musicians – one playing a stringed instrument that sounded like a viola, one playing mandolin, and the third playing a bamboo flute, who was also the vocalist. image

After a while the three dervishes came out in black robes, bowed and knelt for a period of meditation while the music played.IMG_5011.JPGIMG_5012.JPG

Then the three cast off their black robes to reveal white costumes with wide skirts. One by one, they bowed, then started to whirl, arms raised, eyes closed, skirts creating a breeze like room full of ceiling fans. They rotated, and also revolved around the room. They were graceful and looked serene, never faltering, losing step or appearing dizzy. They whirled for a long time.

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Jim introduced me to the poetry of Rumi years ago, and I can understand that whirling is another way that he and his followers expressed their joy. Here is a Rumi poem:

The Secret Turning

A secret turning in us
makes the universe turn.
Head unaware of feet,
and feet head. Neither cares.
They keep turning.

Istanbul – Topkapi Palace

Travel, Turkey, , ,

12/3 – today dawned sunny and warm (63!), so we decided to take advantage of the nice weather by visiting the Topkapi Palace Museum and gardens, home of rich sultans and their harems since 1459. image

The entrance fee was steep, and after we paid the price, we were informed that no picture-taking was permitted in any of the display rooms. Drat! How’s a person to blog with no pix? I wasn’t the only one disappointed, and we tourists kept the guards hopping in each room as they ran to stick their hands in front of our lenses, yelling, “No photo, Madame!” Some rooms showed old china and silverware, and I snapped a few shots just because…

The item on the right is a sherbet dispenser, which I thought was kind of neat…

Other rooms held jewel-encrusted clothing, artifacts and weaponry:

The bottom pic is borrowed from the Internet.

The final rooms held religious relics, and I didn’t dare try to get a picture there, but what an inventory! Not only did they display many relics of The Prophet, including his beard, a tooth, his footprint, his sword and bow, but they also had:

  • The Saucepan of Abraham
  • The Staff of Moses
  • The Sword of David
  • The Turban of Joseph
  • The Hand of John

    • …and I thought Catholics cornered the market on relics!

    Photography was permitted in the outer buildings, including the Circumcision Room.

    The grounds were lovely, although probably more so when the roses bloom in summer.

    The Palace is on the shore of the Bospherus, with some great (albeit slightly smoggy) views:image

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    An excellent day!

    Istanbul Update – the Grand Bazaar and Spice Market

    Travel, Turkey, , ,

    12/2 – to update our visa tale, we spent Friday morning waiting at the Chinese Consulate while the Person Behind the Door perused our hastily fabricated itinerary and bogus hotel reservation ( we picked the most expensive hotel in town – why not?). After cooling our heels for several hours…. success! We were instructed to deposit $280 in the Consulate’s bank account, and come back next Friday to retrieve our passports and our two-entry visa for mainland China. Deep sigh of relief…

    All roads here seem to lead to the Grand Bazaar, and we strolled through several times, not looking for anything in particular. The friendly sellers try to gauge where we are from by looking at our shoes. As we wear hiking boots, we are often pegged for either German or Australian. When we reveal we are from America (USA gets blank looks), we sense an increased desire on their part to sell us something. We are invited into many back rooms for tea.

    The Grand Bazaar:

    The Spice Market:

    We bought some presents for the kids, and had to walk to the downtown post office where international parcels can be mailed. The postage cost more than the gifts, and they are expected to arrive in 20 days. Where is Fed Ex when you need it?

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    Sunday in Istanbul – the Basilica Cistern

    Travel, Turkey,

    11/30 – you’ve seen the Basilica Cistern in the James Bond movie From Russia With Love, and you’ve read about it in Dan Brown’s Inferno.

    The Emperor Justinian used 7000 slaves to dig the cistern in the 6th century, to provide filtered water for the palace gardens. It consists of 336 marble columns, holding up the roof. If full, it would contain 100,000 tons of water.IMG_4823.JPG

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    Carp swim in the shallow water below.

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    The columns are presumed to have been scavenged from older buildings, and are a mishmash of styles. One has a hole that people stick their thumbs in for good luck.

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    This column’s decorations are said to represent the tears of the slaves who died constructing the cistern.

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    The highlight of the Cistern is the two heads of Medusa. Scavenged from an older Greek building, one was placed upside down, and the other on its side. Why? No one knows…

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    Our neighborhood had no electricity this morning, so we had to walk to find a restaurant for lunch where the lights were on. We returned to my favorite lunch place, filled with locals. There are no menus, you just walk up to the counter and point at what you want – half a dozen bubbling stews that change daily. I picked chicken and green peppers, but Jim got the tastiest – eggplant and beef with vegetables. You sit at a table with a big basket of bread, thinking, “who could eat this much bread?”, but once you start eating, you keep reaching for another hunk of bread to sop up every bit of sauce on your plate. Food heaven. We try to determine what is in each dish in the hope that we can reproduce these flavors at home. Maybe we’ll just stay here instead!

    Saturday in Istanbul – Pope Francis!

    Travel, Turkey, ,

    11/29 – How often do you get a chance to see the Pope? When we were in Rome, we didn’t catch a glimpse of him, so when we heard we was going to be at the Blue Mosque here in Istanbul this morning, we thought we’d better take advantage of the opportunity.

    There was a police cordon all around the mosque, of course, with policemen stationed every three feet or so, but the crowd was small, and we had no trouble walking right up to the barricade. His modest car was waiting, with the headlights on and motor running. Overhead there was a news helicopter and a drone, presumably taking photographs. We were interviewed by a Reuters reporter, who took down our names and where we were from. Perhaps we will become famous!

    And then we saw him emerging from the mosque! I zoomed in as far as my poor camera would allow, with these very grainy results. Here he is coming down the steps:(white figure in the center)

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    Approaching the car:

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    Chatting with the Mufti (Pope on left, Mufti on the right): image

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    And getting into the car for the short ride to Hagia Sophia: image

    We waved and cheered, as others applauded politely. I hope he appreciated our enthusiasm!

    Thursday in Istanbul – the Hagia Sophia

    Travel, Turkey, ,

    11/27 – Happy Thanksgiving to all! We especially miss our family today, but are thankful for their health and happiness. If we can’t be eating turkey, we’re happy to be in Turkey! We tried to describe a turkey to our Malaysian friends at breakfast…

    Today we visited the Hagia Sophia, which started out as Emperor Constantine’s church in the 300s, was burned down and rebuilt by Justinian in the 500s, then was converted to a mosque in the 1400s, was closed when it began to seriously deteriorate, and was reopened as a museum in the 1930s as part of the secularization and westernization of Turkey under Attaturk. It shares a square with the Blue Mosque.

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    There’s a golden library on the main floor:

    There’s also a Wishing Column, where people stick their thumb in a hole and try to rotate their hand all the way around to make their wish come true:image

    In the process of restoration, some of the original Christian frescoes were uncovered. It’s so neat to see the juxtaposition of two cultures.image

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    Here you can see where the cross images were covered over with abstract patterns.image

    The view from the upper gallery was magnificent.image

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    Just loved this place!

    Wednesday in Istanbul – the Blue Mosque

    Travel, Turkey, , ,

    11/26 – No rain this morning, and a double rainbow! It’s going to be a good day!image

    Up early and back to the Metro for another run to the Chinese Consulate. This time, the office was open, and, after standing in line and going through two metal detectors, we got into the visa office. Although the room was full of people waiting, some with newborn babies, we walked right up to the window, slid our paperwork under the glass, and asked for tourist visas. The young woman behind the glass spoke some English – hallelujah! She looked over our applications. Where is your invitation from a Chinese official? Where is your proof that you are not a criminal? Where is your plane reservation and detailed itinerary? Where is your proof that you are a resident of Turkey? We had none of those things. We explained that we were traveling overland and that train reservations can only be made 20 days in advance, and you must have a visa to make a reservation. We explained that we were not criminals, and that Americans have no form to prove that this is so. Our Turkish visa says we are residents for 90 days. She took our passports, photos, Turkish visas, and four page applications to a room behind a door.

    We sat and waited. She came back after a while with more questions. If you are retired, what income do you have per year? Who will pay for your travel? How much money do you have in the bank? We were prepared for these questions and provided financial statements. Sounded like we were getting close!

    We sat some more. Finally, she came back with all our stuff. Without a plane or train reservation and a detailed itinerary of where we plan to spend each day in China, and extra copies of our passports, we were not getting visas. We reminded her about the train reservations – would a hotel reservation suffice? She allowed that it might, if it was all we could get. We sadly took our pile of papers and retreated home to fabricate an itinerary and get a (cancelable) random hotel reservation from booking.com. On Friday, we will try again.

    To cheer ourselves up, we had a delicious lunch, and went to see the Blue Mosque. image The first thing you will notice is that the outside is not blue, but grey. Why did I think it would be blue?

    Like the Suleiman, this is an active mosque, and we take off our shoes, and I cover my head, before entering. Tourists are only allowed in a small area, to enable the faithful to pray in peace.

    The inside has some blue windows and tiles – I guess that’s why it’s called Blue? The carpet is definitely orange-red… The official name is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, and the whole area where we live is called Sultanahmet.

    Of course, I notice that the women’s praying area is all the way in the back, behind where the tourists put their shoes.

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    Although we always endeavor to show reverence in holy places, there are so many people taking selfies, including a man in the prayer area who is taking a pic of himself prostrated in prayer, that we figured, what the heck? Here is our Blue Mosque selfie:image

    A Little Taste of Istanbul

    Travel, Turkey, , , ,

    11/25 – I love our little Hotel Buhara. They provide a lovely breakfast of tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, hard boiled eggs, grapes, clementines, olives, yoghurt, and Nescafé. This morning we met a young man from Malaysia and a couple from Iran. It’s nice to be in a place where people have a little English and we can share friendly conversation.

    Today we had our pictures taken for the visas we will need as we move east, and learned to navigate the Metro so we could get to the Chinese Consulate to apply for a visa to mainland China. An hour’s ride north to the end of the Metro line was all for naught – the visa office is only open from 9am to noon on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. There was no indication of this on the Consulate website, and they don’t answer their phone or email. Oh well, we’ll try again tomorrow.

    We took in some sights and aromas of Istanbul. The Suleiman Mosque:

    We noticed that stray cats are well cared for here – welcome inside the mosque and fed by passersby. This mosque has ostrich eggs included in their light fixtures to keep away spiders, according to the helpful mosque volunteer who answered our questions.image

    The female volunteers said the question they are most often asked is why females can’t pray in the same area as males. They explained that when fervently praying, they don’t want to have to worry about brushing against a man. It is more comfortable to pray with other women. The Qur’an says: “do not annoy women as to make their lives miserable.” Well said.

    The Grand Bazaar:

    Many people wanted to sell us blue jeans or carpets. You can buy everything from cheap trinkets to diamonds and furs. It goes on for blocks, with shops both inside and outside. I was especially attracted to the glass lamps and colorful ceramics.

    There are restaurants one after another on our street, and we both love Turkish food. We are having a wonderful time here – Turkish Delight, anyone?

    How do I know this is true?

    Travel, Turkey,

    From Jim…

    beinghere2014's avatarBeinghere

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    We visit Suleymaniye Mosque, largest in Istanbul, Turkey. It was built by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, ruler of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to 1566. Suleiman spent 10 years fighting in 17 military campaigns. He conquered Belgrade, most of Hungary, and laid siege to Vienna in 1529. His era was considered the Ottoman empire’s high point, the farthest extent of its domain. The Vienna siege failed due to heavy rains, over-extended supply lines, shortage of heavy artillery, and Viennese skillful use of arquebuses (early firearms), long pikes, and defensive positions.

    We approach the mosque courtyard in front of the main entrance.


    Inside, we view the low-hung lamps, which, in olden-times required refilling with oil. Islamic belief focuses on one God, with the thought that images distract from this idea. As a result, mosques display calligraphy but no human images.

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    We see a poster explaining Islam to visitors. It portrays the…

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