Even in the major shopping malls (for want of a better word) there are raised “pulpits”, where shop owners follow clergy with morning prayers before opening.

More bizarre topography, and a “Whirling Dervish” performance.

 

Street vendors grill corn on the cob like I do….although I bet they don’t use my secret ingredient - chopped fresh rosemary.

Today’s lunch was a “fistikli kebap” - ½ lamb meat and ½ veal, ground with Turkish spices, grilled with chopped pistachios. I’m sure it won’t be the same, but I’m definitely going to try to re-create it when home. Wonderfully tasty. Oh, and the ever-present tea, of course. Essential.

There are dozens of underground cities sprinkled all around the Anatolian area, with labyrinthine hallways and 5-6 levels of floors and rooms, most of them not fully excavated yet. Ingeniously created to allow inhabitants to escape the blisteringly hot summers, acquire and store water, etc. They were also created with defense in mind - the narrow hallways allowed only one outside attacker at a time to proceed through them, and the curves in the halls made bows/arrows and spears essentially useless.

Pretty good selection of tea at the spice market.

Another mosque with gorgeous tile and on the way there, traffic came to a halt on a bridge over the Bosporus….so the locals brought the commerce to us. Walking up and down between cars in all lanes, selling fruit or whatever. This was a bread guy.

Forgot to post the table we got in Cappadoccia - a private balcony. Could get used to stuff like that

Really quite beautiful

 

Back in Istanbul, at the Grand Bazaar and then the spice market. (The latter was far more fun than the former. Considerably fewer fake Rolex watches and guys doing the “hard sell” for them”.

Various layers of volcanic rock and ash, combined with eons of natural erosion, produced these formations they call “chimneys”.

This was our hotel, with (actually quite dramatic and elegant) rooms carved into the rock.

We flew from Istanbul to Kayseri, to spend 2 days in Cappadocia. Amazing caves in the soft volcanic rock -some caused by natural erosion & some by carving. Inhabited since prehistoric times, later Christians hid from the Romans in these caves, leaving behind frescoes of saints on the walls.

3

Around Istanbul, 2

Around Istanbul

Our tour did not include this particular option. Dammit.

We finally disembarked in Istanbul. My “bucket list”, with the likes of the Pyramids, Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, etc, always included the Blue Mosque and (especially) the Hagia Sophia. I think the former is probably more aesthetically pleasing, but the latter surely has more historical significance.

The first shore excursion I could do after my parole was Troy. Out port was the island of Bozcaada, but we took a ferry over to the Turkish mainland. Troy has, obviously, a fabulous history that goes back millennia.

A look back at Covid Prison entrance, deck 5, from which I exited victoriously. Eventually.

At least they fed me pretty well in Covid Jail. One of my favorite recurring dinners on the ship is the “Indian Market Night” at the less formal venue on the ship, an endless buffet of great stuff. They brought me lots of curries. And then 2 cupcakes showed up at my door later that night.

So, eagle-eyed blog-ees might have noticed a teeny-tiny lapse in posts.

Obviously travel usually provides its share of unexpected circumstances - this one was a big one, and not the good kind.  During a routine Covid testing onboard, I came up positive. I still have to wonder if it wasn’t a mistake or “false positive”  - I had no symptoms. I obviously know that asymptomatic cases are common, but still…

Anyway, none of that mattered, I had to be transferred to a room on an isolated deck, and not come out for a week.  Long story short, it was hugely frustrating, but I have since returned and tested negative.  At the moment we have disembarked the ship and have spent our first day in Istanbul. Will update the blog when I can (and when device/charging and Wi-Fi allows).

Came to Santorini as a teenager, and did the switchback trail up to the town, on donkeys. I believe it was the inception of the donkey lobby’s point about animal cruelty.

The Bronze Age ruins at Akrotini.