Istanbul to Izmir

Sorry for the delay in getting this latest post out. I've been busy with other endeavors and have lost a little momentum here in the blogosphere. I promise to be more diligent and not let so much time elapse between postings from here on out.

After five short days in Istanbul it was time to head south. Let it be known that five days in Istanbul is not nearly enough. You could spend a month in Istanbul and not see all that you should. I will be going back before too long. 

So, on to Izmir....

The Wheels on the Bus Go 'round and 'round....

We got up early on Day Six in Istanbul and headed to the bus station. Now, if you've ever ridden a cross-country bus then you're probably thinking, "Oh boy, this is NOT gonna be good". I know that's what I was thinking. The furthest I ever rode a bus before was from Phoenix to San Diego one summer when my best friend and I drove over to Phoenix in his '54 Ford pick-up for a weekend because the drinking age in Arizona at that time was 19. After two nights of waaaaayyyy too much party time his truck decided it wasn't up to the return trip and quit on us. In Phoenix. In the middle of summer. Not good. So, we left the truck at his aunt's house and off to the Greyhound station we went. The bus was packed when we boarded and we were unable to find two seats together. I ended up sitting next to some little smelly dude who sucked on a pint bottle of whiskey for the first couple of hours on the road before he fell asleep/passed out and then he spent the rest of the trip snoring. And did I mention it was summertime? Hot, cramped and uncomfortable with a guy who looked like the Kickapoo Joy Juice Indian from L'il Abner sitting next to me doing his best imitation of a chainsaw (and reeking) throughout the night. Not a pleasant memory. So, as you can imagine, it was with a slight amount of trepidation I prepared to take a nine-hour bus ride through the Turkish countryside. 

Once again, I couldn't have been more pleasantly surprised. The bus was exceedingly comfortable with plush, roomy seats, television (which did me no good as I do not speak Turkish) and an attendant who spent the entire trip seeing to our every need. Food, drinks (hot and cold), candy. All included in the price of the ticket. All in all, I highly recommend taking the bus if you're ever going that way because the roads are excellent, the ride is pleasant and it's a great way to get a look at the countryside. 

Check it out. 

Here is a picture of the bus taken at the rest stop about halfway through the trip. 

You can see that the rest stop is new and had a restaurant and, much to my chagrin, the ubiquitous rest stop Starbucks. Ah, good 'ol western style expansionism.

It was a beautiful day (finally) and the scenery all the way down was great. We passed through many small towns, but mostly it was wide open countryside. 

Here is our Rico Suave attendant. He spoke no English, so there wasn't a whole lot of conversation, but he was a pleasant enough chap. And damn good at his job. Very dapper too, I might add. On a freakin' BUS!! Take that, Greyhound!

All right. Now I'm just gonna drop a bunch of pictures I took from the bus on you. I can't name the towns or tell you anything about the towns. But I can show you what Turkey looks like between Istanbul and Izmir...

The stadium where Besiktas plays its home games. This is taken
on our way out of Istanbul.

More Istanbul

The Strait of Bosphorus.

The ferry ride across the Sea of Marmara to Asia. You can see the bus on
the right under the bridge. 

Another castle/fort. They're everywhere over there.

Rico Suave feeding the seagulls. 

I'll tell you right now I hate seagulls. But these were really cool seagulls. They're about two-thirds the size of the gulls you see in San Diego and they have very pretty markings. These seagulls I don't hate. 

Bye-bye Europe. Looking out the back of the boat. 

This is right after we drove off the ferry near a town called Yalova.
That's about all your gonna get out of me for the rest of the trip down. 

Some kind of municipal building. One of the many smaller cities we
passed through on our way south. 

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The Father of the Turkish Republic.
There are images of him everywhere you go in Turkey.
Look him up. 

Now we're getting into the wide open. You can see the further south
we go the better the weather gets. 

Looking out the other side of the bus. 

Cousin Cheryl. 

An absolutely HUGE horse farm. It took us ten solid minutes to
drive past it. 

The gates to the horse farm. I tried to get a translation for this but was
unsuccessful. Let me know if you find anything out. 

Big houses on the big horse farm. 

The far side of the horse farm. I took 17 pictures from one side
to the other. Big freakin' horse farm. 

Countryside. 

A shepherd and his flock. 

Bare trees in the countryside. 

A hillside town. Too bad that damned sign is in the picture. 

Heading down into Izmir. Evening light on the hillsides. 

I have no idea.  

Izmir

Sundown in Izmir.

Well, that's it. We made it down in grand fashion. It was actually a very relaxing, comfortable trip. And now that I've shown you Istanbul, from here on out I'll be showing the sights of southwestern Turkey and the Aegean coast. 

Until next time...

The Bay of Izmir

The End of Day Five in Istanbul; Day Two in Sultanahmet

Day five in Istanbul and day two in Sultanahmet are the same day. I realized after my, "Sultanahmet: Day One" post that I might be creating a little confusion for my readers. Still confused? Work it out.

One more thing...

As you probably came to realize after reading my last post, the Hagia Sofia was a bona fide brass-plated four-door mind blower. The most amazing "wrought by man" thing I have ever seen. The only time in my life I can remember being humbled to that degree by an inanimate object was when I spent a week riding a raft through the Grand Canyon thirty-some-odd years ago. This was a completely different thing.

The Grand Canyon is a "wrought by God" thing. After bobbing along the river that wends its way through the bowels of the earth at the bottom of that canyon for a couple of days, I came to realize that mankind in general, and Ado in particular, really don't amount to much on this big ol' rock we call earth. The time it took for water and gravity to carve out those amazing, colorful rock walls, one grain of sand at a time and create a canvas for setting and rising suns to splash with their light-filled palettes is so great as to be unfathomable by mortal men. A few million years from now humans will be long gone and long forgotten from this earth and that river and that canyon will be doing exactly what they're doing today. In a much shorter time span than that, I too will be long gone and long forgotten.

But the Hagia Sofia didn't make me ponder my place in the universe by overshadowing my meager lifespan. It shook me because, confronted by this manmade three-dimensional kaleidoscope of marble and mosaic the size of a battleship, it made me realize how little I had accomplished in my fifty-four rides around the sun. It made me realize what I might have done and reminded me of those things I have not done. It reminded me of the greatness man is capable of and of which I have fallen so short.

The Grand Canyon knocked the wind out of me with the realization that it exists effortlessly. It exists only because, inexorably through the millenia, it came to be. The Hagia Sofia exists only because 1,474 years ago men imposed their will on mortar and stone and brought it into this world. It exists only because men forced it into existence. Humbling, indeed.

The Great Palace Mosaic Museum

In 1935 a bunch of Scottish archaeologists were digging up some really old stuff in Sultanahmet at the spot where the Arasta Bazaar once stood. They discovered a mosaic covered walkway that was long ago part of the Great Palace of Constantinople. It was a section of a peristyle walkway from one of the palace courtyards and it covers approximately 2,000 square yards. It is ENTIRELY covered in mosaics depicting fantastic and everyday images of life in those times. The fact that people actually walked on these works of art is mind boggling. Art was part of everything they built back in those days and beauty always seemed integral to their plans. In these modern times we could learn a lesson or two from the ancients.

The mosaics are now uncovered and housed in the museum near Sultanahmet square. The museum is not very well know and while we were there it was empty except for me, my cousin Cheryl, my mother and the people who work there. There is a lot to see and the pace is whatever you want it to be. If you ever find yourself in the area, I highly recommend taking the time to see it. Check it out...

The largest contiguous section of walkway that is on display.
We'll call this the left section.

This would be the center section. 

And this would be the right section.

Many of the scenes depict a pastoral lifestyle. A vendor pushing a cart, animals being fed, trees bearing fruit.














Here are children at play.

A man feeding his donkey.

A man taking children for a ride on a camel. Check out how evil the kids look.

In addition to the workaday images there are also images of fantasy and violence. These Romans, they knew how to party, boy!

Yeah,  I've seen a deer eat a snake before. What?

Don't you feed lizards to your horned, winged lion?

Here is some some of your standard leopard-on-antelope violence. 

And your always to be expected man-on-animal violence. 

Evidently the deer didn't get to this snake in time.

Here are some detail photos from the mosaics above and some other detail pictures from scenes I haven't included. If you click on the pictures they will enlarge. 40,000 tiles per square meter. Wow. I don't think they had eyeglasses back then. 

This pretty much concludes my time in Istanbul. The next day we boarded a bus for the nine-hour ride down to the city of Izmir on the Aegean coast. What? A bus, you say? For nine freakin' hours?? How horrible that must have been! But you are wrong, dear readers. Fret not. In the next post you will see that in other parts of the world there are things they do better than we do them here. Greyhound could learn a thing or two, lemme tell ya. 

Better yet, lemme show ya. 

See you next time...