Trip

Hello again! Back in İstanbul after around two weeks of vacation - click on the map above to see a larger version of our route.

Part of me wants to describe the whole thing, but maybe that's a bit much for a blog as humble as this - I certainly hesitate to try putting up the 400 some photos we (mostly Andrea) took - but here are the basics:

Firstly the Black Sea Coast - while those masses of tourists who chose the Mediterranean edges of Turkey for their vacation were sweltering in 50C/122F temperatures, we spent the first week in the verdant, forest-covered northeast, where it was not only much cooler but rained quite a bit. Three days in Ayder (near-ish the Georgian border) and the Kaçkar Mountain air were refreshing, even if we were cold and wet much of the time, especially the day we climbed up to 3,000 meters (9,900 feet) to a crater lake (though now I'm not sure which one). Below is a picture of what it looked like to us, and here is a link to what it supposedly looks like in the sunshine.

Sunshine-free after a 3-hour hike straight up, in sandals - whee!

After that we went back to the coast, through Rize (where the tea is so fresh it squeals) to Trabzon, the perfect setting for a certain kind of early-'60s cold war spy film with it's macho guys in tiny cars and Russian store signs, where we visited with friend and fellow ethnomusicology grad student Nico E. and later climbed up to the Sümela Monastery in all its defunct and grafitti-ed splendor.

Sümela - keeping monks high for hundreds of years.

Onward west the high points were Amasya and Safranbolu with their restored Ottoman houses and Silk Road kervansarays, cobblestone streets, open markets, et cetera - really wonderful places I recommend visiting.

Amasya, former capitol of the Pontic Kingdom, home of Strabo,
and training ground for many of the Ottoman Empire's finest Sultans.
This was our hotel - note the castle at the top of the mountain!

Safranbolu. Saffron tea, saffron candy, saffron perfume
- is that what makes these people so nice and mellow? Even
the many metalsmiths - the last surviving medieval trade guild -
were pleasant and inviting conversationalists.

Except for the first jump to Trabzon (by 'plane) and the final trip home from Mudanya to İ-town (by hydrofoil ferry), all of our moving around was accomplished by way of long bus rides - 5, 6, 9 hours at a stretch - but there are many competing companies and buses are generally nicer than in the US. Only a couple times were there overcrowding or livestock issues to hamper the mood, and the countryside is generally nice, in a 'developing world' sort of way. And there were a couple of places we might just as well have stayed on the bus. I'll just say that Ankara has a very nice "Anatolian Civilizations Museum" (and had Atatürk's tomb complex been open that day, I'm sure we would have appreciated that, too), and that Amasra, despite it's obsession with local died-pretty rocker boy Barış Akarsu, its mouldy-smelling pension rooms, its dishonest fish salesmen and tawdry carnival rides - yes, despite bad public rock concerts 'til late in the evening, its concrete skeleton awash in adolescent grafitti - its museum was also alright.

Lastly before coming home we spent three days in Bursa, a lovely place, to me Turkey's "second city." With its castle on the hill, Silk Han, yet more restored Ottoman houses, friendly policemen, Karagöz-Hacivat (shadow puppet theater) Museum (in front of the tomb of the man credited with bringing the art from Egypt and developing its eponymous characters), tombs of Osman (the founder of the Ottoman Empire) and his son Orhon, Mount Ulu in the background, not to mention the candied chestnuts... whew! Nice place... yes; go there!

Ever felt that you needed to know absolutely everything about silk?
Try the Bursa City Museum!

Anyway... now we're back in Üsküdar, enjoying the last few days before Andrea flies home. I'm still here until the 27th of August, then back to Santa Barbara, and later Chicago, to start the process of analyzing my data and writing up this dissertation.

Happy above the timberline in the Kaçkar Mountains.
Smelled like sandalwood!

You must be tired by now, but remind me to tell you here about the new ud Mustafa has just finished for me, a special experiment that turned out pretty well. Meanwhile, be well yourselves and enjoy the summer.

[New Ud Update: rather than fight the business-laziness continuum, I'm just going to link here to a different web page with news about the new ud - enjoy!]