Fuzzy Photo Monday

March 16, 2015 ~ travelsandtomes ~ 2 Comments

The best adjective to describe any given Monday morning is fuzzy. So, in honor of all those fuzzy Monday mornings, I’m posting fuzzy, dusty photos from a few travels in Turkey roughly 15 years ago. They may be grainy and faded, but the beauty of the place and the people still shines through.

Istanbul is a good place to start. While in Istanbul, we stayed in a small hotel on the Hippodrome–the center of ancient Constantinople, where civic and sporting events were held. The Hippodrome is a long, oval area today, flanked by obelisks at each end, and just beyond each end of the Hippodrome stands one of Istanbul’s most recognizable landmarks: the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.

The Hagia Sophia is, arguably, the jewel of Istanbul.

The Hagia Sophia began her life in the 500’s as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral, and over the years has served as a church, a mosque, and a museum. Despite the ravages of time and bickering ideologies, this beautiful monument to Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia, or, as the Turks say, Ayasofia) still impresses and humbles its visitors today.

The Blue Mosque was built in the 1600’s, so it’s no new comer either. The interior is impressive and serene–covered in Turkish Iznik tiles and caligraphed verses from the Quran.

The exterior courtyard of the Blue Mosque is serene and was once used as a school, but I don’t think that’s the case any longer.

Nearby, you can take a tour of the underground cistern-which is impressive too. It was built in the 500’s, but lay abandoned and forgotten for hundreds of years. The columns and carving, as well as the dramatic lighting, make it a beautiful and eerie place to see.

Underground cistern in Istanbul. — Underground cistern in Istanbul–built in the 6th century, still a marvel.

You’d spend a full day or more travelling from Istanbul to Cappadocia in central Turkey, but it would be worth the effort.

Cappadocia is a somewhat mountainous area, best know for its “fairy chimneys” and early cave churches. Urgup and Goreme are probably the easiest places for tourists to get around, and they are a good homebase for viewing the fairy chimneys (rock formations that are distinct) of the area.

"Fairy chimneys" of Cappodocia and the Ilhara Valley. — “Fairy chimneys” of Cappodocia and the Ilhara Valley. You can see the dwellings carved into them.

The Ilhara Valley in Cappadocia is also famous for its very early cave churches. They are in varying stages of preservation, but are fascinating to see.

Guzelyurt was our favorite town in Cappadocia, and was off the beaten path.

View off the back porch at Otel Karbala, Guzelyurt.

We would stay at a hotel there, Otel Karbala, which was beautiful and converted from an old Greek monestary. The town was light on tourists, and heavy on beauty and history.

On the "Antik Road" in Cappadocia. — On the “Antik Road” in Cappadocia.

This photo especially tugs at my heart. This family was baking bread over a fire outside of a cave on the Antik Road (old road) down a hill in the town of Guzelyurt. They were so friendly and we stopped and ate a bite of their bread–a delicious flatbread (pide) that they were eating plain and warm from the fire. Pide is popular in Turkey, and often cooked over an open fire on a hot, convex piece of metal, but it can also be made in a large oven (think of America’s large brick oven pizza establishments).

Our “hometown” in Turkey had a large bakery that served, really,as a community oven and produced hundreds or thousands of pide each day. Pide is often embelished with meats or cheese and spices. Plain pide is also good for scooping up mezes (appetizers).

But, back to Cappadocia. It’s probably my favorite place in Turkey, and, besides the sightseeing and natural beauty of the area, it also offered many opportunities to shop for carpets in an environment that was less rushed than Istanbul. Here, carpet dealers feed you, play with your children and dogs, and eagerly teach you about the various types of carpets and regional styles they have on offer.

And, if you have enough time in Cappadocia, one last recommendation: visit an underground city. There are dozens of these sites, and we’ve been to Derinkuyu and Kaymakli. These cities are ancient rabbit warrens underground, complete with ventilation shafts and stones that can be rolled to block entrance into any given tunnel–they are advanced and well planned, but may date back to the Bronze Age, and were certainly used during the Byzantine period as hiding places during times of religious persecution.

A puppy in my arms, and a flashlight on my husband’s forehead, while we wander the underground labyrinth.

As feats of ancient engineering, these underground cities are astonishing. As history lessons, they are sobering. As an afternoon out. . . they are a pretty good frolick . . . but not recommended for people who are claustrophobic.

I’ve covered a lot of ground at a crazy quick clip here–but it’s a fuzzy Monday, so that’ll have to do until I’ve downed considerably more coffee.

Gule, gule! (“Bye, bye” in Turkish)

Wordless Wednesday: Corner Shop, Berchtesgaden, Germany

March 11, 2015March 11, 2015 ~ travelsandtomes ~ 10 Comments

London Fashion Week 2015 – Pt. 1

March 4, 2015 ~ travelsandtomes ~ 1 Comment

DSCN0520 — Somerset House, venue for London Fashion Week, Feb. 2015

Maybe you’ve seen the headlines in fashion magazines, the svelte and stylish stars in tabloid print; maybe you’re a fashionista and you are in the know. Last week was London Fashion Week and festivities took place at Somerset House–a beautiful, neo-classical complex built in the 1700’s and nestled between the River Thames and the Strand (that major London thoroughfare that runs from Trafalgar Square through Fleet Street, home to British banking and legal offices). The first few days of London Fashion Week belong to industry insiders and celebrities, but the later part of the week is open to the rest of us. . . and that’s how my daughter and I ended up shopping the stalls and attending the Amanda Wakeley catwalk last Thursday.

It was my daughter’s idea. (I love to look good–and have a love of jackets that borders on fetish–but I also love to be comfortable. This means I vascillate between style-mama and sweatshirt slob. My daughter, however, is just coming to that age where style is the ultimate, and requisite, in self expression. )

So a couple of weeks ago, I got a call from her around lunch time. She’d just returned to school after two days of a nasty virus, so I answered the phone expecting to hear misery and fever on the other end of the receiver. Instead of fever, I got fervid. “Mom, London Fashion Week is in two weeks! Look it up, Google it! We need to go!” I wasn’t prepared for this and, lacking any other comeback, I said, “You know, that’s not much heads up, but I’ll give it a look.” My way of saying, I’m not ignoring your request–since you are so enthusiastic–but you know that’s just not going to happen. So, it turns out, the laugh was on me.

I did Google it, and it sounded kind of fun. Too bad we couldn’t go.

Could we?

I logged on to RyanAir.com–an Irish airline known for (usually) cheap tickets when you travel within Europe. Imagine my shock when I saw that we could book tickets on our travel days for 20 Euro per person each way. For the next two hours, I skittered the sticky strands of the world wide web, and eventually extricated myself with airline tickets, London Fashion Week tickets, and reservations at reasonable, but extraordinarily well-located and well-appointed hotels in hand.

And theater tickets; every trip to London needs theater tickets.

So next thing you know, we were off to LFW!

We arrived Wednesday mid morning, after only 2 or 3 hours of sleep. (One way to catch a cheap flight is to fly at a God-forsaken hour. Ugh.) We weren’t due at Somerset House until Thursday, so we checked into our hotel near the Tower of London and jumped on the Tube (London’s rail) to head out to Kensington and make an afternoon out of Harrods Department Store and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Harrods is a London landmark, and it lives up to its reputation. If I were plump with cash, I could have a really good time there. Sadly, I am not. The clothes were beautiful, but here’s how it works at Harrods: your daughter sees a fabulous swimsuit and pulls you that direction. You turn over the price tag and realize that it’s an $800 swimsuit (maybe more–I’m a little vague about exchange rate math), and next thing you know the chic shop girls are reviving you with smelling salts. And, yes, I suppose “shop girls” is outdated, but it seems to fit here, because Harrods isn’t just a store. No, Harrods is a theatrical production. It’s like a West End stage set, where everything glitters, and you turn a corner and –pow!–you’re in a different land. You move from the colorful, sparkly set of the jewelry department, to the finely choreographed fragrance floor with it’s fleet footed sales-people-spritzers, to gallery after gallery of magnificent women’s clothes, to a children’s section full of books and toys that is so visually perfect and orderly you will wonder if any REAL children have actually been in that space in the past 24 hours, to a food hall that is amazing. . .truly amazing.

However, not to be a downer, but the $5 strawberry I ate in the food hall–plump and juicy as it was–was really nothing special. I’m sure that’s the exception to the rule. At least, everything LOOKED amazing. And all the shoppers LOOKED amazing. It really was theater at its finest.

As the curtain came down on our afternoon at Harrods, however, I had a little trouble getting out the front door. More than a little. Alarms went off, security guards stepped forward. I handed over my purse and my tiny Harrods bag of macaroons. (I had no large Harrods bag filled with thousand dollar swimsuits.) I unzipped my coat, as the guard said, “It’s probably a clothing tag you never clipped.” Who knew? My year-old red ski jacket (which, note to self, is not a cool thing to wear when you shop at Harrods) had a tag on the inside that clearly said “clip after purchase.” It had escaped my attention. Had it said, “Clip after purchase, or you may be arrested exiting Harrods under the gaze of posh customers,” I suppose it might have registered.

So that was our interesting Harrod’s experience. Don’t let me dissuade you — it’s a lovely store. I’m just not sure I’ll be allowed back in.

So, on to the V&A Museum. The truth is, I wish that I could tell you more about the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is huge, and filled with fabulous things. Even the “lunchroom” is a grand production. But, honestly, Kate and I were the walking dead by the time we got there. We’d been up all night; we’d ridden the highs and lows of walking Kensington and shopping Harrods. We were enthralled by the V&A, but we were beat. We entered the museum wide-eyed, immediately sat down to some nibbles in the food wing, and hoped to refuel sufficiently.

Once back in the museum, we strolled the magnificent clothing galleries, enjoyed looking at silver and furniture, and then it all goes to a blur. We were both about to hit the mat, and we knew we were going down hard, so we grudgingly left the V&A, with so much still unseen, and headed back to our hotel. It was time to tuck in for the evening, eat dinner, and rest up for the next day, the main event–the London Fashion Week extravaganza.