Greece lightning!

Well, after all these months, we’ve finally got the vacation that we’ve been looking for – Greece.  This mostly has to do with the fact that Matt was in charge of most of our itinerary for once.  I have a tendency to not leave anything left undone, at least when it comes to traveling, which means there is little room left for rest and relaxation.  We headed straight for the Greek Islands and spent our time doing little, very little more than enjoying the sun, sand and sea.  While Greece has literally thousands of islands, it still took a great deal of planning figuring which ones to go to and how to get there. And, being the middle of July, we booked all our hotels and ferries in advance to save us the headache of having to figure it out as we go (as we have done for the past four months).

We decided to cross into Greece from Turkey via the island of Kos, just off the coast of the southwestern Turkish city of Bodrum (where we’ve already been, if you’ve been paying attention).  We said goodbye to Istanbul for the last time (at least for now) and headed back to Bodrum for a night to catch our ferry in the early morning. Our first ferry ride to Kos was a pleasant hour trip.  The boat was quite small compared to the other boats we were to later take, since most people take it as a day trip from the resorts in Bodrum to visit Greece for a day and return. This large, fertile Dodecanese (region of 12+ islands near the Turkish coast that were under Italian control till the 1940s) Island is a busy vacation destination for mostly Brits and we were surprised at how touristy it was. Dodecanese refers to the group of islands. We wandered around Kos Town, the largest on the island, where we saw, wait for it… GREEK RUINS!  The one cool thing about the town is that it is known for being the place where Hippocrates, the “father of medicine,” learned his trade.  We visited the famous plane tree under which he “supposedly” taught his students.  We also rented bicycles one day and had a blast tooling around the surrounding countryside and seaside, stopping for a swim here and there.  From Kos, we caught a ferry to Santorini for a fabulous five nights.  Here was our first long-distance, officially Greek ferry and we were very much surprised to see a giant, cruise-ship sized boat pulling up to the dock where we were waiting. Our first boat from Bodrum looked like a tiny excursion boat in comparison.  Inside this one there were multiple different lounges with cushy chairs, televisions, restaurants and even a bar.  The wind that day was blowing heavily from the north, which made this four-hour trip to Santorini into more of a roller-coaster ride than a relaxing jaunt.  While Matt and I did pretty well with the seasickness, we saw lots of green faces.

Now Santorini is a place pretty much everyone who knows anything about the Greek Islands has heard of.  Non-stop picture perfect views of white Greek Orthodox churches, rolling bougainvillea flowers, windmills, and stretches of black sand beaches. Even we two jaded travelers were thoroughly charmed.  I had to stop and remind myself that all the quaint architecture around us was for once not a copy from somewhere else but in fact actually belonged here.  We’re just so used to having this style of white, sugar-cube shaped buildings with blue or aqua trim being copied around the world that it was hard to recognize it when it was in its proper place. We found a great hotel with a studio room in Perissa Beach – complete with a kitchenette and fridge where we did ALL of our own cooking.  To some, cooking your own meals while on vacation might sound like an oxymoron (particularly in a country with such excellent cuisine as Greece) but we had a fantastic time.  After eating in restaurants for five months, we’re more than sick of having to eat out every night.  We still took full advantage of the great produce, olive oil, olives and particularly the local (and cheap) wine from Santorini.  We rented a scooter for two days and explored the island in full.  The island is now a crescent-shaped island with steep cliffs that descend in the center looking out to a couple of islands off its western side.  Once a full circular island around 1650 BC, the huge volcano in the center erupted in one of the largest explosions in history, creating a caldera, which was quickly filled in by the sea. The collapse of the Minoan civilization of Crete has been partially blamed on this eruption and ensuing tsunami and ash. We visited the capital, Fira, perched delicately over the ridge looking down into the caldera.  The creeping white buildings looked like snowcapped peaks from off in the distance.  Found some beautiful and relaxing red and black sand beaches to enjoy and soak up the sun and sea.  We wandered around through the town of Oia (pronounced Ia) where we (along with throngs of other tourists) tried to get the same postcard-perfect sunset shots.

Our third and last island stop was the island of Naxos for another couple of days.  We decided to rent a scooter again here to get to explore the island fully.  This is one of the largest and most fertile of the Cyclades group of islands.  The coast was beautiful (as always) but the interior of the island was maybe more so. We found huge fields of olive trees and wheat fields in fertile valleys with quaint “mountain” villages along two-lane, winding roads.  I still managed to talk Matt into doing a little bit of “sightseeing”.  We visited one ruins site of the ancient Greek temple to Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. The priests must have done a good job since the island was blooming with fecundity. The temple itself still managed to impress us – it was made entirely out of marble (even the roof tiles – impressive engineering feat). Naxos and the neighboring island Paros is known for its marble (e.g., the Venus di Milo and much of the Parthenon was carved out of Parian marble).  Among other side stops, we visited an old olive oil press and a distillery of a local liqueur of citron where we got free tastings.  But don’t be too worried – we still got plenty of time relaxing on the beach and getting a good amount of reading and journal writing done.

After another ferryboat ride, this one a grueling 7 hours, we arrived in Athens. I’ve had many people tell me that Athens is a terrible, dirty, disorganized city so we were prepared for the worst, and were very surprised to find the opposite. It’s clear that Greece must have been doing something right in the last few years since the Olympics, since at least the downtown touristy section was in full swing.  We had only left little over a day to see the main sights but that was enough time for the basics, particularly with me in charge, the master sightseer.  We woke up bright and early our first morning in hopes that we would beat the crowds to the Acropolis, the temple mount that looks down over the whole city.  There were still crowds of people, even at 9 AM, with a constant stream pushing in. We headed straight for the Parthenon as soon as we could.  Matt was very excited to see it since he had spent endless hours studying the building in his Architectural History class, and all his lessons were finally starting to make sense.  Even in ruins and in mid-reconstruction, it was still an impressive structure with its ingenious engineering to counteract optical illusions (for more information, ask Matt to explain it to you).  We also visited the brand new Acropolis Museum, which held many of the artifacts and statues from the actual site. There was a brilliant display of the recreated facades, friezes and pediments of the Parthenon laid out in their proper place and in full size (though most of these artifacts had been “conserved” by a British archeologist in the 1800s and are actually on display at the British Museum in London).  Not to miss anything, I also dragged Matt to the National Archeological Museum for countless more rooms of beautiful marble and bronze sculptures from all around Greece.

So we’re done with our Mediterranean Adventure and still no sight of the Holy Grail. Our last stop is England to visit Matt’s sister Molly and husband George.  They live in Cambridge but we’ll stay in London for a couple of days to see jolly old London Town. We’ll keep an eye out for the Holy Grail when we visit the British Museum, since many of the treasures of the Middle East were hauled off there by 19th century archeologists.

Israel pt. 2 – Everything else

This is Part 2 of Israel – I’m writing it all at the same time because there was waaaay too much for one post and I didn’t write from Israel since, as you will see, we moved non-stop and Internet was shockingly expensive.

I left you in Jerusalem.  At this point we decided to rent a car for the rest of the trip, which turned out to be pretty affordable and TOTALLY worth it.  We wouldn’t have gotten to see half of what we did and probably would have died of heat exhaustion (or maybe dysentery or snake bite) if we didn’t have the car’s glorious AC to provide relief.  On Tuesday (June 30th) we started out the day with Bethlehem.  Just a mere 7km from Jerusalem but we had to pass through the “wall” (both literal and figurative) to get there since it lies in the Palestinian controlled territory.  It was strange that we just had to flash our passports to get there but had to have our car and bags searched to get back into Israel later on that day. 

As LP says, Bethlehem is not the picture perfect city of all the Christmas images but a fully functioning city, but still cool nonetheless.  The main site was the Church of the Nativity, where we saw the Grotto with a chapel to the site where Jesus was born and where the manger lay.  We also got horribly lost driving around the hills looking for the Shepherds’ Fields (where the shepherds in the nativity story received the message of the birth of Jesus).  What was partially to blame is the fact that there are three different fields, depending on the denomination – we found the Greek Orthodox fields but not the Catholic, which was a few km away.  Kind of proves the relativity of the ”exact location” of any ancient religious site.

Next we drove to the Dead Sea, watching the sea level signs as we got lower and lower all the way to the 422 metres (1385 ft) below sea level right at the shore of the sea (lowest in the world). We said hello to Jordan, which lies on the opposite side of the sea.  We had a wonderful dip in the amazing salty waters – so salty in fact that the lifeguard was there not really to prevent drowning (can’t see how it would be possible) but more as poison control – the water stings horribly if you get it in your eye and causes severe vomiting if ingested. As you’ll see in the pictures, we floated like corks and had a great time covering ourselves with the mud from the shore.  Here it was free while people from around the world pay for globs in various skin products.

Long (but hilarious) story short we ended up sleeping in our car that night in the blistering heat of the desert.  The “youth hostel” at Masada was outrageously priced and we were going to get up at 4am to visit the site anyway. It didn’t ever get below 35 degrees Celsius (95°F) all night (I checked multiple times) and we had to cover ourselves with wet towels just to sleep.  We got up in the dead of night and blistering heat to climb the 400m to the top of the mesa to watch the sun rise over the ruins of the city.  During the Great Jewish Revolt, a group of extremist Jewish rebels, the Zealots hid here in defiance of the Roman Empire.  When the Roman army laid siege to the site, the rebels committed mass suicide rather than surrender. 

Our next destination was the Sea of Galilee. On the northern shores we visited the Church of the Beatitudes, where Jesus gave the Sermon on the Mount and the Church of the Loaves and Fishes, where Jesus performed that multiplication miracle.  We also went for a dip in the fresh water where we sunk like a rock compared to the Dead Sea.  The next day we went for a lovely drive up around Northern Galilee and the Golan Heights.  We stopped at Hula lake, a restored wetlands area and bird sanctuary, for a little hiking.  Next drove up to Metulla on the far northern border where we looked over “The Good Fence” into Lebanon.  Our next stop was Tel Dan, another wonderful nature reserve and historical site combined in one.  This is the site of the ancient city of Dan and the gushing springs of the site are one of the main sources of the Jordan River.  We had a lovely picnic and walk along the shady streams and washed our weary feet in the freezing water.  Lastly that day, we drove up to Mt. Hermon where Israel’s only ski hill stands in the summer, overlooking the disputed territory that lies between Israel and Syria.  From an overlook below we waved a hello to Syria just beyond the border (could see the Syrian flag waving and the evening call to prayer from the minarets in the distance).

Nazareth was our next stop the following day.  We saw the Basilica of the Annunciation.  The largest basilica in the Middle East, the grotto below marks the spot where Mary received the announcement from the Angel Gabriel that she would give birth to Jesus.  While the building is very modern, filled with paintings, sculptures and fountains from Christian communities around the world, we could see the ruins of the original Byzantine church below.  The Greek Orthodox had a separate church, Church of St. Gabriel, located at Mary’s Well commemorating the same revelation, though in their own ornate style. 

Back on the Mediterranean, we stayed the night in Acco (aka Acre) where we visited the Crusader Citadel of the Hospitaliers, walked the sea walls, and wandered the streets of the small, predominantly Arab Old City.  It was July 3rd and while we didn’t get any celebration the next day, we still got fireworks that night as a wedding party right outside our hotel kept the party going till midnight (not quite conducive to sleeping in the outdoor dorm beds we had – but it at least felt like camping so reminded us of the July 4th celebration that we were missing back home).  Next day we visited Rosh Hanikra, again at the border with Lebanon, where there were some cool sea caves to visit.  Compared to Lebanon, where they highly discouraged any travel by tourists anywhere near the border, Israel fully encouraged the tourist sites.  Our last stop in Israel was Haifa, a pleasant though not super touristy city (third largest in Israel). Visited the Stella Maris Church (where the prophet Elijah hid from King Ahab after slaughtering the priests of Baal) and the Baha’i Gardens.  Just in case Israel didn’t have ENOUGH religions fighting over land, this is one of the two holiest sites to the Baha’i religion; the Shrine of the Bab lies in immaculate gardens that could only be visited on a tour once a day.

And after returning to Tel Aviv for one last swim and fill of falafel, we flew back to Istanbul.  Here we’ve been for the last three days where we did our last bit of shopping and sightseeing.  The stunning Blue Mosque was the one thing left on our list but we had to share it with the thousands of new tourists that have arrived since we left.  We’re wrapping up our plans for hopping the Greek Islands over the next two weeks.  We’re exhausted and the heat is intense so two weeks of ferries, beaches and relaxing is DESERVED (even if the prices in Greece in the summer are ridiculous).

Israel pt. 1 – Tel Aviv & Jerusalem

Well, we’re back in Istanbul after spending two weeks in Israel - I’m doing this in two parts cause there’s too much to say.  To begin, it was hotter than I could have ever imagined – over 90°F almost the entire time we were there.  We arrived into Tel Aviv on June 22nd – unfortunately to a hostel and not to the apartment of our friend Jay, who had been living there with his Israeli girlfriend for the last 9 months.  While he had planned on moving home around the same time we were going to be there, through a booking error with his flight home, we missed him literally by a few hours.  We made the best of it and still had a great time in Tel Aviv, walking up and down the waterfront, visiting the Jewish Diaspora Museum, shopping in old town of Jaffa, swimming, watching the surfers (yes surfers, not too bad of waves either) and eating tons and tons of really good falafel.  We’ve traveled most of the Middle East now and Israel wins hands down for the best falafel in the world!

We moved on to Jerusalem after a couple of days where we entered a completely different world.  We stayed in the Old City so most of the sites were right out our front door. All the layers of history of the city and of the different religions all piled on top was mind-boggling.  The Old City of Jerusalem is divided into 4 quarters: Jewish, Muslim, Christian and Armenian. We went to bed with the sounds of the Muslim call to prayer and wake up to the sounds of church bells from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The intermingling of the different religions was fascinating, awe-inspiring, and a little frustrating – only since they all have a different holy day, which made being there on a weekend a test in scheduling. 

We spent our very first morning seeing the Haram al-Sharif, the Temple Mount.  We went to the Western Wall first which was an amazing site to see.  It’s open 24 hours a day (there’s even a web cam you can check out) but the security to enter was as tight as an airport – even gave us a hard time with our Swiss army knife we carry everywhere.  Even at 8:00 in the morning there were hundreds of people coming to pray and multiple bar mitzvah ceremonies going on.  The entrance to the wall is separate for men and women.  I know little about the Jewish faith and their rituals, but the intense faith and emotion was easy to read on people’s faces.  We then went up to the top of the mount to see the Dome on the Rock, where we had the place mostly to ourselves (it wasn’t anywhere near prayer time and still early enough to miss the tour groups).  This mosque is by far the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, even though we didn’t get to go inside, since we are not Muslims.  This is the 3rd holiest site for Islam, where the Prophet Mohammed was said to have ascended into heaven accompanied by the Angel Gabriel.  Painted tiles in the Ottoman style once covered what used to be mosaics and the King of Jordan recently refurbished the golden dome at the top with more than 80 kilos of gold.  Being a site of such intense importance to Judaism, Islam and to a lesser extent Christianity makes it an overwhelming place to visit. 

We also visited some of the important sites for Christianity. We spent a morning visiting the Mount of Olives where the Garden of Gethsemane, as well as the Tomb of the Virgin Mary, lies (supposedly – if you’ve been paying attention, Ephesus among other places also claims the honor).  We hiked up to the top, past the enormous Jewish Cemetery, for a breathtaking view of the Old City.  Another main stop was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which stands on the site of what is thought to be Calvary, the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus.  The church itself perfectly reflects how the different Christian sects have fought for space and control over the holiest site in Christianity.  It was a mishmash of different designs and traditions: Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Syriac Orthodox, Coptic, etc. each fighting for their representation.  An example is that we saw two chapels both dedicated to the site of Golgotha right next to each other, one Roman Catholic and one Greek Orthodox.  However, the strong faith of the priests, visitors and pilgrims superseded the differences and people all worshiped in the same place, even if not at the same time or in the same way.

We also visited many of the non-religious historical sites and museums of the city: the Citadel and Tower of David gave us a good historical understanding of the Old City while seeing some ruins of the Citadel built by King Herod. At the City of David we saw the ruins of the very original city, built by King David, below the thousands of layers. We also got to wade though the dark and damp Hezekiah’s Tunnel, one of the original water systems built to withstand the Assyrian siege. The Israel Museum, where we got to see a huge model of Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period as well as the Shrine of the Book, is dedicated to the finding of the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The most important in our opinion was Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum.  There was so much really fascinating and intense information, very well presented in the audio and visual guides, that we had to go back a second day to finish the place.  Beyond just presenting the list of events, they wove in very personal and detailed stories of real people that suffered, survived or perished during the Holocaust. All I can put to words is that it was heartbreaking and overwhelming.

I left my heart in Istanbul

We spent almost a week in Istanbul and are now trying to think of any means possible of how we can move there for good. We truly fell in love with the city. It reminds us a little of San Francisco, a little of Paris, while still being a “Middle Eastern” city. We loved how integral the waters of the Bosphorus and the Golden Horn were to the city; we sat for hours watching the ferries and ocean liners pass through the straights.  Matt in particular was very excited at the great transport system here (trams, metro, funiculars, and even ferries are all 1.5 lira each ride).  We got our money’s worth out of it and got to get out on the water ourselves quite a bit.

Even though we had arrived on the night bus from Pammukale, we got right into exploring the city. Instead of hanging around Sultanahmet, (which was constantly over-run with bus tours and cruise groups – don’t get me started…), the touristy part of town, we headed straight for Beyoğlu, which lies on the north side of the Golden Horn.  This super hip neighborhood has everything: shopping, restaurants, bars and clubs – and more importantly isn’t packed with tourists. Even in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, Istiklal Caddesi, the main shopping street, was absolutely packed with people.  We loved wandering the winding hilly streets that overlook both the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus. Almost every night, we found our feet walking us in that direction, across the Galata Bridge to explore a new tavern alley or nargila joint.

We did do a lot of real sightseeing since there is a ton of it to do.  Our hostel was just steps away from the Aya Sofia (aka Hagia Sophia or any other way you feel like spelling it – we saw it spelled 10 different ways ourselves) and had a great view of it from the roof.  We spent our first morning visiting the famous Byzantine Cathedral turned mosque turned museum.  The building was spectacular, even though a little rough around the edges.  Even though it’s perpetually under restoration, the huge dome was still amazing.  There were some spendid gilded mosaics of various Christian icons (Mary, Jesus, St. John the Baptist) that had been recovered since the building was converted from a mosque. Matt got right to work analyzing the structure and pointing out the where structural support had been done, and not too aesthetically.

The other major site we visited was the Topkapı Palace, the opulent residence of the Ottoman sultans for over 400 years.  The palace grounds were beautiful – a perfect example of courtyard architecture with ever more interior courtyards for more and more seclusion.  Even though the initial entrance fee was 20L we paid the 15 L extra to get into the Harem, the actual residences of the Sultan and his many wives and consorts.  It was worth it to see the extravagance and luxury in which they lived with ornately glazed tiles covering the floor.  The other main attraction at the palace is the display of the Imperial Treasury: silk cloth robes inlaid with emeralds and rubies, cases and cases of jewels and gold, the gilded throne, two golden candleholders weighing 48kg. We saw the Topkapı Emerald Dagger made famous in the heist film Topkapi, and the 86-carat pear-shaped Spoonmaker’s Diamond, which had been found in a rubbish heap and traded at first for 3 wooden spoons.

As I said, we also spent a lot of time out on the water.  One day we took the ferry up the Golden Horn to Eyup where we climbed the hill to get a splendid view of the city.  We then took the ferry to the “Asian” side of Istanbul, the neighborhood called Üsküdar, to walk around before catching another ferry back.  On Saturday, we crowded onto a ferry with other Istanbulites seeking refuge from the city and the heat.  About an hour’s ride got us to Hebeliada, one of the Prince’s Islands in the Sea of Marmara.  After exploring the quaint seaside community and houses, we had a lovely picnic in a park (though we were quite jealous of the families with their coolers and grills – made us homesick). Our last excursion on the water was to take an evening Bosphorus cruise that puttered its way along the shorelines.  We saw many of the other rich and hip neighborhoods lining the seashore, with old yalis and palaces that had been built over the centuries.  We saw tons of other boats cruising around, some with big parties for weddings or other celebrations; we waved to each other as we passed in the night and felt like we were part of it.

We were also able to meet up with another family friend here in Istanbul.  Long story short, my second cousin Lori studied abroad in Turkey for a year when she was in high school many years ago. Lori, with the help of my father, got me in touch with her host sister, Emel. I got to meet with a very pregnant Emel (due in July), and her husband, Serder, and daughter, Ece, on Sunday afternoon.  Though we had only this very thin connection through my distant relative, we had no problem getting to know each other.  Emel and Serder run their own interior design business so Matt had plenty to talk about.  By the end it felt like they were old friends and we hope to meet up with them when we get back to Istanbul.

So all in all, we LOVED Istanbul. Every day was packed but we still have things to go and see when we get back.  We’re now in Israel and the sightseeing certainly hasn’t stopped here.  Will fill you in as soon as I can!

Ruins, ruins, ruins

I left you at our arrival in Selçuk, which was now over a week ago but we’ve been moving nonstop so you’ll all have to be patient with my delayed postings. Within a few days Matt and I got our fair share of ancient ruins. As you’ll see from our photos, seeing all these ancient sites went to our heads. When you’re seeing so many amazing things that are all similar, sometimes they tend to run together and you begin to take them for granted. After the hundredth toppled column, amphitheatre and tomb site we started to have to make our own fun to make each site memorable.

Selçuk is the city closest to the ancient site of Ephesus. These ruins are equivalent to Petra for Turkey, if not more so. And for that reason, it’s always PACKED with bus tours. Having heard so many stories about how disappointing the site is, due to the huge crowds, I had low expectations. We went into Ephesus with patience and endurance on our side so we ended up enjoying it much more than we thought. As long as we didn’t try to hurry, we got to see everything we wanted, through the breaks in the flowing crowds. We started in upper Ephesus, walking downhill as to save us the energy in the heat of the day. Saw the Temple of Domitian, the Gate of Hercules, the supposed “brothel” and got a great view of the Library of Celsus as we approached. The façade Library is the quintessential postcard photo from Turkey and was truly spectacular. We also visited the Terraced Houses exhibit, even though it meant another 15L on top of the original 20L entry fee. It was surprisingly worth it – these are the uncovered houses of the upper classes that resided in Ephesus. It was really interesting to see the luxury that people lived in with rich marble walls and floors, decorated with intricate mosaics and frescoes. We wrapped up the site by visiting the Great Theatre, among other things. Though we’ve seen countless theatres, this was quite impressive for its sheer size – capable of seating up to 25,000 people.

Ephesus also has some interesting early Christian history. This is where St. John the Evangelist came and wrote the fourth book of the Bible as well as Revelations. We visited the ruins of the Basilica of St. John that lie on a hill over Selçuk where also lies his burial site. Supposedly, he also took Mary here from Jerusalem and Ephesus is where she is said to have lived out her remaining years. There is the Virgin Mary’s House about 15 km away that we did not get to visit, but is said to be where she lived.

The next day we took a bus to Pammukale to see the ruins of ancient Hieropolis. Again there was a huge theatre, some tombs, the grand Arch of Domitian, the agora (marketplace) and some very impressive latrines still standing. While we made sure to explore every site, what draw the crowds to this site are the huge calcium deposits that creep down the hillside, forming beautiful, spring-fed pools. From ancient times till about 20 years ago, people would come from all over to bathe in the pools for their minerals – until the Turkish government realized how much environmental damage the flocks of tourists caused and cut it out. We could still walk on the calcium rock and wade in side artificial pools, which gave our feet a little respite from all the touring.

The next day we got on a minibus to take us to the ancient site of Afrodisias, about an hour’s ride away from Pammukale.  This site was dedicated to the goddess Aphrodite and we saw the ruins of the temple turned Christian church in subsequent years.  More impressive was the stadium that was over 270 meters long.  We practiced our gladiator poses, as you’ll see in the photos. The museum was also really interesting since it had dozens of bas-reliefs from the site each with a carved scene from ancient Roman mythology, with very informative descriptions.  Being a mythology buff, I took my time reading and interpreting every sign even though it made us a little late in catching our bus back.

All this sightseeing was quite a whirlwind of activity.  That night we caught the night bus to Istanbul.  But that is a different story all together.  Promise to catch you all up soon on our awesome time in Istanbul!