Last night in Turkey.

Amy is graciously preparing a meal in our apartment which we have rented here in Istanbul for the last 5 nights.   It's a great place.  We are on the top floor of the Marti Apartment building in the Beyoglu district and our suite comes complete with kitchen and terrace.  We have prepared most of our own meals, eaten breakfast on the terrace in the morning and it has provided us a great place to relax and rest after a day of sightseeing/drinking/shopping  :).
 
The second day we were here we revisited Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque - even the second time around the sites still left our jaws on the floor.

The other night we attended a well renowned local jazz club called "Nardis", where we bore witness to the Onur Ataman Ensemble (Mark you would have loved it.....). Onur is a very accomplished jazz musician. He graduated from the Istanbul State Conservatory and was accepted to the Dutch Royal Conservatory jazz guitar faculty in 2001 and  graduated with his masters degree in 2007. He was the first Turkish musician in the schools history. He later got his Phd at Leiden University in The Netherlands and Orpheus Institute in Ghent, Belgium. Let's just say the band was incredible....

Yesterday we visited the Ortakoy district and enjoyed a meal next to the Bosphorus bridge.  Today we visited one of the more beautiful churches I have been to called the Chora Church, which is a Byzantine monument with almost all of its interior decoration dating from around 1312. 

And tonight is our last night on the trip.  Our flight leaves tomorrow morning at 6 am so Aims and I have decided to try and stay up all night in order to sleep on the plane and hopefully help our cause of avoiding terrible jet lag when we get home. 

Coming back to Istanbul Aims and I are reminded as to why we love this city.  It's a mecca of people and culture.  The trip in general has been amazing yet again and we hope to return someday.  I'll stop talking and post some pics.  Thanks again everyone - we're looking forward to seeing you all back home. 

Lamy

Dinner on the terrace. It was nice to be able to prepare our own meals (by that I mean Amy cooked).  But Amy didn't have to worry about trying to translate Gluten and dairy sensitivity to the waiters.......

 

A shot of the street below our apartment.  Just around the corner to the right was a small local grocery store where we bought our groceries and more importantly our wine!

 

Hagia Sofia.

 

 

Blue Mosque

 

Aims @ Nardis

 

Onur Ataman Ensemble

 

This is a Turkish game show that Amy and I got addicted to.  It's called "Ben Bilmem Esim Bilir" which I think loosely translates to "I know my wife knows".  Basically the one contestant from each couple determines how well their significant other will do in a contest consisting of such things as carrying tea around an obstacle field in a certain time, or how many hot peppers one can eat in 60 seconds...........quite entertaining especially after a bottle of wine or two!

 

Just one of the many contests. Ridiculousness is hilarious in any language......

 

On our way down to the Ortakoy district.  We believe these flags (which are hung all over the city) are in celebration of Republic Day coming up on October 29th.

 

A shot of the Chora Church.

 

Aims admiring some of the frescoes and mosaics in Chora Church

 

Shot of the inner hall of the church

 

Lamy!

 

 

 

We've been gettin' busy

Hey everyone,

Lance-O and I are being lazy sacks of meat hanging out at the Hilton in Sanliurfa. We just got back from our tour of southeastern Turkey and fly out to Istanbul tomorrow. We have had an amazing time but are ready to head back to the big city. Here is what we have been up to!

Here are some night shots from our last night in our favourite new town, Mardin.

 

 

 

 

After Mardin, we visited an unexpectedly amazing little village called Dara. I had never heard of it before but it is home to some magnificent Roman ruins dating back to the 6th century. Dara was home to Mesopotamia's first dam and irrigation canals. We were the only tourists at the site (truly amazing considering how intact and maintained it is) and we were given our own private tour by one of the security guards at the site, Murat. He was great and even took us around the village to the various ruins and gave us a little explanation of what we were looking at.

 



 

Here is a shot of the necropolis of Dara which stretches for about a kilometer. NO TOURISTS!!!! If this site was in Italy or Greece there would be gigantic tour buses blocking this shot.

Each of the carved out holes you see was a grave site, often housing more than one person, and sometimes families.

As Murat said, "People bones!"

 

More people bones!

 

Lamy: happy little travellers.

Behind me are the water cisterns which stored water for the population.

Here is a look at the modern village that sits atop the ruins of Dara. After Dara, we headed north back towards Mardin and visited the monastery of Deyrul Zafaran.

 

The first monastery at this site was built in 495 AD over top of a site previously dedicated to the worship of the sun. The monastery was destroyed by the Persians in 607 and subsequently rebuilt.

 

 

Today the site acts as a local boarding school and tourist destination.

Here is the 'original sanctuary' where sun worshippers supposedly viewed the rising sun (god) through the window at the back eastern wall.

 

 

 

 

This is the chapel in the monastery where services are held in Aramaic. After our visit at the monastery, we drove to the little town of Savur to stay with a family, eat a home cooked meal from Grandma and feed a kitty.

 

 

Our room in Savur.
 

 

He was no Bo Cat Gordon, but he was cute!

 

 

Savur at night from the terrace of the house we were staying. So nice! After our one night, we drove for about 7 hours to the village of Karadut, our launching pad for Nemrut Dagi.

 

 

 

Room with a view....

 

 

And a sense of childlike nostalgia.

 

 

After enjoying our spectacular room we visited the summit of Mt Nemrut which rises to 2150 meters and is in the Anti-Tauraus Range.

 

 

Here is a shot of the western terrace of Nemrut Dagi. The statutes you see were ordered by Antiochus I Epiphanes who reigned in the area from 64-38 BC.

 

 

Romance!

 

One of the fallen heads from the western terrace - knocked off due to the elements, including earthquakes.

 



 

 

 

Some more of the heads on the western terrace.

 

 

The eastern terrace behind us is more in tact. Here you can see the 'thrones of the gods'. From left to right the gods were: Apollo; Fortuna; Zeus; Antiochus, self proclaimed god; and Heracles. I realize there are six thrones and I only named five gods. Yah, I don't know. That is what Lonely Planet told me and it is 11pm here and I am too lazy from wine to investigate further.

 

 

 

Eastern terrace.

 

 

Zeus, is that you?

 

 

 

We visited Nemrut with a group of Belgian tourists who were the best entertainment ever! They constantly broke into song and they could actually sing. I danced a jig in celebration. No, I did not grow an extra leg in Turkey. Behind me is our new friend Selin from Istanbul who was travelling by herself on vacation.

 

 

 

She was a ham like us so we got along famously. She gave us a cheat sheet of all the places to go in Istanbul. We cant wait to hit up the baklava joint she recommended.

 

Okay, that is it for now. Off to Istanbul tomorrow and we will update you all soon.

 

Much love,

Lamy Gillespie

Mastercard likes Mardin

G'day everyone,

As the title to this post suggests, we be shopping in Mardin. Grant, Eunice, Doro and Mark will all be receiving gifts from this lovely little town when we get home!

We haven't taken our own photo yet of Mardin, so we borrowed this one after a Google image search. As you can see, the town is situated on top of a hill/mini mountain.

This is the view from our hotel's (Erdoba) terrace.

Another view from our terrace. On the hill to the right you can see the crescent moon and star from the Turkish flag.

 

Me looking kinda constipated on the terrace. Definetly was NOT constipated....yah....uh huh...Sultan swung by for a quick visit...The Sultan does not discriminate between bay (men) and bayan (women) so Lance was also greeted by the Sultan.

 

 

Our modest little room....with vaulted ceilings

 

 

Last nights feast was a gluten sensitivity NIGHTMARE but was so good. This was a traditional dish of lamb and bulgur washed down with local red wine in goblets (reminded us of medieval times in Vegas hah!). We actually liked them so much we bought some for our house. Dustin, I know this speaks to you. We got a set of four. Gillespie party time!

 

 

 

This is the little shop where we bought our goblets, a serving tray and water vessel....all hand made by this guy:

 

 

 

Yes Doro....we got you something here too....and it might look a little something like THIS:

 

 

Or maybe not. You will just have to wait and see.

 

We have one more night in our castle on a hill before we head to the little town of Savur. I don't think we will have internet access there as it is quite remote but we will post again as soon as possible.

 

Love you lots,

Lamy