Next  |  1  |  2  | 3  |  4  | 5  |  Home

Returning to the US for a short break in travel, I stopped by Virginia, where I visited with Pete, Sue, Gena and Rachael. Then on to Colorado for only a few days before flying to Santa Barbara with Sherrie. Santa Barbara was stormy, huge winds and rain. There I got an estimate on a possible face lift.  Too bad it's so expensive...  The rest of February and March were spent in Colorado recovering from the rota virus I got in Virginia, the flu I got in Santa Barbara, and the strep throat I got in Colorado.  Better to stick to warm climates in the winter.

READYF~1.JPG (35987 bytes)

Ready for Takeoff

 

BALLOO~1.JPG (23535 bytes)

Ballooning

 

KONYAM~1.JPG (19484 bytes)

Konya Mevlana Museum

 

 

 

GATEOF~1.JPG (24586 bytes)

Gate to Ancient Caravanserai

 

 

 

 

In May, Sherrie and I flew to Turkey.  From childhood, I've thought that Istanbul must be a wonderful and exotic place.  It really is.  It's kind of like San Francisco:  sea, green hills, and great food.  Add in thousands of years of history, the Topkapi museum, the bazaars, gorgeous mosques, and great shopping for such things as silk scarves, leather coats, and ceramics, plus a great exchange rate, and you have one great city.  While there we visited the Sufi temple with whirling dervishes ...a marvelous experience.  Then it was off to Cappadocia.  This area has ancient volcanic rock caves, which were in use during the days of early Christianity as monasteries. There are still paintings from that time on some of the walls.  We stayed in a hotel built into caves, and went out to tour every day.  We took a balloon trip over the absolutely incredible landscape.  The balloon trip was possibly the best thing I've ever done. More ballooning is definitely on the agenda. We took a day trip to Konya, home of the whirling dervishes, founded around 1231, where the temple is now a museum housing the tomb of the founder, Celaddin Rumi.  

Mosque~1.jpg (10956 bytes)

Mosque at Sunset -Istanbul

We drove to Ankara to fly back to Istanbul, where we tried to take in the museum in only 2 hours before our plane.  Anatolia, the area in central Turkey, was a center of Neolithic goddess worship. Anatolia and the area around the Black Sea was home to the Amazons before the Greeks wiped them out and relegated women to less than human status.  The museum in Ankara has a wonderful collection of Neolithic goddess sculptures, pottery, etc., as well as gold belts and tiaras from the days of the Amazons.  They also have later Assyrian things, but there just wasn't enough time before our flight to take in everything.  At the airport, I was almost arrested for having a suspicious lead film bag. But having survived that, the rest of the trip back to Istanbul was uneventful.

We made another short excursion to Paamukale.  At the tiny airport there, no one spoke English. I was forced to practice my very rusty German. At Paamukale hot springs bubble out of the mountain, and there have been baths there at least since Roman times.  The state-run pool has pieces of Roman columns and statues in the bottom.  We had to swim in the rain, but the water is perfect temperature for the body and is said to have healing properties.  It bubbles up like fizzy water and the little air bubbles stick to your body.  It was a marvelous experience. I would go back to Turkey just to bathe in this pool again.

PAAMUK~1.JPG (28770 bytes)

Healing Spring at Paamukale

GAMIRA~1.JPG (20789 bytes)

Gamirasu Cave Hotel

 

IBRAHI~1.JPG (31210 bytes)

Ibrahim Bastutan, Host & Guide in Cappadocia

 

CAPPAD~2.JPG (36113 bytes)

Cappadocia Rockscape

 

 

CAPPAD~1.JPG (28679 bytes)

Town in Cappadocia

 

 

Next  |  1  |  2  | 3  |  4  | 5  |  Home