Turkey – Wander and Explore

Turkey (Istanbul part 1) Ortakoy – Istiklal Street – Pierre Lotti

Published on 11th Aug 202111th Aug 2021 by wanderandexplore88Leave a comment

If we are talking about Istanbul, we are talking about the largest City in Turkey. It is divided into two parts, the European side and the Asian Side. When we visited Turkey last October, we only visited the European side. Hopefully, once we go back there next time, we can explore more.

Ortakoy Village

After breakfast at the hotel, we went directly to Ortakoy. Ortakoy was a cosmopolitan area during the Ottoman era and in the first decade of the Turkish Republic. To this day, the neighborhood still hosts many different religious structures. It’s also a good place to stop for tea or coffee time. Coffeehouses and tea terraces overlooking the seaside next to the mosque now as they have for centuries and are one of Ortakoy’s prime attractions. From there you can also get a super amazing overlook view of the Bosphorus bridge. Ortakoy Mosque is also one of the attractions you can visit. With an elegant architecture, Ortakoy Mosque is one of the most beautiful mosques in Istanbul. It was built in the 19th century and gives an impression of standing on the water.

How to get there? It’s easy to access from anywhere. If you stay at Sultanahmet, you can use tramway (T1) in front of sultanahmet to go to kabatas. In kabatas station, there’s a bus station that goes to Ortakoy every 5 minutes. Public Bus Line 22, 22RE and 25E from Kabatas Or if you want, grab a meter taxi to get there.

We tried two different options of food that a lot of sellers had offered there, waffle and kumpir. Kumpir is Turkey’s traditional food, a baked potato filled with ingredients such as olives, meats, corn, cheese, etc. You can add ketchup and mayonnaise too if you like. In our opinion, it’s super yum!

Kumpir with sausage, cheese, corn with ketchup and mayonnaise

Taksim Square/Istiklal Street

Next destination is Istiklal Street next to the Taksim Square. This place is a must visit for all travelers in Istanbul. Istiklal Street means “Independence Avenue” and is a 1,5 km long colorful pedestrian street and grand boulevard full of all kinds of shops, restaurants, cafes and street shows.

How to get there? If you stay at Sultanahmet, the easiest way is by the tram. Take the tram at sultanahmet square to Kabatas tram station, get off, go across the street, go down to the METRO station and take the funicular to Taksim. Istiklal is off Taksim square. The old tunnel tram stops at Taksim Square. You can take that down Istiklal Street.

There are many things you can do in Istiklal Street. Shopping branded stuff (people say it’s not too recommended since it’s a touristy area, you might end up getting charged on a higher price), Chit Chat with friends at the bar/café while sipping your coffee or even wine, ride an old tram, visit Madame Tussauds, visit historical sites like Tunnel Square, Church of Holy Trinity, ST. Antoine of Padua Church, or you can just take pictures for your Instagram feed.

The Flower Passage is a famous historical arcade in Istiklal Street containing many cafes, restaurants and wineries. After the Russian revolution of 1917, many formerly wealthy Russian women sold flowers here. That was how this place was originally named. You can enjoy this area either by strolling through on a leisurely journey through Istiklal Street or by sitting and enjoying a meal or a beverage under its domed roof.

Pierre Lotti

Our last stop before going back to the Hotel was Pierre Lotti Hill. Pierre Lotti offers a spectacular panoramic view. You can enjoy the panoramic view while having a tea at one of the rustic teahouses and restaurants up here.

How to get there? Take a bus or ferry from Eminönü to Eyüp, then take the cable car near Eyüp port to the top. You can also wander past the Eyüp mosque and go up through an old Ottoman cemetery. Alcohol is forbidden there due to the close proximity to Eyüp mosque.

Cable Car to Pierre Lotti

The View

After all those places, we came back to the Hotel for Dinner and rested. We will share another Istanbul Story soon.

xoxo

Day Tour to Ankara

Published on 19th Jul 202123rd Jul 2021 by wanderandexplore88Leave a comment

Our plan for the last destination, before everyone else on the tour went back to Indonesia, was to visit and spend a couple of days in Istanbul. From Cappadocia, it took about 8 hours of driving by bus and before we had arrived in Istanbul there were 2 places we had visited, Lake Tuz (Salt Lake) and Anitkabir in Ankarra.

Location and what to see at Lake Tuz

Tuz Gölü

Lake Tuz, (in Tuskish: Tuz Golu) or sometimes called Pink Lake, is located near Aksaray and is about an hour drive from Cappadocia. This lake is the second biggest lake in Turkey. During most of the year, it is very shallow (approximately 0.4 m (1 ft)). The salt mining generates industrial activity in the region. Lake Tuz was declared a specially protected area, including all of the lake surface and surrounding waterbeds and also some of the important neighboring steppe areas. The main Turkish breeding colony of greater flamingo, (Phoenicopterus roseus) is present on a group of islands in the southern part of the lake. For your information, the salt that extracted from the lake is exported to more than 60 countries, which really supports the economy in this region. Once you arrive and enter the area, you will find a store that sells souvenirs and, of course, they also sell products made from salt such as bath soap, bath salt, etc.

Bad hair day + strong wind = disaster picture xD

We met a crazy doggo here that tried to stole our attention.

Location and what to see at Anitkabir

From Lake Tuz we continued our journey to Ankara. About 5 hours later we arrived at Anitkabir. Anitkabir is the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the leader of the Turkish War Independence Day and the first President of the Republic of Turkey. The site is also the final resting place of Ismet Inonu, the second President of Turkey who was interred there after he died in 1973. His tomb faces the Atatürk Mausoleum, on the opposite side of the Ceremonial Ground. You enter the mausoleum through huge brass doors. Don’t forget to remove your hat out of respect (a guard will remind you if you forget to do so).

Don’t miss the chance to see the changing guards of the soldiers, which involves a lot of goose-stepping, loud stomping about and yelling of ceremonial orders. The Anıtkabir is open every day from 09:00 to 17:00 (til 16:00 in winter). The museum closes for lunch from 12:00 to 13:00. Admission fee is free.

Our next destination was Istanbul. Unfortunately, we had arrived in the evening around 8 pm at Hotel Golden Way Giyimkent and we were too tired to hang out somewhere else so we decided to just stay in the hotel and watch netflix before we slept.

Once Upon a Time in Turkey (Cappadocia)

Published on 9th Jan 20219th Jan 2021 by wanderandexplore88Leave a comment

Cappadocia has been in our travel bucket list for so long. We finally had the chance to visit this year. It took 10 hours of driving from our previous destination, Selcuk Izmir. We Arrived a bit late at night around 10 pm so we couldn’t see much at that time. We checked in at the Hotel called Alp Stone Concept Hotel, located in Avanos Cappadocia. Originally, we wanted to stay at the cave hotel in Goreme but we needed to follow the other participants so we stayed in there instead. The hotel was okay, had a lot of cave-like features and was located not too far from the main attractions we were about to visit so we were happy with that.

We didn’t have it in our budget to ride a hot air balloon. Our budget was going to be used for accommodation and food for another week in Turkey. We can always visit again in the future so skipping the hot air balloon for now was fine for us. Ayu is afraid of heights anyway and wasn’t easy to convince her to ride it hahaha. Even though we weren’t going to ride it, we planned to wake up in the morning to catch up with the magical view when the balloons started to fly. So at 6 am in the morning we, and two other friends, called the Taxi from the hotel to take us to Goreme, it took only 5 minutes to get there. We only needed to pay TL 75 for the taxi and the driver also waited for us for around 45 minutes. It was a pretty good deal.

As you can imagine, the view was beautiful. Hundreds of hot air balloons were flying. We might not be able to show you the best pictures for now since we weren’t taking pictures from up above but we were still able to take beautiful pictures. 😊

Hot air balloons in Cappadocia

In the afternoon, the itinerary was to visited Pigeon Valley and Uchisar Castle and later, before going back to the hotel, we visited the Underground City. In just about 10 minutes from our hotel, we arrived at Pigeon Valley. It earned its name from the countless man made dovecotes (Pigeon Houses) that have been carved into the soft volcanic tuff. The valley is located between Goreme and Uchisar. There was a little souvenir shop if you wanted to buy small gifts to bring home.

The view from Pigeon Valley

Pigeon Valley from above
source: Mr. Danny’s drone 😁

After a couple of shots in Pigeon Valley, we continued our journey to the next stop, Uchisar. Uçhisar, which is situated on the edge of Goreme National Park, is dominated by a 60-metre-high castle mountain. It is visible over a wide distance and has the form of a large cylindrical tower. The top of the Uchisar Castle provides a magnificent panorama of the surrounding area. It served as residential areas in Byzantine times. Originally, around 1,000 people lived in the castle but it is no longer inhabited today. The landscape is also marked by the fairy chimney scattered through it. The fairy chimneys of Uchisar were hollowed out and used as graves during the Roman period.

After spending time in Uchisar, we drove to the Underground City. Built to protect the ancient inhabitants, the underground cities allowed thousands of people to live their lives in total secrecy. It is believed that the underground cities were initially built by the Phrygians during the 8^th through 7^th centuries BC, who carved their living spaces into the region’s soft volcanic rock. Later on, during the Roman era and the replacement of the Phrygian language with Greek, then Christian inhabitants continued to work on the underground cities adding their own cultural and religious necessities such as chapels and Greek inscriptions. They continued to protect their citizens around 14^th century when Christians needed a protection from the threat of the Mongolians during the assaults, and once again during the Ottoman era. Even during the 20^th century, the caves allowed for people to save themselves from the Ottoman Empire until about 1923. The underground cities were completely abandoned and then not rediscovered until 1963, when a resident found a strange room behind a wall inside his house.

There are 36 underground cities in Cappadocia and the biggest ones that you can visit are Kaymakkali and Derinkuyu, but during the pandemic, many underground cities are temporarily closed to the public. So we could only visit a smaller one that only had three floors. It contained stables at the first floor, the second floor was for the churches and the baptism area. The third floor contained most of the storage and resources in the underground compound and also held other important things such as wine or oil presses, and kitchens. At the exit gate of the city, there was a small shop that sold gifts and souvenirs.

Once we were done exploring the underground city, we went back to the hotel to rest so we could continue our journey on the next day visiting the ceramic factory and Ankara before we finally departed to Istanbul.

To be continued..

Once Upon a Time in Turkey Part 2(Ephesus – Pamukkale – Hierapolis)

Published on 7th Dec 20202nd Jan 2021 by wanderandexplore88Leave a comment

On the second day, after we had breakfast and took some pictures at our first Hotel in Izmir, we checked out and headed to the leather factory in Selcuk. Selcuk is one of the cities in the Izmir province. It only took about 15 minutes to reach from our first hotel. Izmir is famous for the quality of it’s leather. According to the manager at the leather factory, in the Greek era, Izmir didn’t obtain paper supplies from Egypt so the people needed to think of an alternative. Animal leather was their solution. That was the history of the establishment of the leather factory in Izmir.

In the leather factory called Kobakko, they would hold a private fashion show for every group that came to their factory. Sometimes they would invite you to join to their fashion show with all their gorgeous models, hahaha. The quality of their leather is really good, you will get a lifetime guarantee if you buy their collection. Although, their normal price is high at about $1000 – $7000 depending on the model and material. They will give you discounts up to 70% but if you still think it’s not in your budget, no harm trying to negotiate a bit lower :). Oh they also have an orange garden outside. If you want to, they will let you to pick some oranges for free!

One of our group tour participant join the fashion show

*Another group tour participant join the fashion show*

After shopping-time was done, we headed to Ephesus. Ephesus is an ancient Greek city on the coast of Kusadasi which is three kilometres southwest of present-day Selcuk in Izmir Province. It was built in the 10th century BC on the site of the former by Attic and Ionian Greek colonist. During the classical greek era, it was one of the twelve cities of the Ionian league. The city flourished after it came under the control of the Roman empire in 129 BC.

The city was famous for its nearby Artemis Temple, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, and famous for its library called Library of Celcus. There is also a theatre capable of holding 25,000 spectators. If you have the time and want to explore more, up in the hill there is a house that, in legend, is said was a house of the Virgin Mary. The house where she spent the last years of her life in Ephesus.

A lot of explanation and description signs are available for you to read and learn in Ephesus. Forget about the people who walk around you and walk around slowly. Imagine you are traveling back in time by listening to some classical Greek songs while reading those descriptions. Oh, watch your step! It could be slippery at some parts 🙂 and don’t forget to take some amazing pictures!

In the late afternoon, after we had lunch, we went to Pamukkale, which means Cotton Castle in Turkish. This area was declared as a World Heritage Site and is famous for its carbonate minerals that are left by the flowing thermal spring waters. The rich mineral waters attracted people to visit this area for thousand of years and was used as a Spa since the 2nd century BC. It is located in Turkey’s Inner Aegean region, in the River Menderes valley.

The ancient Greek-Roman city of Hierapolis was built on top of it. It can be seen from the hills on the opposite side of the valley in the town of Denizli. In the period of the Roman Empire, Hierapolis and its site were a health centre. Thousands of people used to come to the baths. Today’s Antique Pool that we called Cleopatra’s Pool was shaped by the earthquake which happened in the 7th century AD. The marble portico with Ionic arrangement fell into the spring during that earthquake.

I don’t think Turkish people know covid-19

We’ll continue again soon with the next destination..

With Love,

Jake and Ayu

Once Upon a Time in Turkey (Bursa)

Published on 30th Nov 202030th Nov 2020 by wanderandexplore88Leave a comment

Traveling during the pandemic? It sounds crazy, but that’s what we did, despite the fact that there are many possibilities that we could get sick. Thankfully, everything went so smooth from making the plan until going back home. All we did was protect our selves by wearing masks, drink vitamin, tried to avoid the crowd if we can and the last was praying.

When we heard that Turkey was finally reopened for many countries except for American and Indonesian, we were really stressed. Originally we were going to reunite in April 2020, Jake was about to go to Bali, spend the holiday about a month, but due to Covid-19 spreading out and becoming a pandemic, almost all countries had closed their borders and we needed to wait again. When Turkey was reopened, of course we were so excited but there was a hoax that was spread out too. There was news that American, Indonesian and some other nationalities are banned from coming to Turkey! Gosh, we were crying and asking why the situation has to be so hard? Finally, after doing some research and asking around here and there, we knew that it was just a hoax! Yay! 😆 We didn’t really know what the situation was out there, so we decided to join the tour group from Indonesia and Jake was able to join the group in Istanbul airport. The cost from Indonesia was about $ 1,200/pax all included (accommodation for 7 nights (4 stars hotels), full board, transportation, flights, guide fee and PCR test) that is so affordable!

Since the only airport that was operating for International flight at the moment was Soekarno Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, Ayu needed to book a flight from Bali to Jakarta and meet the group at the departure gate in terminal 3. We had to prepare our tickets and keep our distance with everyone in the airport and they also checked our rapid test (blood test is required for domestic flight). The boarding time was at 9.30 pm and the flight took 12 hours to reach Istanbul with Turkish airlines. Meanwhile, Jake had already arrived after it took hours of flights from North Carolina to Amsterdam and finally landed in Istanbul the night before. He spent the night in a nearby hotel before he met with the group at 5 am in the morning.

The flight wasn’t so bad. After the tiring 12 hours, we finally had landed in Istanbul. Phew! The airport was new, big and clean and had just finished constructed in October 2018, so all you see are fresh and new stuff. Anyway, for Indonesian travelers, it’s better to have your rupiahs exchanged into USD/Euro and exchange it into Turkish lira when you arrive in Turkey rather than having rupiahs exchanged into Turkish lira there because the rupiahs rate is bad in Turkey. The money exchange counter can be found at the arrival gate after the immigration. It’s actually not that much different between exchanging your money in the airport or in the city. If you don’t like that idea, you could just get the money from ATM machines instead. Of course your credit card is usable in Turkey but sometimes you need to have cash to buy souvenirs or snacks in small shop, so it’s better to prepare in advance.

We finally reunited! After almost a year of waiting since Covid-19 announced as a global pandemic and made almost all countries close their borders, we met again! Can’t believe it’s finally happened. 🙂

Ok, so.. after some hugs and laughs with tears, we started our journey with the group by Bus (there were only 15 people including us, the guide, tour leader and the driver. It was a small group. The tour leader told me in a normal situation, the participants were more than 20 persons each batch. In the global pandemic, not everyone could afford it and some are still concerned about the health conditions, the unknown situation out there and many other reasons so there were not that many people who wanted to join.

The first place is Bursa City. From Istanbul airport to Bursa it took about 2 hours to get there. Bursa city was the first capital of Ottoman Empire.

Just before we arrived at Bursa, we had brunch in a nearby restaurant and then we visited a souvenir shop called Munira. They were selling a lot of stuff from honey, Turkish soap, praying matt, saffron and, of course, Turkish delight. The price was quite expensive compared to other souvenir shops in Istanbul but the quality of their products were good. The shopkeeper also gave us explanations of some products that were mainly about honey, saffron and Turkish delights.

The shopkeeper gave us product explanation

The next stop was Grand Mosque Bursa, or in Turkish they call it Ulu Camii (which means great mosque). Grand mosque is the largest mosque in Bursa city. It was built in 1399 by the order of Sultan Beyazid I. It is well known for it’s decorative calligraphy and is even called a calligraphy museum.

Not too far from Grand Mosque there was Green Mosque, or Yesil Camii in Turkish. Green Mosque was recently named a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This is Ayu’s favorite spot. The mosque vibes here were so peaceful with the outside area looking so neat and the architecture of Green Mosque being as impressive as it was. It was commissioned in 1412 by Sultan Mehmed I Celebi. Next to the mosque there is mausoleum called Green Tomb where Sultan Mehmed I was buried.

Bursa was one of the cities that were traversed by the silk route, which was why there were some shops selling silk nearby. If you don’t wanna buy anything, we recommend taking some instagrammable pictures instead since it gave us some options for cute picture-taking spots 🙂

Once everyone gathered back together, we continued our trip to Izmir, which was also where we spent our first night in Turkey. So.. to get there we rode another 4 hours on the bus 😂 Yeah, we know, that was a bit tiring but we had a lot of fun together. We were so excited for our second day in Turkey to spend time to explore in the Ephesus Ancient City and Pamukkale, the Cotton Castle. 🙂

To be continued..