#turkey Archives • Page 2 of 3 • Folksy Travel by Bill Smale

March 24, 2025March 24, 2025

Inspecting Topkapi episode 1

By inspecting Topkapi you are looking into the whims and interests of the sultanates of the Ottoman Empire. Save about three hours to walk around this palace and the areas and look very closely at design details. There is a beauty here which is an amalgamation from many different cultures which can’t give you some insight into the thinking of past generations. After I visited I remembered there was a movie “Topkapi” so I went back to see that and it was about a heist in this palace and it’s a kind of an interesting movie. You can see where a famous mission impossible movie scene was copied. I won’t spill the beans. You will just need to watch the movie and enjoy the limited view of the palace until you get a chance to visit.

Explanation of the term "harem" — After you enter the palace and if you start on the left side you will first enter the harem which is an extremely important and beautiful part of the palace. Make sure you understand the meaning of the word “harem” because it is incorrectly construed most of the time.

Inspecting Topkapi door — Beautiful door

Sitting area — This is where the sultan and the ladies of the harem would sit around

Beautiful round decoration on the ceiling with Arabic in the middle

Beautiful window — Very decorative window

The black eunuchs — The eunuchs from Africa

The palace was named ‘Topkapi’ in the 1800s, meaning ‘cannon gate. ‘ Before that, it was simply known as the New Palace. It was commissioned by Mehmed the Conqueror in 1459, soon after he took over Constantinople.

Breakfast offering — This was one of the very simple breakfast offerings which you can see has very distinct and separate elements such as olives, tomatoes, cucumber, cold cuts, pastry and bread

March 21, 2025March 21, 2025

Visit Underground Cappadocia

when you visit underground Cappadocia the first thing you might think is the people were very short, not taller than 3 feet. They built these catacombs by digging in the rock for so many years is probably difficult to determine how many. They made the passages short so any people raiding the area would have to crouch down to get through the passage and that means it would be extremely difficult for them to fight. Try walking through the many levels of carved tunnels and you will come to understand why people left these rock dwellers alone. It’s one of the most interesting living arrangements made by humans.

Staircase to another level — The stairways to other levels are narrow and curve around so enemies could never see what’s in the distance.

Difficult lighting — I really wonder how they would have lighted these tunnels without creating a deadly breathing environment. But maybe the breathing environment was deadly.

Gathering area — There are larger areas where they lived and stayed for longer periods of time and which branch off to different tunnels and levels

Very short passage ways — You can see how difficult it is to get through this place quickly which was probably the purpose of the structure. If you visit you will find yourself getting extremely tired bending down and walking at the same time. These people must’ve been very sturdy

Holes in the walkways — There are holes in the passage ways which the guide explained were used for storing things but also for providing traps for enemies coming through. But can you imagine rotting bodies in those holes? Maybe they had a removal crew.

Grates on the holes — now there are grates over the holes but they are good traps once the grates are removed

Cross-section showing levels — This cross-section shows six or more levels carved inside the limestone rock but they were probably more

Snowing on the roads — Driving back to the hotel in the snow. Yes it snows heavily in Turkey and I hit a lot of of it

Beautiful snowy countryside — But you can see that the snow adds beauty to the countryside

A Turkish beer — The Turkish beer is very tasty and very good after a long day of driving and walking through tunnels and avoiding the large Chinese tour groups

March 20, 2025March 20, 2025

Istanbul interesting stuff

Istanbul interesting stuff is all over the place. Make sure you walk slowly and pay attention to very small things wherever you go. One thing to note is you will enjoy looking at all the different restaurants with food from all over the world. Don’t hesitate to try them out. I found the quality of food and turkey to be extremely good.

Old Temple — a temple in the old bazaar area

A hookah user — a hookah used at a local Turkish coffee shop. It can get pretty noisy with all the bubbling sounds

National Republic Monument — The national Republic Memorial atTaksim

A Christmas tree — Interesting decoration at this time of year, February

A church — a somewhat secluded church dedicated to Saint Anthony of Pauda

Bar Street — an alleyway of bars near Pera palace Hotel. Be a little bit careful here. The bartender put a bowl of peanuts on the table with the beer and no comment. Later he tried to charge me quite a bit of money for the peanuts which I refused to pay.

Unwittingly charged peanuts — These are the peanuts for which I was unwittingly charged

A stew — an interesting meat stew with bread and tea which is normally free but they tried to charge the tourists for tea

A wrap kebab — This was one of my favorites which I always hoped they provided with the light green colored spicy pepper pickles

You can see from the pictures above that they are trying to say the Ottoman ice cream is served in flat layers

Pink tea — I didn’t know there was such a thing as pink tea leaves

Seafood at the port — This was down at a fish restaurant at the fishing port which was fairly expensive and not much seafood. I didn’t think it was worth it

Cat heaven — at the port with all the fish being sold in the open this fellow is in heaven

Model of cable car — This is a model of the old Hill cable car

Dubai chocolate — I didn’t know until I came here that Dubai made chocolate and it is so famous but I was not interested in trying it

Typical food — You will see this is sort of the typical arrangement with some meat or main vegetable dish and then raw vegetables and stuff just put on the side

A view of Istanbul — a view of Istanbul from my favorite coffee shop. They also serve delicious ice cream

Weapon storage — I wonder where they keep the arrival weapons at the airport

March 16, 2025March 16, 2025

Along the Turkey Coast

for the slow traveler I highly recommend traveling south along the Adriatic/mediterranean coastline and visiting all the different little towns and some bigger towns along the turkey coast. There seems to be quite a bit of seafood and interest in scuba diving but I haven’t investigated that very much. But I haven’t really had any bad food in my six weeks travel and I don’t know how the scuba diving is. Try them out and see if they are to your liking.

Campers on the coast — Campers come from all over to enjoy the Adriatic coast and sunsets

Islands along the coast — Some of the islands along the coast are within a 15 minute boat ride and you will need your passport because they are in Greece

Very beautiful coastline — The evenings are very nice with a lot of Oceanside walkways and lights

A typical Turkish meal — This is very typical of a lunch or dinner plate in Turkey. You have the meat with some kind of other vegetable or something, in this case meatballs with eggplant. Then they put raw onion and tomato and maybe a long green pepper

Secondhand sales on the street — A simple backstreet market for people to sell whatever they have collected, quite a bit of it was secondhand

Nice car color — I just liked the color of this car. I think it was a Renault

Often stopping for a Guinness — Of course once in a while ….

Nice green pickles — I love these very sour pickles which seem to be available in many different places including bars and pubs

Beautiful sunset — A beautiful sunset along the Adriatic

Insistent cat — This cat just kept insisting on getting up on me. I put him down on the ground and he came right back up again

Nice dogs — I made friends in many places. These guys were very welcoming

A filling wrap — Just some street food with some vegetable and meat inside. Actually this was quite a big lunch for me.

Spicy green peppers — I bought this jar of pickled green peppers. They are very sour, vinegar and spicy, just my taste

Tantuni Wraps — Tantuni’s create these very delicious wraps

Apollo's temple — The temple to Apollo which was closed due to renovations

Sponge hunters — The story behind sponge hunting

March 11, 2025March 11, 2025

Quaint seaport Ayvilik

Visiting Quaint seaport Ayvilik was my first stop renting a car for a month after spending almost 3 weeks in Istanbul. The Car Rental company did not notice the license plate frame was broken when I rented the car and the license plate on the front fell out and got lost in the small town, my first few days on the road. The people at the small family owned hotel helped me look for the license plate and also called the rental company to ask advice. I went to the police station to report the lost license plate so there would be no problem on the rest of my trip. The police were very nice and patient and they called the rental company and also the traffic police and they confirmed that I could just continue on my trip which I did. I was stopped about eight times for this problem by the traffic police and after explaining the situation each time they let me continue my trip with no problem. This little town is kind of interesting with it small winding cobblestone streets and it was good to get out of the hustle and bustle of Istanbul.

Downtown Street — Narrows cobblestone streets which are made for carts and not cars but people seem to make their way just fine by finding places to move over and let people pass by.

Delicious food — The meat on the skewer was very delicious and the spices were very nice

Traffic light issues — In the photo you will see what irritated me as I was driving. The traffic signals are right over where you stop and so if you pull right up to the crosswalk you can’t see the lights when they change. I don’t really understand why they do this.

Scenic point view — The view from a scenic point on the hill

Goats on the street — Instead of sheep like Scotland you will see mostly goats

Narrow streets — You can see how narrow the streets are with cars going both ways

A relaxed dog — This was a good place for this dog to hang out

Very narrow street — Cars need to navigate these narrow, narrow alleyway like streets

Typical Shop — This is a typical Shop with quantities of what people may need in their homes, especially large bags of nuts

Camping area — There are places for campers to park at local beach sites

A relaxing camper — A camper enjoying the view on the beach

Fixing the fishing net — They have to fix the fishing nets

Dive boat — I’m sure during the high season this dive boat has plenty of customers

Fish restaurant — The highly recommended fish restaurant

Cowboy clothes for kids — Is this what kids aspire to, the American cowboy image?

Low season — I’m sure this is busy in the high season

March 6, 2025March 6, 2025

Short visit to Fethiye

if you pay a Short visit to Fethiye, let’s say one night, you will not be disappointed if you are interested in temples and tombs which are carved out of a Hill. This is a port town and I think that can draw some interest but these tombs are very interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fethiye

Fethiye tombs — The tombs carved into the hillside which have withstood earthquakes

View from Fethiye tombs — a view from the tunes. You could see snow in the mountains

A stone carved horse — Some art with a horse carved into the stone

Hill castle — Remnants of a castle on the hill

Gas station attendant washing the window — in Turkey the gas station attendant will come to your car, wash your windows and will often give you a slip with a QR code identifying the pump number and amount to pay. If he doesn’t you just proceed inside anyway to the convenience store /cash register and pay what you owe. Then you get several receipts one of which you give back to the attendant so you can drive away.

February 13, 2025February 13, 2025

Interesting stuff in Istanbul

you can find lots of interesting stuff in Istanbul. There are many different kinds of people living here, many different kinds of cuisine and many different cultural things to experience. If you go to the different sections of the city you will find there are different kinds of people living there. I found one such area where the Uyghur people evidently live and work and where you can find that kind of local food.

Interesting garb — he looks like he’s some kind of religious individual communicating with a very modern tool

Market entrance — an interesting hallway which leads to some market area

An old foundation — Early foundation highlighted in front of the restaurant

Ice cream shop — at the shop, the guy stirring some thing is actually ice cream and he plays a game with customers who come to buy at his shop which is kind of interesting

Celebration marker — A celebration of the Republic of Turkey

Commemorative monument — The explanation below will tell you what this is, a commemorative monument for the republic

Incorrect time zones — I have heard of different time zones but this is a little ridiculous

Café memorabilia — Going up to a rooftop café has some interesting memorabilia on the way up

Delicious ice cream with sweet caramel inside

A view from the top — A view of Istanbul from the top of the café

Taksim Istanbul shopping area — This is the Taksim area which is seemingly the place where Turkish people love to come and go shopping even though it is an international market area. It’s very alive, has some great Turkish restaurants at reasonable prices and has some interesting places to eat and drink from all over the world. There were two very good Thai restaurants here which were related

Honda is popular in Istanbul — This is a delivery motorcycle but unlike many places in Europe and theBalkans Honda seems to be doing very good business here especially with the PCX model, the same model I drove around Thailand

A restaurant — The restaurant with the food below

This is Uyghur food. You’re probably familiar with that place which China has claimed is part of the communist China regime.

Cable car in Taksim — InTaksim they have a cable car which runs up and down the street and is very popular with a tourist. It runs by electricity as you can see with the cables above and not like in San Francisco where that one has pulled by the cables under the ground. This one goes very slow so pedestrians can get out of the way

New shop — A shop in the Uyghur part of town newly opened

Teacup — All Tea in Turkey is served in the shaped glass. It’s difficult to drop it but it is still hot when you first get it so kind of hard to grab onto when it’s so hot

More Uyghur Food — This is another Uyghur food

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_cuisine

A mosque — I just like the architecture of the mosques

A garbage can being lifted — Among theInteresting stuff in Istanbul the sheep’s foot on the lower right is attached to the garbage truck. What he is pulling out of the ground, that giant thing, is a garbage can which can hold a lot of garbage and only needs to pick up every so often. I found this to be an interesting way to manage garbage. And I’m guessing there aren’t too many rats because there are millions of cats.

Dumping the garbage can from the bottom which opens up

February 11, 2025March 5, 2025

Ocean and windmills in Bodrum

what you can expect to see our ocean and windmills in Bodrum. It’s kind of a one Walking Street Ocean facing restaurant and shop tourist attraction. You can find many boats there at the port offering to take you on different kinds of excursions including scuba diving and eating entertainment. While I was not that excited with the city itself since it seems to be fairly limited to that one ocean facing street, there are some interesting attractions. There is an old castle which you might want to approach on foot since parking is a little limited, well actually very limited. I never did find a place to park so I didn’t go see the castle and it was a long way from the hotel. And then you have windmills. But the one interesting part of the area for me was the little fishing village of Gümüşlük. Below there’s some including a Google Maps location for a restaurant I was recommended to but found was closed when I got there. Be careful with Google maps trying to get there because it wants to take you on a direction that has no road for some reason. There seems to be a road on the south end but I parked up on the cliff and walked down. Don’t set your Google maps to this restaurant because it won’t take you down to the village. Enjoy these photos by Bill Smale Adventures.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/aarg24a8Ad1YH6A67?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy

Typical Turkish breakfast — This was the breakfast and seems to be fairly typical in Turkey. There is an egg of some kind and maybe something else that’s hot and then there are little things in their natural form without any sauce.

Olive trees on the way to Bodrum — All the way to Borum you’ll see mostly olive trees. I saw some fellow harvesting the olives but did not stop to take a photo.

My hotel in Bodrum — This was my hotel. It’s a very relaxing place and would be very much fun in the summer

Various Asian food in Bodrum — OK, you tell me what this is. Indian food and Chinese food and Japanese food all in one complex with separate entrances. Most of Europe you just see one entrance to a single restaurant and it says “Asian cuisine”.

Calamari lunch — Down at the one street on the port I had some really fantastic calamari. As you can see it’s very typical to get olives served with almost every meal.

Bodrum dogs by the ocean — I made a couple friends on the way

A night snack — When I got back to the room I saw this by the bed and I thought some customer got into my room by mistake and left some half eaten cake. But when looking at it closely the fork was clean and the cake pieces were cleanly cut so it’s obvious this was a treat left by the hotel people. It tasted very good.

The Aegean sea — A view of the Aegean sea. What I found is interesting on Google maps is that the towns from Bodrum North are listed as on the Aegean sea. South of Bodrum they are listed as on the Mediterranean Sea.

A Citroen electric car — I was surprised to see these Citroen little electric cars which are kind of cute and very practical. This is the kind of car I think is perfect for electrification, around town driving.

Raki Is the national drink of turkey — This is the national alcohol of turkey. It is made from the aniseed and grapes. It seems to me to be the same as Uzo in Greece and Galliano in Italy. Several years ago the government put a gigantic tax on alcohol so this little bottle which is no bigger than a can of Coca-Cola it’s about $18.

City next to Bodrum — There’s a beautiful view of the next Ocean City

Wind — The blades are not here anymore since they are being used

Mysterious building — I saw a couple of these and I’m not sure what they are

This is the Bodrum Castle viewed from the windmill Hill

Sheep on the hills — This is where a lot of cheese comes from

February 8, 2025February 8, 2025

Intriguing Fethiye Tombs

When you arrive in the city you will find the Intriguing Fethiye Tombs. The largest one is the Tomb of Amyntas. You go to the busy center of the city which is very touristy but also interesting and then walk to the very back streets up the hill and that’s where you will find the tombs. You can get an inexpensive hotel down in the city center and just walk around. It’s kind of a fun place to stay.

The tomb has been emptied — This is the **Tomb of Amyntas**. They charge €3 to walk up the steps and then over the rocks for the next 5 m. The two obviously has been emptied but you get a great view of the city and the port from up here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Amyntas

City view — It’s a great view of the city

Snowy mountains beyondFethiye — you could see there is snow on the mountains in the distance

Intriguing ancillary tombs — I guess these also are tunes but I did not walk up here of course.

https://muze.gov.tr/muze-detay?SectionId=MFA01&DistId=MRK

Boat tours in Fethiye — In town, like with the other ports along the Aegean/Mediterranean seas, you will find tour boats for day trips or longer, fishing trips and feasting adventures. Some of them have phone numbers posted outside so you can call and make arrangements.

Ancient structure — Some other ancient structure on the hill

Strange structure — I’m not sure what these are. I have to ask somebody

Small space is inside — The inside of the tomb. It seems like quite a large endeavor for such a small space. But I guess the people they were building these for were considered respected.

Wall marking — I wonder what this mark on the wall indicates

Washing the windshield — I took this photo just because I wanted to show you this gas station attendant is washing the car windshield. I haven’t seen that level of service since Japan. The process at the gas station is to get the attention of the attendant so he can fill the tank. And normally he will give you a printout with a QR code which you take into the shop to have it scanned and they will print out two receipts, one which they stamp and then is to be handed to the attendant to allow you to leave.

February 7, 2025February 7, 2025

Batmobile in Turkey

The Batmobile in Turkey is quite an interesting surprise. Of course this one is an exact replica but I think if you visit the museum you will enjoy not only how they display the Batmobile but also the Batcycle which is the original. In addition, of course, as you can see from my previous phlog there are many olden antique cars as well as motorcycles to enjoy viewing. If you’re a car enthusiast I really encourage you to stop by here if you have the means to get here kinda out in the countryside.

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