Tag: Sirince

Turkey yet again, 2025

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We’ve been a week in Turkey now—Istanbul and Ephesus (Efes), and it’s been like old home week for me. I love this place. When we landed at the new Istanbul Airport, I think we walked over a mile from our gate to customs. Really. Erdoğan made this airport a showpiece: beautiful, ostentatious, and massive. Our first guide, Sakis, awaited us outside customs with a smile. It took over an hour to get to our hotel, since the airport is located near the Black Sea, about 30 miles from the city.

We stayed in refurbished Ottoman mansions behind the Hagia Sophia,  now a Hilton hotel. These houses were built of wood in the late 1800’s with an upper story overlooking the street so the women sequestered in the upstairs harem  could see the action on the street. We, of course, had free reign.

The basic breakfast in Turkey is tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, olives, bread, yogurt, and eggs. Ours have been spectacular spreads with a vast assortment of fruits, vegetables, breads, pastries, and cereals. It’s delicious, and I always make a point of including tomatoes and cucumbers, which seem to taste better in Turkey.

We met Sakis to tour the Hagia Sophia, only to find that the line stretched blocks to the Blue Mosque, a three-hour wait. Monitor and adjust. He called for a van and we got outa dodge.

Sakis took us through the Chora Church, a Byzantine church replete with stunning mosaics displaying events from the lives of Mary and Jesus as well as saints, bishops, priests, and everyone who donated to the church. Depictions of hell haunted me. The original sanctuary is now a mosque (thanks to Erdoğan), but we women were allowed (scarved) into a corner to view the mosaic in that room. During prayer time the mosaic is covered with a screen, as it includes human faces not allowed in mosques.

A dome in the Chora Church

After a walking tour of the area, we headed back to Sultanahmet for a cooking class (Cooking ala Turka), where we made and feasted on sarma (stuffed grape leaves), mercimek (lentil soup), imam bayaldı (stuffed eggplant),  sweetened, stuffed dried figs, …

We learned to massage sliced onions with salt to soften them and ease their bite. Who knew?

Me, Bob Shanon, Judie Johnson, Yafa Napadensky, Veronica Weadock, and Bob Pranis–Chefs extraordinaire

We walked the streets of Istanbul, toured the Süleymaniye Mosque as well as an ancient castle/fortress along the old city walls, and we finally got to see the Haghia Sophia, which Erdoğan has converted from a museum to a mosque. It meant wearing scarves, but the shift makes me sad, especially since tourists are limited to the upper gallery. My beloved city is changing. Oh–we also walked to a Mevlevi Sema Ceremony, what we know as the whirling dervish. Fascinating.

After three days in Istanbul we flew to Izmir to meet Rabia, a lovely guide I’ve had twice before. We stayed in a mountain-top village, Şirince, at the charming Nisanyan Houses, centuries-old little cottages scattered through the woods above the town. Şirince was a Greek village that was resettled by Turks after the 1923 population exchange. The Lausanne Treaty set up the exhange, sending over a million Greek Orthodox Christians from Asia Minor (Turkey) to Greece while nearly a half-million Muslims who’d settled in Greece were moved to Turkey. Consequently, many seaside villages were deserted, since the exchange was so unequal. The Ottomans had supported healthy connections between religious groups, but sadly that became a thing of the past.

Şirince

We visited the reputed House of Mary, a serene setting on a mountain above Ephesus, which we toured next. (Remember Paul’s Letters to the Ephesians?) The most amazing part of that tour was the terraced houses, excavated and preserved expertly by archeologists. Constructed about 200 BC, these mansions of the wealthy had been buried under a graveyard until excavations began in 1960. They had running water, heat, sewage, and spectacular decor. The entire hillside has been covered with a transparent roof, and tourists follow walkways through the complex, up and down a maze of 300 steps. Fascinating.

Ephesus terraced houses

I loved wandering through Şirince during our quiet times, and I marveled at the lovely views from our cottages, our little personal terrace, and the charming breakfast areas overlooking the charming village.

Two destinations down, two to go. I highly recommend Sojourn Turkey for any tours in Turkey, and I also recommend you read  Birds Without Wings by Louis de Bernieres. One of my favorite novels, it depicts Turkish history in the early 1900’s, including the population exchange.

Oh, the Turkish Hamam!

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On my recent trip to Turkey I was amazed to find Turkish words and verb tenses bubbling up from the nether reaches of my brain. Turkish is a difficult language, but it makes up for that by being a kind one. Some of its daily niceties warm my heart:

When you see someone working, you say “Kolay gelsin.” as you pass. “May it come easy to you.” I know of no similar sentiment in English,

Or how about when the young woman you met recently is sick to her stomach? The Turkish kindness for difficult situations is “Geçmiş Olsun.” “May you leave it behind you.” Isn’t that sweet?

When someone sets a meal before you, Turks say “Afiyet Olsun.” “May this nourish you.” Then you respond with “Elinez Sağlic.” “Health to your hands.”

The list goes on, but enough of that. I want to explain Turkish baths.

Our second city on this tour was the mountaintop village of Şirince.

The view overlooking Şirince from our cottage.

When I visited fifteen years ago, typical village transport was donkeys, but many of the narrow streets have been upgraded from various-sized rocks to large, flat ones for cars. Disappointing, but what can you do? Progress. Most of the streets are barely wide enough for a small car. Thankfully, the little shops have retained their small-village charm, from fruit wine vendors to jewelry and craft stores. On every street we encountered women in şhalvar (skirt-like pantaloons) selling herbs, baked goods, and crafts.

Scott and Jerry avoid shopping as Marnie negotiates with a local.

Our hotel, the Nişanyan, was perched at the top of the village, something of a botanical garden dotted with cottages and ancient Ottoman houses. We stayed in a 500-year-old whitewashed stone cottage with foot-thick walls. It had a sitting room that featured a low cushioned bench festooned with colorful embroidered pillows, a carved stone fireplace, and a single platform bed. Both that and our bedroom/sitting room had small cupboard niches with carved wooden doors, Turkish carpets, and charming wall decorations.

A chair in our bedroom, just a hint of the charm of our 500-year-old  Nişanyan cottage.

Our bathroom was a traditional hamam (Turkish bath)—a wonder. It was a large marble room with a domed ceiling emitting light through round glass “eyes.” Two windows were set into the rounded back wall. A low marble basin with a faucet sat on the far end, beside it a low stool with a metal bowl for scooping water from the basin. That’s how hamams are everywhere—you sit on a stool or bench, then repeatedly scoop hot water and pour it over yourself. A drain across the entire floor transports it to the sewer. 

Our cottage had a complete little private hamam in the bathroom.

 

This is the resort’s tiny hamam available to all the renters.

We visited a community hamam in Ürgüp, Cappadocia. We were first ushered into locker rooms to undress and don slippers and peştemal (PESH-ta-mal), plaid cotton towels. Women wore two (one on top and one on the bottom), while the men only got one. The six of us were then ushered into a steam room with marble benches and a marble sink. We took turns pouring hot water over each other, soaking ourselves through.

Three of us steaming as the others poured water over each other.

Twenty minutes later the masseuses (women draped in peştemal) brought us out into the main part of the hamam, where a massive heated marble slab dominated the room.

There was much discussion over who would be on the heated slab and who would get a private room.

There were side rooms, too, each with its own high marble bench (heated) and marble sinks. My masseuse poured warm water over me, then scrubbed every inch of skin with a textured mitten-like scrubber. It felt a little like sandpaper, only nicer. After that, more hot water and a seaweed facial mask.

Even the men got a seaweed mask. Go, Tony!

 

Jerry scored a private room, as did I.

Then the soap suds. Oh, the soap suds. She took a long, net bag and soaked it in a tub of soapy water. Then she swung it back and forth a few times before squeezing suds over me, coating my body with what felt like a warm blanket. She repeated this a few more times until I was completely covered.

Link to a video of the soapsuds technique–amazing!

Rather than oil, the suds from olive oil soap provide a slippery surface for massage. And what a massage it was! By the time she’d finished, I was a noodle. She helped me sit up and poured bowl after bowl of hot water over me. 

The Turkish Hamam is a unique, relaxing experience. Once dried and dressed, we were offered tea or water (Turks frown on drinking cold water, but we insisted) as we relaxed on cushions in an outer room. Wet noodles all.