Letter 2
Ciao my friend!!!
Today I'm sending a new part of my travel diary to you. This time, I'm going to show you some more spots in Istanbul and Ankara. In fact, when the real travel started, I visited some places in Istanbul and the same day I had a long trip across Turkey up to the capital city, Ankara. If you think that the Istanbul part was short, don't worry, in fact, we came back there in the end of the travel and we seen more places. I'll show them to you later, when, as it was in the travel, we'll come back to Istanbul. So, I hope you'll like this part.
Ciao
Franz
Today I'm sending a new part of my travel diary to you. This time, I'm going to show you some more spots in Istanbul and Ankara. In fact, when the real travel started, I visited some places in Istanbul and the same day I had a long trip across Turkey up to the capital city, Ankara. If you think that the Istanbul part was short, don't worry, in fact, we came back there in the end of the travel and we seen more places. I'll show them to you later, when, as it was in the travel, we'll come back to Istanbul. So, I hope you'll like this part.
Ciao
Franz
Day 3 - Istanbul - Sultan Ahmet Camii - The Blue Mosque
One of the most famous buildings of Istanbul the "Blue Mosque". The real name of this building is "Sultan Ahmet Camii" or even "Sulanahmet Camii", but it's called "Blue Mosque", because of the main color that you can see there inside. The name "Sultan Ahmet" is also the name of the neighborhood where you can see both the Blue Mosque, Saint Sophia and the Topkapi Palace. Near to the Blue Mosque, you can find yourself walking into a really long and quite narrow rectangular square with some columns in the middle line. The interesting thing is that, this square is what it remains form an ancient Roman stadium, one of the biggest ever built. Around of this square you can see many valuable buildings, now hosting bureaus for the political life of the city, and also the gate to enter the "Blue Mosque". This mosque was built in the 16th century by the Sultan Ahmet I. Seen that he couldn't build something as mighty as the Soliman Mosque and Saint Sophia, he decided to build at least more towers than the other two buildings. So, you can recognize the Blue Mosque from far as it has six towers against the four towers of the other two buildings. As the name says the main color that you can see, is Blue. From the outside this building is very good looking, but the best is inside of it. All the inside is covered by blue and green tiles. The height of the main room, and the colorful light that comes from the painted windows turn the prayer room into a surreal and beautiful place, worth to be seen.
Istanbul - Topkapi Palace - The Palace on the Bosphorus
Once you get out of the "Blue Mosque", you can walk straight, from the right of the building, across a square, toward the Saint Sophia Basil. You can see Saint Sophia in the first picture of this group. From outside, Saint Sophia looks quite massive and heavy. It was the first Christian Basil ever built, and only when you get inside of it, you can understand it's mighty, and why it's world-famous. But we didn't enter it yet. We had to wait to come back to Istanbul for it. Now we walked before it, telling her "we'll see you soon, wait for us!", and going straight to the great Topkapi Palace. The name "Topkapi" mean "The Cannon Gate". The origin of this name is due to the fact that before there was a check point next to the real Sultan building, that was called "The Cannon Gate", just for the weapon displayed there. Around the year 1450 the Sultan building grew so much to swallow the checkpoint within its walls. Seen that this checkpoint was still one of the main gates of the building, this spot became so famous that the same building took the name of the checkpoint. The building is split in four concentric courts. The different courts were open to different people (most important the guest was, more he was allowed into the inner courts). In our days the first court is open to everyone, while to enter the inner ones you've to pay an entrance ticket. In the second and third pictures of this group you can see the gate to the first court and how the courts looks like. In the third picture you can also see the "Saint Irene Church". This church has almost the same age of "Saint Sophia", but much smaller. With the muslim dominion, as all the other churches in Istanbul, it was closed (some were turned into Mosques). This one was turned both in auditorium for concerts and as a storage. Still in our days sometimes here inside are played concerts. I didn't know about this, but my friend Giovanna told me all about this. That was funny when we were walking and she turned all excited and screamed "That's Saint Irene Church! That's so beautiful!" That was funny to see the faces of other people that even didn't notice it. That was great having Giovanna with me. The inside of the "Topkapi Palace" is made of a cluster of many smaller buildings all connected among themselves. On the sides of the first court, you can also see the barracks where lived the famous Yeniçeri corps, and where they were all killed when the Sultan decided to dispose of them. It sounds that the history of Istanbul is written with the blood of all those that died there through the centuries. In the inner courts you san see also the treasury, weaponry, Council Palace (you can see it in the fourth picture of this group). The interesting this is that the Sultan didn't go to the council room, but just spied the politicians from behind a draw hanging from a wall. Again, this was due to the fact that he was afraid to get killed. Near to the council building, there's the gate to the inner court. The gate is called "The Happiness Gate". You can see it in the fifth picture of this group. People walks through it thinking that doing so, their wishes will become true. If you read a book about the history of this place, you'll see that the name origins from the fact that here was a room where the Sultan met only few selected people. After their meeting, he was used to give some golden coins as a gift, and these people left the room very happy for it. That's why it's called "The Happiness Gate". In the picture six, seven and eight of this group, you can see some decorations of the buildings in the inner court (in particular the one in the sixth picture is "the circumcision building"), and the beautiful sight from the Topkapi on the Bosporus channel. In the seventh picture, on the left-hand side of the picture you can see the "Taksim" area, where was my hotel. In the place where I took these pictures on the Bosporus, you can also fine a really good restaurant, where you can eat with this beautiful sight before you.
Leaving the City
Just after the visit to the "Topkapi Palace", we left Istanbul, to go to Ankara. In the first picture of this group you can see the "Genovese Neighborhood" from the "Golden Horn". We left the European side of Istanbul crossing one of the main bridges (you can see it in the second picture of this group), and we started our way to Ankara. It took to us many hours to Ankara, as it is about 400 Km from Istanbul. The street crossed many country landscapes. In this first part of the trip, me and Giovanna met many of the people that were traveling with us. The interesting thing was that they thought that we were partners even if we never behaved like that.
Day 4 - Ankara - The Capital City
The city of Ankara is the capital city of Turkey. It was chosen as it lies into the middle of Anatoly. Its population is about 4.000.000 people. Like Istanbul also this city changed its name many times. For example, the Hittitesc alled it Akuwash, the Galatians and the Romans called it Ancyra, in the Byzantine time it was called Ankyra. Around the year 1000 was also called Angora (from this name also comes the name of a precious wool made in this region). The city of Ankara has a quite modern look and its population is made of people working for the governance bureaus. This means that it's not really good looking and you can hardly find clubs where to spend evenings. Sounds like here live only workaholic people, that doesn't like having fun in the weekends... The main things that you can do are: a visit to the Ataturk Tomb (the founder of the Turk Republic) that we hadn't time to do, a visit to the old Citadel (we did it in the night time), but after the last earthquake it's not anymore very attractive (in more, the few restaurants close at 22.00), but in this city you can find a really GREAT museum about the ancient Anatolian civilizations. This museum is worth the staying one day in Ankara. In the first two pictures of this group you can see the building where was founded the Turk Republic (in the first picture) and the first Turk Parliament (in the second picture). To take these two pictures I had to run out of the hotel earlier by myself, as our guide wouldn't bring us to see them. As I wrote, the main thing to be seen in Ankara is the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. In this museum you can take picture, but only if you don't use the flash. So, I set my camera to work at its best with low light and here, you can see some pictures, of some artifacts, that interested me so much. I hope you'll like watching to them. Of course, it's impossible for me to describe the feelings that I felt being at few centimeters from these artifacts that I only seen in the books before. In the third picture of this group, you can see some mysterious-looking artifacts. Some people that were in my group, thought (may still think) that it's not worth reading the tags under the artifacts, and thought that those objects were jewels. I decided to spend some more time and with Giovanna started to read every tag, and to tell each-other what we found of interesting. So, believe it or not, these were very modern fashionable things. In fact, were tattoos!!! People just soaked them with ink and stuck them on the skins, so they had beautiful draws on their skin. It looks like thousand years ago, there was already the body-art fashion, and it's not much different from our "body painting". What do you think? After this "discovery", we kept reading eagerly every tag, and the feelings for the place where we were standing were rising after every artifacts. I didn't care if people didn't cared about these things, because we were annoying every single thing we seen by ourselves. Of course, for Giovanna everything was great as these beautiful objects are from the times that she's studying in her History University, and for me, was for my own curiosity, to learn new things and see from real the things that I only see on the books. In the fourth picture you can see a statue of the "Mother Goddesses". In this museum you can see many small statues of the "Mother Goddesses", but this one is one of the best ones. In this one, the Goddesses is sitting on a throne. She looks fat, and this was a symbol of prosperity. I'd like to make you notice a particular. If you look carefully between her feet, you can see a baby. It's like she just gave birth to a baby. Isn't she beautiful? In the fifth and sixth pictures you can see two sacred tool called "Solar Disks". They were placed on the top of poles and used by the priests for ceremonies. The one in the sixth picture as a deer and two bulls, symbols of prosperity and strength. In Turkey this "Solar Disk" is quite famous, as it's the symbol of the city of Ankara. In the center of the city, you can see a huge copy of this disk, in the middle of a square. In the seventh and eighth pictures you can see some ancient files written in cuneiform writing. It's supposed that the "cuneiform" is the most ancient writing ever found. It was interesting to see these artifacts from real. It's unbelievable how small they are written. Beside some of them, you can even find the translations of these letters. Are really interesting, as they are about the life of some people of thousands years ago. While we were there, happened even something funny. In fact, when I went there with Giovanna, were many days that I wasn't shaving my face, as I forgot my razor in Italy. In fact, I just bought one new that morning, but I hadn't time to shave yet. So, when we were into a statues room, Giovanna found a bas-relief showing an ancient Hittite man. He was wearing a long beard and a point hat. So, since then, Giovanna started calling me "Franz the Hittite". It was funny!!! This museum was really wonderful, and it was worth the staying in Ankara. In the ninth picture you can see Ankara from the outside of the museum. This museum is a place where you can feel the history showing herself for real to you. And what from the books looked like something far, here she, the history, takes shape and looks like coming to meet you after that long journey you took, to meet her.