Ulus and Hamamönü

The day after returning to Ankara from Antalya, I gave my dad a tour of Ulus. Ulus is truly the "old town" of Ankara and my favorite part of the city. We took the dolmuş from our neighborhood to the covered pazar.

From the pazar we walked through the metalworks district and up the steep streets where other vendors peddle their wares on our way to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations. The museum is housed in an old Ottoman inn, and unfortunately currently under renovation (although the admission price is the same...). So, dad only got to see some of the treasures, namely Hittite artifacts dating back to 1500 B.C.

This cuneiform tablet was taken from Hattuşa and dates to the 1200's B.C.

From the museum we walked to get some photos of the Ankara Kalesi, the ancient fortress overlooking all of Ankara.

Plenty of people still live in the old houses within the fortress walls.

An exterior view of the walls. Notice the houses built into the walls.

This is a picture of a tower in the fortress. Among the huge stones in the middle part you can see what appears to be a Crusader's cross on one of the stones. Possibly from its conquering by Crusaders in 1101, or possibly just a relic from Armenians who used to live here.

From there we could look down onto Hamamönü, a part of the city where the houses had been restored to look like the Ottoman era. The city had been hyping this restoration effort in the local news, so we went down to see it. Check out the interactive website the city has created for Hamamönü.

This old portion of Ankara adjacent to Ulus has run-down houses that are mostly slated for demolition by the city. They will be replaced with high-rises, which is how the rest of Ankara has been greatly transformed over the last 30 years.

Hamamönü is to the center/left.

After walking the streets of Hamamönü and being relatively unimpressed, we came across the Haci Bayram mosque attached to the site of the ancient Temple of Augustus. To my shame, I didn't even know this existed, although I'd visited other Roman ruins in Ankara. The Augustus temple was built in 25-20 B.C. after the Romans conquered Anatolia. The mosque was built in 1425 A.D. by the new Turkish rulers of Anatolia, not long before Istanbul was conquered.

The temple walls. Greek inscriptions still visible on the wall are of historical importance.

After leaving the temple area just as Friday prayers were getting ready to begin, we payed our respects to Mustafa Kemal Paşa before hopping the bus to do more shopping on our side of town.

Seeing the statue honoring Turkey's great modernizer so close in proximity to its diverse ancient history is always thought-provoking.

After a fun evening of Central Asian cuisine, my parents flew back to the U.S. on Saturday. They enjoyed their Turkish vacation. 

Antalya Part 5: Aspendos and Serik

(Justin) We were determined to explore more historical places while on this side of Turkey.  Myra was disappointingly too far from Beldibi by the bus system, but Aspendos was a workable day trip. Dad and I caught the first morning bus to Antalya, taking it into the bus station. From there, it was another bus on about an 80 minute ride to the town of Serik (6TL/person, I think), where you then have transportation options outside town to the ruins. Given the off-season, there wasn't a lot of obvious activity so we taxied there and back.

Aspendos was once one of the largest cities in Asia Minor. Part of the kingdom of Pamphylia, it was conquered by Persians, Alexander the Great, and the Romans. It was under Marcus Aurelius that its famous amphitheater was built in 155 A.D. It remains one of the best preserved Roman amphitheaters in the world.

You can also walk around the ruins of the old city. Excavations here looked pretty incomplete, and much of the area is overgrown with tall grass. It's also quite rocky in some places. Some of the buildings are marked but it's hard to get a picture of what the city once looked like, there are no maps depicting it on site.

The city ruins from one of the hills.

Dad standing at ruins of Aspendos' stadium.

Stone walls of various ancient structures are on site. Explore at your leisure.

You can also see the amazing aqueduct ruins in Aspendos. The aqueduct reportedly functioned until an earthquake destroyed parts of it in 363 A.D.

Looking down the cliff from the ruins into the quiet village below. This house was completely made of stone, I'd never seen anything like it.

The ampitheater itself was pretty impressive. The Seljuk Turks also used the structure as a karvansaray, so it's been preserved by quite a few civilizations.

View from the city ruins into the amphitheater.

Me standing at what I guess was backstage.

Fortunately, we finished our sightseeing just before it started raining. We returned to Selik and ate some kebab. While wandering the downtown, we came across a set of large busts outside the city courthouse.

Dad with Atilla the Hun

These busts were of ancient Huns, ancestors of the Turks, and the plaques told the story of the migration from Central Asia to Anatolia. Serik is still home to many ethnic Yörük and Türkmen, descendents of nomads. I enjoyed the history. There are other tourist sites to visit nearby, but we didn't have the time. We caught the bus and headed back to Antalya and Beldibi. That ended our Antalya adventures.

Antalya Part 4: Kaleiçi, the harbor, and Hadrian's Gate

Having gotten our private tour of the high points of Antalya, we returned another day to hit some of the tourist sites we missed. We took the regional bus from our resort and it dropped us off at the entrance to the underground entrance of the Antalya tramway, which took us downtown.

We had a quick lunch of döner, and walked through the marketplace (çarşı) of Kaleiçi, in "Old Antalya," towards the harbor.

Tavuk döner = chicken shaved from a vertical spit.

A view of the Ottoman era clock tower.

Attalus II, King of Pergamum, who is Antalya's namesake.

We meandered down the steep cobblestone streets admiring the restored old buildings and trying to ignore many of the shopkeepers eager to entice us to their shops (though we did pick up a few souvenirs).

The interior of one of several historic mosques in the old city.

At the harbor we were immediately met by boat captains eager for us to take a cruise around the cliffs. After negotiating a lower price (and an "ikram" of tea and coffee) we boarded a schooner and set sail. This put us in the footsteps of the Apostle Paul who set sail from Antalya (Attalia) in the Book of Acts (just humor us here). We were thankful that the rain held off on our excursion in Antalya.

Tapps on the boat.

Some of the waterfalls and caves on the brief tour.

From the harbor looking up at the fortress walls of the old city.

After climbing up from the harbor we meandered to Hadrian's Gate, built in 130 AD.

From there we caught the tram and began our long journey on public transport back to our resort. (Tram to bus station, long walk to the local bus lines, 45 minute ride back to our hotel in Beldibi.)

Antalya Part 3: Museum and Falez

(Justin) After the previous day's adventure, we went to Antalya city as an entire family. This was about a 30 minute ride on the bus which came by our resort every 20 minutes. We met Gülnur, my friend and long-time language helper, who wanted to show us her city. First stop was the Antalya Museum, which houses a very large collection of artifacts from around the area-- from prehistoric fossils and cave dwelling artifacts to Greco-Roman statues and early Ottoman period pieces. Here are a few random pics from the museum, so much to see:

The Tapp family in front of the museum

The museum is located in Konyaaltı, and from the nearby bluffs you get a good view of the mountains and rocky beach below.

Next, Gülnur drove us to Lara, her side of town, for lunch at a great kebap place. This was my parents' first good Turkish food experience, they approved!

After lunch, we got some spectacular views of the waterfalls above the "falez" (from the French: falaise, meaning "cliff"). The falls are named Düden and Antalya has built some beautiful parks there. Antalya is to Turkey what Florida is to the U.S. After being in frigid/snowy Ankara all winter, we were happy to walk about like it was a warm spring day! Plenty of people were in the park area barbecuing and picnicking.

At the top of the falls you can see a walkway/gazebo above the river.

A tour boat down below.

Last stop was sandy Lara Plajı ("Plaj" from the Russian word for "beach"). Antalya is remarkable for its sandy beaches in the east and its rocky/pebbly beaches in the west (and down the coast to our resort).

It's not hard to see why this place is a tourism magnet. Beaches and resorts, ancient ruins and artifacts, forests and mountains--something for everyone. German and Russian tourists and immigrants were everywhere. The traffic was a bit difficult to navigate, and I can't imagine what it's like in the summer when the population swells.

We were definitely thankful that we had Gülnur to drive us around town! We made note of other places in town we wanted to see when we came back another day.