Answers to 6 questions about Turkiye...

5w1h of Turkiye...


WHAT IS TURKIYE?

Turkiye is the original name of Turkey. As a Turkish person, I prefer this version rather than the English one. Nearly 80 million people live here and as you may guess, most of them live in the big cities. 60% of the population is young; thus, we can actually call Turkiye a young country. Despite its young population, the history of the land is very old. From the beginning of human history, the land of Turkiye, also called Anatolia, has hosted many civilizations. Hittites, who signed the first pact after the war with The Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II, the Lydians, who have one of the world's most ancient walking trails, called "The Lydian Road" with a distance of 509km, and the people of the ancient Greek city states, where the great philosophers of Greece like Socrates and Platon gave lectures, the Byzantines and Ottomans are the examples. It is also the intersection of the three major religions. The first seven churches of Revelation represent an important visiting route for the Christians.

This land of Turkiye is a mountainous peninsula surrounded by the Black Sea at the north, Aegean Sea at the west and Mediterranean Sea at the south. Its coordinates are 26-45degrees N and 36-42degrees E. It is contagious with Bulgaria at the northwest, Greece at the west, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan at northeast, Iran at east, Syria and Iraq at southeast. It is located both in the Asian and European region. There is no difference in bureaucracy between these two lands and their citizens.

from web

Regardless of the nowadays politics, Turkiye is a secular country; the citizens being mostly Muslim, there are also people from the other religions. Family and family members are important and cared. Number of Turkish titles belonging to family members may show you how important this concept is. Anne, baba, kardeş, teyze, amca, hala, dayı, yenge, enişte, baldız, bacanak, kayınvalide, kayınpeder, anneanne, babaanne, dünür, görümce, kuzen, yeğen, dede, nine. :) ... some of these words may be translated to mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin, nephew, grandmother and grandfather. 21 to 9! There is no English name for the rest.

wHOM TO VISIT?
Ok. There are various types of holidays and travelling options in Turkiye. Actually...for everybody. You can have a family with kids, partners, friends, couples or you may visit alone. Bikers, motorcyclists, backpackers, divers, climbers, honeymoon lovers... Just decide what kind of a visit it will be, and who you are coming with.

wHEN TO GO?
Due to its geographical and logistical conditions, Turkey enjoys a variety of climates, earning the country the nickname 'the land of four seasons'. Throughout the year, every month or season you can find a spot that is worth seeing and has a suitable climate. Summer time (June, July, and August) is generally hot with the temperature exceeding 30°C. Temperatures differ due to geographical locations and the east is the winner with over -20°C. Inner parts of the country also have cold winters with many days of minus degrees and snow. Climate of Mediterranean coast is more tropical than any other parts. The rest of the country enjoys a climate between these two.

wHERE TO GO?

from web

For the ones who are interested in history, limit is the sky:) I mean, everywhere on this land is full of history. You have to either draw lots or just follow the famous touristic destinations for history lovers.

Turkiye is a mountainous country as I have mentioned before. It has two big mountain chains. One is at the north; the other is at the south. Both mountain chains start from the back of the coast lines and form a line parallel to the seas. This formation makes them look like a wall while looking from the sea and are generally covered with old forests. They are preferable for tracking and camping. If you are both interested in nature and history, my suggestions will be Mountain Ida at the west and the Mountain Ararat at the east. By the way Mountain Ararat is the highest point of Turkiye (5.137m). It is a dead volcano, famous with the rumor on the Noah's Ark. There are also many other mountains beside these two mountain chains waiting for the climbers.

Aegean and Mediterranean seas offer their crystal blue water and their underwater treasures to their coasts. Water temperature is 23-24 degrees for the Aegean Sea, and 28-29 degrees for the Mediterranean Sea during the hottest months. If you love swimming, sailing, diving +history, you won't regret coming :)

I haven’t even mentioned Istanbul, Capadocia, Ephesus, Trabzon, Iskenderun, Van, Olympus and etc. yet.

wHY TO GO?
Well, it is up to you. As a citizen of this country, I want to explore and learn more about it. I’ve been travelling to the places I've mentioned above, discovering and interiorizing of myself and pursuing to find a place to build up my owned "water mill". Besides, it is the land I was delivered to. The motherland of me.. Through my life I've listened and learned mostly about this land and its people. Now I'm not sure how much of them are true. Travelling through Turkiye makes me find my own truth. Everybody has a different reason for travelling. What is yours?

hOW TO GO?
Turkiye is at the trans-section of the motorways connecting Europe and Asia. Busing may be an option from European countries mainly like Greece and Bulgaria. Although they are slow and not very new, train travel is also a possibility from the west to the east.
When it comes to flights, you can reach here from all around the world as Istanbul is a connecting stop for lots of long-way flights. Besides, there are cheap charter flight companies, through which you can find a good deal.
Now all of us know that Turkiye is surrounded by three seas. So I guess I don't need to mention the cruise lines coming to Istanbul, Izmir, Bodrum or Marmaris for the ones who would like to come by the sea.

Answers to 6 questions about Turkiye... Hope it will help you. Bye for now!

Day 36: Pergamon, a modern antique city in a traditional modern day one

the old city of Pergamon

Bergama is one of the biggest towns of the city Izmir. Still it doesn't look very different from a big village with its people, habbits and accomodations. For this, the best way to visit the ruins of antique city Pergamon is to have a daily visit while staying in Ayvalik. It is a one and a half hour way with minibuses which are passing from the main road of Ayvalik at every hour between 09:00am and 19:00pm. It takes around two or three hours to visit Pergamon proparly. When you reach to Bergama village, you should say 'kale' which means casttle to ask for road description. It was weird to notice that people started looking me with a meaningless look when I was talking about the ruins. There is also a cable lift from the village to Pergamon as it is set on a hill which you can see nearly from every point of the village.

The Temple of Trajan

After the shiny days, the last king of Attalids, Attalus III bequeathed the whole of Pergamon to Rome in order to prevent a civil war as he had no heir. Pergamon became the capital of the Roman province of Asia, before the capital was transferred to Ephesus. Pergamon reached the height of its greatness under Roman Imperial rule and was home to about 200,000 inhabitants around 120 BC. Still its masive temples, amphitheatre, ruins of the gymnasium, arsenals and palaces protect their magnificence. Pergamon's library on the Acropolis (the ancient Library of Pergamum) was the second best in the ancient Greek civilization.

The theater with a seating capacity of 10,000 had the steepest
seating of any known theater in the ancient world

underground passageaway under the temple of Trajan

steps of the Zeus Altar

Pergamon was the most attractive sight I have seen by now. I know Ephesus is also on my way and is also as attractive as Pergamon or maybe even more but the only thing I can say is you should definetely visit Pergamon anyway.

Day 33: Ayvalık, land of islands

Ayvalık on map

islands of Ayvalık

Ayvalık is a town near Aegean Sea. Its roots go back to antique Greek. Its old name was Kydonia which means a wild kind of quince. "Ayva" also means quince in turkish and "Ayvalık" means where quince grows. Today there are not so much quince around Ayvalık. Most seen trees around are olive and pine trees as the rest of this area. Ayvalık is also known as the land of islands as it has 22 big and small islands belonging to itself. Some of these islands have habitats but most of them don't.

Before 1920's, Ayvalık was mostly a Greek town but after the Turkish War of Independence depending to the Population Exchange Law its population had been changed with turkish citizens coming from Greek island Lesbos and Crete and Macedonia. Now the third generation of these habitans are living in Ayvalık. Because the average of age is very high, it is very usual to hear a dead announcement from the town's mosques nearly everyday. People of Ayvalık say that Ayvalık is famous with three things; cats, deaths and insane people. I haven't noticed any insane person on the streets but at the top of the hill of Ayvalık, there is a rehab center.

cats waiting for the fishermen

Ayvalık still has its old time houses

For my opinion Ayvalık is a beautiful town with all its old houses, island views, friendly cats and beautiful sunsets. But still it is away from being a touristic town. First of all there are no beaches around the town. To swim, you have to go to islands or beaches away from the town city. The temperature of the water is low, around 18-20 degrees and the sea is shallow. But despite all these there are very famous spots for divers around Ayvalık. Especialy rich coral reefs and remains of old time sunken ships are very popular for underwater photographers.

sunset from Ayvalık

Day 28: after eleven days of sailing, some valuable information about Blue Voyage

Resim yazısı ekle

Sailing in a 20m turkish gulet for two weeks, following the Lycian route from the sea, visiting the ruins of previous settlers, observing their daily usages by present day habitants, feeling the soul, smelling the iodine of the sea, wishing on the shooting stars... This is an experience which shakes you till your bottom, brings everything out that you have inside, wash you with salty water. 

I have done blue voyage tour twice before. They were all one week tours from Fethiye around Gocek bays. These ones were mostly away from open sea, at sheltered bays. I should except that Gocek bays may be one of the most beautiful bays area of the seas around the world but sailing till Kemer from Fethiye, somedays starting before the sun born just not to be caught to strong wind and waves at open sea makes you understand a little bit about a sailor's life and how small we are when the subject is the nature. This trip will cut all your connection with the world you are living. At some point internet and phone included.

Üçağız Village

Kekova from Simena Castle

We still have three more days to reach to Fethiye but till now we stopped at five special places to go to shore to see the ruins. These places were St. Nicolas Island, Olympos, Simena Castle, Phaselis and Patara. Also visited the harbours and villages of Üçağız, Finike, Çıralı, Kaş, Kalkan and Kemer. Stopped at bays over sixteen to swim or stay for the night like Turunç Pınarı, Ölüdeniz, Ayışığı, Salyangoz, Gökkayalar, Kekova...

Maden Bay where we stayed for one night

Blue voyage at Turkiye is not new. It has a history starting from a famous turkish writer Cevat Şakir Kabaağaçlı who is famous with his love to Bodrum and lived between 1890-1973. The turkish gulet type ships first made around Bodrum then spread to other locations of Turkiye. There are several routes of blue voyage that you can choose. They generaly start from Fethiye, Marmaris or Bodrum. Some routes also contain Greek islands like Rhodes, Symi or Kos. Of course these routes are more expensive than the ones around turkish shores. Blue voyage tours has two options... 

Private charter, in which you rent the whole gulet only for you and your group and nobody else. At this form of blue voyage, you have the chance to buy all the ingredients for your meals or leave it to gulet's cook. But in every case drinks will be extra.

Cabin charter, in which you rent a cabin of the gulet and sail with other people who rent the rest of the cabins. In this case, meals belong to the price but again, drinks are extra.

In a turkish gulet generally there are 4-8 cabins and each cabin is for two people. All cabins have their private toilet and shower. Gulets are categorized as standart and luxury. Standart gulets' one day price for private charter starts from 500€ at May, increases to 700€ at July and August, again decreases to 500€ at September. Tours are usually for one or two weeks and it is necessary to make reservation with the payment of %20 in advance. Of course these prices are the avarage rates for you to have an idea. And for the luxury ones these rates can be over 1000€. For cabin charter in a standart turkish gulet, one week for one person is around 400-500€ depending on the month and these prices are also avarage. Although you depend to the cook and his or her talent, you will have a nice and satisfying turkish breakfast, a relatively light lunch, some cookies with the evening tea, fish, meat or chicken with salads and different types of turkish mezes for the dinner. At least this is our menu for this trip with Sultan Suna. 

the turkish gulet named Sultan Suna at Salyangoz(Snail) Bay

Suna and Erdogan are the owners of this lovely turkish gulet Sultan Suna named after Suna. She is also the cook of the ship and a magician in the kitchen. Her fish soup, turkish mezes, traditional style rices and surprises like ottoman deserts are delicious enough to come back. The cabins and the bathrooms are clean as a hotel room and the kitchen as a house. They call themselves as a family boat where they try to make people feel themselves at home. Even when they come with their children.  

Day 21: It's been 5 days in a turkish gulet on Mediterranean Sea

breakfast at Ölüdeniz

After finishing Biga Peninsula, I gave a break to follow the route to south and came directly to Fethiye to join to a blue voyage with a turkish gulet at crystal blue Mediterranean sea. I'm now sailing for a two weeks cabin charter starting from Fethiye till Phaselis and back. This blue voyage kind a trips are now my favorites for a beautiful break. You can swim as much as you want. Sleep at the deck at nights under thousands of stars. Wake up to a silent and full of nature morning and wash your face with clean blue Mediterranean water. If you haven't experienced it yet, you shouldn't die before it.

St. Nicolas Island

There are lots of islands and bays on the route. Some of the islands are untouched and you can only hear the songs of the birds, talks of the goats and donkeys and smells of olive, mountain oregon, sage and lots of other spices coming to your noise with the soft breeze. While sleeping on the deck anchored to one of these islands, you can only hear the sound of the sea beating the bottom of the ship softly. The other beautiful thing about being on board is also sunsets...

sunset at Gemiler Island

Other type of the islands are the ones with ruins of old time horbours, towns or cities belonging

generally to Byzantian or Genoese, The tour lets you to go ashore, do tracking around these ruins and turn back. Although it's late august, weather is incredibly hot and after a long tracking under the sun, the best thing is directly to jump to salty waters. The temperature of the water is around 25-28 degrees and ideal for a long stay in.

start from Fethiye

We started our journey from Fethiye last saturday. Generally all the ships start their routes at saturday. We are 11 people on board. 7 passengers, 3 stuff and me. I have a different category as I'm both a passenger and stuff at the same time. It is a barter I made with the owners.

evening at Turunç Pınarı

At the evening of last saturday, we reached to Turunç Pınarı Bay close to Fethiye. Stayed over the night, had a lovely dinner, swam at night and slept under the stars. These three activities became the most popular of all for the last five days. Next day we started sailing very early like 5am and were able to have our breakfast at Ölüdeniz. I won't write our swiming sections any more but here I also had a chance to climb the hill and took that lovely photo of Ölüdeniz beach...

Ölüdeniz beach and the lagoon

Around noon we passes to Gemiler Island, St. Nicolas with its old name. This island has the ruins of an old harbour center dating back to Byzantian times which was destroyed by a big earthquake. It has 6 churches, lots of houses and an unforgetable sunset from the top of its hill where everybody took their places to watch and applaud.

the ruins of the Byzantian tunnel at St. Nicolas

We stayed over night and passed to Yeşilköy Bay at Kalkan for the morning and of course another delicious turkish breakfast. Around evening we reached to Kaş, one of my favorite places at the south. I have been in Kaş many times but this was the first time going there from the sea.

Kaş from the sea

We spent nearly three hours in Kaş. During this time I was able to visit one of my close friends who lives in Kaş and have some delicious ice cream. For the night, we anchored to Limanağzı Bay very close to Kaş.

Limanağzı also has graves carved into rock

Our next stop after Limanağzı was the famous Kekova region. We stoped at the entrance of Kekova for breakfast and went to Kaleköy(Simena) which has a big castle and an area full of Lycian tombs. It was also time for me to do some small shopping. I bought two summer dresses.

Kaleköy (Simena) and the castle

Lycian tombs

For the night we passed to a bay where there were nobody but us. No boats, no lights, no houses, even no moon... Nothing! And of course at night we appreciated this and swam within yakamoz under the Milky Way. It was a night which I slept like a baby. 

where we woke up this morning

Through our route we came to Finike and will stay here for tonight. Tomorrow we'll go on for Olimpos. I also want to share a map of our route from Fethiye to Antalya.

Day 13-14: Küçükkuyu(Gargaron) and Ida Mountain

from Küçükkuyu harbour

Küçükkuyu is another holiday village between Assos(Behramkale) and Altınoluk. The most important things here are the sea, fish and olive. One of my relatives is living here. Because of this, during my visit I stayed at her house looking to the harbour view. Küçükkuyu is one of that crowded at summer, silent at winter villages. At summer times its population increases like at least three times of its winter one. Walking around the village takes only 40-45 minutes and it's enough to see everything about it. Mostly local tourists visit this village as it is the same for most of the villages, towns and cities around this area. But unlikely other places, it's very common to find lots of camping facilities around Küçükkuyu. The village has a long seashore where all the people do their evening walks, buy some ice cream or have a tea at the seaside tea gardens. The boats anchored upon the seaside reminding the winner of the village.

they are hanging fishes between buildings under the sun to dry them for winter

Küçükkuyu has a very old history. Its foundation dates back to ancient Greek times. Its name was Gargaron. It is believed that Zeus, father of all gods watched and directed Troia war from the top of Gargaron Mountain. Today at that point, there is an altar called Zeus Altar where lots of toursits and people all over the word visit to see and wish things from God.

Zeus Altar

view of east from the top of Gargaros Mountain

viewn of west from the top of Gargaros Mountain

Population of Küçükkuyu is formed from turkish people brought here after population exchange between Turkiye and Greek and turkish nomads who were brought here from the south of Turkiye to built the ships which conquered Istanbul.

The monument of population exchange at Kucukkuyu

Starting from the title of Küçükkuyu, I also want to write something about "olive" which is a very important and precious fruit presented to human beings by gods. Its story is also interesting.

There was a contest at Mount Olympos for the control of new city in Attica. Zeus promise the honour of naming the city to the one who presents the most useful gift for the humankind. Poseidon, the God of Seas struck the ground with his trident and a magnificient white horse appears. Athena, the daughter of Zeus, the Goddess of Wisdom prodeces an olive tree. Since olive is so vital for human life for various uses of its fruit, she won the contest and gave her name to the city of Athens. The history of the first olive tree dates back to 4000BC and its main land is thought to be East Mediterranean.

olives just picked from the trees

Every part of olive that you can imagine is used as something. Nothing left unused from an olive. I also want to share one year adventure of it...

starting from January as a tree and lasting at December as oil

While I'm in Küçükkuyu at the hillsides of Mt. Ida, it would be ridiculus not to visit it. So I decided to join to a daily tour to see the south part of Mt. Ida.

Mount Ida = Kaz Dağları

Although Mt. Ida, Kaz Dağları has a very wide area through inner part of the land, most of the historical and ancient settlements are at the south side, closer to the sea. There are lots of opportunities of tracking, camping, discovering the canyons, endemic plants and trees at the inner part. But it will be another route for me i guess. Maybe with a partner walking with me. This time, i chose to feel the historical part of the mountain. I visited villages Zeytinli, Tahtakuşlar, Güre, Kızılkeçiler and Adatepe. These are the daily names of these ancient villages. At ancient times, there weren't may settlement at the sea shore because of the attacks of prites and ships of other countries. For that reason, all the settlements were founded in the mountain where the village can see the sea but the people from the sea can't see the village.

 

Adatepe Village, the closest to Kucukkuyu

At one of the villages called Tahtakuşlar, there is an ethnography museum which is the oldest ethnography museum of Turkiye all about the daily stuff of nomads and shamans, animals of the region and lots of interesting information which was precious to visit.

a turkish nomad tent

figures of turkish handmade textiles

the second biggest turtle with ledder shell

There were also waterfalls, nice walking opportunities and great views from the top...

Sutüren Waterfall

walking to the waterfall

Lake Hasanboğuldu

Başdeğirmen: water is cold like ice!!

And the view...

Kucukkuyu harbour from the mountain