Turkey - independent travel, travel photography

Turkey

If you want to see a country so diverse like no other, go and visit Turkey. The diversity comes from the large number of civilizations who succeeded and left a lot of vestiges in the entire Anatolia. The Hittites, followed by the Greeks and the Romans, the proto Christians, the Byzantine, followed by the Ottomans were the important civilizations that settled in the area, built and created remarkable monuments. Istanbul skyline is dominated by the famous minarets of the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, originally a church, latter transformed in a mosque after the Ottomans conquered the city, its exquisite Byzantine mosaics reminding of the splendors of Constantinople, the capital of Byzantium. There are many other interesting places, reminding of Byzantium or the Ottoman rule and the city was able to preserve an oriental air caused by the open bazaars which you encounter at every corner, beside the famous covered Bazaar which is the heart of the commerce in the city.

In order to visit Turkey, we went directly from Istanbul, to the heart of Anatolia, where is hidden the famous Capadochia, with the astounding landscape of cones and troglodyte dwelling carved in caves housing hotels or pre iconoclastic monasteries. The open-air museums from Goreme, Uchisar, and Zelve are astonishing challenging your imagination. In the area there are also two underground cities, Kaimakli and Derynkuyu, one of them going 12 floors under the ground.
Leaving from there we went to the holy city of Konya , the "nest" of the whirling dervishes, a tradition derived from Sufis. The white hill of Pamukale is a must, where the draperies formed in limestone look like snow and ice in 100F.
The next destination was the western coast of the Aegean Sea where we visited the famous Ionic colonies of Priene, Milet, Didime and Ephesus, the greatest antique Greek city outside Greece and maybe even the greatest ruined city from the whole Hellenistic world. Further up the coast we reached another famous city of antiquity, Pergam, before turning back to Istanbul, spending about 11 days for the whole tour.