Red Church Album
Kizil Kilisi is the Red Church, half an hour’s drive up and over the hills behind Guzelyurt. Rather fragile, it stands strikingly alone in cultivated fields surrounded by hills.
It is the only byzantine church still standing in this part of the world, many have been destroyed or allowed to crumble by previous Turkish governments as probably a deliberate policy of erasing the Christian past – see Alexander Dalrymple’s From the Holy Mountain.
The Friends of Cappadocia are raising money to restore it before it collapses, but it is a race against time as you can see here…
Archive for the 'Turkey' Category
Album: NEMRUT DAGI: a colossal folly
We hiked the few hundred (vertical) metres to view the tumulus at Nemrut Dagi summit at sunrise in freezing winds.
East Terrace
But there was no sunrise, and actually some snow, through which we traipsed at some points.
Some of the giant heads of gods and kings were still surrounded by snow, which gave them an unexpectedly comical appearance.
Somehow the bleak overcast made a fitting setting to contemplate the enormous hubris of King Antioch who had constructed for himself the biggest tomb monument since the Pharoahs. Continue reading ‘NEMRUT DAGI’
A day and a half’s travel to Ankara from Istanbul and on into Cappadocia is enough to make you realise that Turkey’s public transport infrastructure is greatly superior to that of much of Australia, despite Turkey being a relatively poorer country. We left the Hotel Ersu and walked to a conveniently close fast tram stop. Cost for any length of trip: a flat YTL1.40, roughly 1 Aussie dollar.
Continue reading ‘22 hours in Ankara’
In front of the Blue Mosque
Since arriving from Thessaloniki on the Monday night train, we have been very busy, working hard at sightseeing etc, Friday we went ferrying up and down the Bosphorus, and climbed an ancient Byzantine (Genovese, they were allied against the Venetians) fortress. Saturday (today) we are rushing out to the Topkapi Palace. Why? because we are leaving on Monday for 3 weeks in the wilds of Anatolia, leavened by a few days on a gulet. This is our own homemade “Turkey encompassed” with a little help from our friends at Kirkit travel, a company run by a very nice friend of Kim Sanders. Continue reading ‘In Istanbul’
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