Dear readers,
I have a bit of a treat for you--20+ new pictures of my latest adventure in Turkey. This weekend, Margot and I met with a few Fulbright friends in Bursa. While in the city, we climbed around on a mountain, crawled the streets for Iskender kebap, and slipped into a hammam. We also saw a few old (as in 16th century) buildings and defied death, soaring over ravines on a tram.Getting to Bursa from Yalova is incredibly easy. Margot and I walked to the ferry landing and were able to get on a bus that took us straight to Bursa in less than an hour and it only cost $5.
Once we got to Bursa, we checked into a hotel, dropped off some of our stuff and headed for the mountain. Uludag is Turkey's most-skiied mountain and it happens to be right up against Bursa's city limits. Therefore, we were able to take a city cable car (teleferik) up the hill some 1500 meters. The views were amazing.
We were maybe 3 minutes into our ride when I took this picture. It looked like we were in an airplane as we saw the city change into progressively tinier buildings and then disappear into the smog.
Below: Our cable car! So cute and pretty comfortable even when crammed full with 30 people.
Can you see our shadow on the chestnut-covered valley that our little cable car bravely crossed?
We zoomed right over the top of this hill.
At the top, we took a minibus to get higher and then Margot and I hiked through the snow a bit. We couldn't find any paths to the peak (left) but we did find a nice boulder for a self-timed picture (below). We made a few friends, saw a viewpoint and got invited back for snowbunny parties this winter. --What a great trip to the mountain!
Back in the city, Margot and I did a little exploring. We strolled through Osmangazi--an old Ottoman quarter of the city--with many other Turks, loving the sunny Saturday evening.
These two pictures are of Koza Han--Bursa's silk bazaar. Koza Han is famous for its silk scarves and the bi-annual silkworm trade that happens there. It's a two-level "mall" (above) surrounding an open-air courtyard with an old mosque of some kind in the middle. I'm not exactly sure on the details, now, but it is beautiful.
Koza Han is a great place for window shopping, but the whole area around it is great for shopping, too! There's a "flower bazaar," "closed bazaar," and at least two other specifically-named bazaars. Every street around them, though, is also full of nice shops. This street had a cute little green tram.
After our shopping adventures and a catnap, we finally met up with the rest of the Fulbrighters. Together, we went out for Iskender Kebap. Iskender is a Bursa specialty. Basically it is fried, buttered bread (kind of naan-like but thicker), covered in doner (think gyro) meat, and then covered in red sauce, with a big dollop of yogurt next to it, then with browned butter poured on top. I'm not going to say it's a healthy meal, but it is pretty tasty. We were all happy! (Fulbrighters from left: Greg, Ramsay, Tas, Selin [Tas & Sarah's Turkish colleague from Duzce], Russell, Margot, Mary, Annika, Sarah)
Sunday began well with a morning trip to the ladies hammam. All the girls above except Tas, Sara and Selin headed out to Yeni Kaplica--Bursa's "New Bath," completed in 1555. We spent at least two hours there dousing ourselves with thermal water, getting every last dead skin scrubbed off of us, floating in a big pool, and being eyed by Turkish mothers as potential wives for their sons. Okay, that was only one woman, but she was not too modest in approaching us Americans for her 45-year-old son or her 20-year-old grandson.
After our hammamming, we were parched and headed to the nearest bakkal for a cool drink. I wanted to share this picture with you all because even though I don't really like Uludag drinks very much, I thought it was cool that I'd just been climbing these pop's mountain-namesake yesterday.
Right--Mary and Ramsay (behind her) show off their shiny new skin and celebrate Sunday with a cold su bottle. Kestane Shekeri is another Bursa specialty. They are, I think, horse chestnuts that have been soaked in syrup or honey so long that they get soggy, but still are a bit firm. I didn't love them, but they didn't kill me.
With our cold bottles of water, us ladies headed to Tophane, Bursa's clock tower, to meet up with the boys (below). It is beautiful tower with a great view of the city.
After meeting up with Greg, Russell, and his friend Maggie, we wandered a bit through the Tophane neighborhood. This neighborhood is full of beautiful, colorful Ottoman houses. This yellow one was over 600 years old and was where we got lunch.
After lunch, we went back toward the clock tower to see the man that started it all--or, rather, his tomb. This grand coffin with the turban on top and mother of pearl fence surrounding it is that of Osman Gazi himself--the father of the Ottman Empire. Being here was interesting because it seemed that many of the Turkish people visiting this tomb were having a pilgrimage-like experience. Many were praying facing toward Osman Gazi and his family and it seems that headscarves were mandatory.
On our way down from Tophane, we got caught up by another march. We weren't sure what this one was for, exactly, but it was huge and there were plenty of Islamist chants being cried, as at the smaller Yalova marches. These, though, were truly huge. Thousands of Turks were marching in support for something (maybe the military and it's losses?) and they were passionately nationalistic as they did it.
I was really impressed by Ulu Mosque. It was huge and beautiful but so different from any other mosque that I've been in. In the center, there was a large fountain for ablutions (ritual cleansing). I've never seen that before!
The most striking thing about the mosque for me, though, was the calligraphy. It was beautiful and displayed on white walls like the art that it is. Some words were "framed," some were isolated on pillars, and some like this one were just as big as they could possibly be, and totally beautiful. I wish I could read them! (This big one, though, I believe, is a classic symbol of the Ottoman Empire/the signature of Suleyman the Magnificent.)
This one looks like a caterpillar or a - sign, but who knows! It's probably a really important passage from the Qur'an! The flower below it is beautiful, too. What fascinating use of symmetry and repetition!
So cool. It's all just so cool. I wish I could read it!! I don't know if it's Arabic or Ottoman in Arabic script, but being here made me appreciate calligraphy in a whole new way. It's so beautiful and mathematically complex at the same time. I find it so amazing that a culture invested so much time and effort into this art hundreds of years ago, but that it is still appreciated so much today. I swear the paint in this mosque was fresh, there wasn't a cobweb in the whole complex, and the Turkish people visiting were as in awe of all of it as I was. Who wouldn't be??
With that, I bid you adieu, with all my love from Yalova.
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