![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/files\/2013\/05\/DSC08576.jpg\")
<\/a> are trails, and I started on one of them when I arrived, but midday heat, and the 5 am departure from Istanbul made that one pretty short.\u00a0\u00a0As part of our tour today, I walked a very pleasant 2.5 miles today in a narrow canyon that contained walnut and apricot trees, grape vines\u2014and old stone houses, churches, in the old caves still used for storage and pigeon raising even today.\u00a0\u00a0Pigeons get locked in one room for a month (phew!) and get the idea they need to return; their manure is harvested (phew!), though our guide noted that since the area became a UNESCO site in the 1980s, chemical fertilizers had replaced the pigeons to a large degree.<\/p>\nSecond, I had a chance to see an old Greek village.\u00a0\u00a0There is a poster here When Turkey was carved (that was the pun in the ’20s) into spheres of influence after World War I (the French, for example, wanted a mandate over the Levant, the area close to Lebanon), the Greek government went to war (backed by the British and the French) to create a protectorate over the Greek cities in Asia Minor, particularly Smyrna.\u00a0\u00a0Ataturk mustered Turkish forces to fight for a Turkish state that has the boundaries Turkey now has.\u00a0\u00a0There was, however, a massive exchange of Muslim Turks in Greece for Orthodox Greeks in Turkey.\u00a0\u00a0One result was the city in the area that still has the abandoned Greek area on a hill.\u00a0\u00a0Word is that the Greeks were offered compensation, but have refused, hoping they could return \u201chome\u201d and that was 1923!<\/p>\n Third, I had a chance to test my claustrophobia. There are 36 \u201cunderground cities\u201d in the area\u2014which says something about the neighborhood!\u00a0\u00a0I expected people to be living in cities underground, but these were, in effect, defensive bunkers.\u00a0\u00a0The one we visited had 8 layers that went down about 90 feet, but only\u00a0\u00a0two of those were open.\u00a0\u00a0Populations (4,000 could be housed in this one; the biggest \u201ccity\u201d accommodated 10,000) could simply hide underground when enemies approached.\u00a0\u00a0The defensive mechanics were ingenious. Huge stone doors could block entry to a tunnel, but could Fourth, I wanted to climb a peak, and while the 13,000 foot volcano that caused this landscape was out of reach, the 4,300 foot Uchisar fortress, right Finally\u2014and this was the Turkish delight\u2014at 5 am, a van picked me up to take me to a field strewn with hot air balloons.<\/p>\n The Lonely Planet suggestion was, \u201cIf you\u2019re ever going to do a hot air balloon, Cappadocia is the place.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0I took that to heart.\u00a0\u00a0There were about 70 that took off today, taking advantage of the relative calm in the morning, with the light wind.\u00a0\u00a0The captain was hilarious (which was helpful since I That was my homage to Jules Verne.\u00a0\u00a0When I was younger (notice that!), a picture that really moved me was Around the World in 80 Days.\u00a0\u00a0That may well have been inspiration realized, not just in the hot-air balloon trip, but in the wanderlust that\u2019s captivated me the last 20 years.<\/p>\n I hope you find a book, a movie, a friend, who will inspire a similar quest for adventure and self understanding.\u00a0\u00a0Bring on the next adventure.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Turkish Delight: or how I paid homage to Jules Verne I\u2019ll get to the explanation for the title if you\u2019ll read to the end, but since this is the last day of my adventure, I tried to do a lot. One thing I wanted to do was \u201ctrek\u201d in one of the many valleys here.\u00a0\u00a0There … Continue reading “Last day overseas: a Turkish Delight”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1331","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-talking-turkey-2013-on-my-own"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1331"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9592,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1331\/revisions\/9592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}touting the \u201cfirst declaration of human rights,\u201d a 1463 announcement from Mehmet the Conqueror that his newly-acquired subjects in Bosnia were free to practice their religion.\u00a0\u00a0Though it was honored on and off in Ottoman history (people of the Book\u2014as they referred to Jews and Christians\u2014were usually tolerated), but I think paid extra taxes and could not serve in the military.\u00a0\u00a0Captured Christian children, however, were frequently raised Muslim, and became the shock troops of the janissaries, the infantry of the Ottomans, but the 20th<\/sup> century relations with Greeks (perhaps beginning with the war for Greek independence in the 1820s), Armenians, and Kurds was and is troubled.<\/p>\n<\/a> only be shut or opened from the inside; air shafts made ventilation possible, and residents could fully function, with a church (the area, as I said, was Christian, even after the Muslim conquest).\u00a0\u00a0Tunnels connected everything, and some were pretty narrow, though living quarters were \u201cduplex,\u201d and in any case at least three times the size of a room in London.\u00a0\u00a0Many of the tunnels were pretty narrow and not very high\u2014which tested my claustrophobia, but the peek holes where the locals could attack the invaders reminded me of the Viet Cong area called Cu Chi tunnels.<\/p>\n<\/a>behind my guest house (I didn\u2019t realize I was living in the expensive real estate\u2014the fortress commands views, and views command room rates), was convenient.\u00a0\u00a0At the top, there were shallow graves for the Byzantines, but apparently the fortress had tunnels that connected with the underground cities.\u00a0\u00a0After 700 or 800 years of being attacked, I suppose the Byzantines got pretty good at defensive strategies.<\/p>\n<\/a>was nervous), and took us close up and up and over.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What a great view from the air, and what a smooth ride.\u00a0\u00a0We landed on the trailer, and celebrated with champagne.\u00a0\u00a0It was 7 am.<\/p>\n