Since You Asked: So much history, so much beauty in Turkey

By Beth Ashley

A yellow sign on the bridge said, “Welcome to Europe.”

Our bus-full of tourists slid joyfully across the line, back in Istanbul after two weeks seeing the sights and cities of Turkey’s Asia Minor.

I had forgotten how many ancient settlements are still being unearthed in Turkey. The Greeks were here! The Romans! The Byzantine Christians! And the Ottomans, who once ruled most of the Mediterranean world.

We saw the ruins of mythical Troy, echoing with the history of Agamemnon and Odysseus and the fabled Helen. We drove alongside impossibly deep canyons where the armies of Alexander the Great had marched toward India. And we tromped through the ruins of Ephesus, Hierapolis and Perge, where grand cities flourished before they sank into old age, leaving fields strewn with arches and columns, stone outlines of stores and houses and central plazas, each with its own amphitheater.

Turkey was a recurring juxtaposition of old and band new: the highways were great, the hotels spectacular, the shopping malls jammed with upscale offerings from Versace, Armani and Luis Vuitton. Every city had a Burger King and McDonald’s. Every stopping place also had souvenir stands, where everyone stocked up on Pashmina shawls, colorful purses, decorative plates, evil eye bracelets, embroidered tunics.

At the Dardanelles, Rowland and I bought visored caps marked Gallipoli, honoring the battles of 1915 between the forces of

Turkey and the armies of Britain, France, Australia and New Zealand. The battle sites were now covered with low-lying bushes and simple monuments. In pocket cemeteries next to the sea, gravestones read like elegies: “Dear is this spot to me, where my beloved son rests” (from a Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, ANZAC, mother); “Oh Gallipoli, thou holdest one of God’s noblest” (from his loved ones).Kemel Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, had been a commander here, and a monument overlooking the strait invoked his words of comfort to ANZAC visitors: “Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are at peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.”

When the Great Powers tried to divide Turkey among themselves after the war, Ataturk mustered an army and fought the Greeks into the sea. He then turned Turkey to modernism and the West — converting the written language from Arabic to Roman, giving full rights to women, abolishing religious rule in favor of secular government and a country that honored all beliefs. His heritage is still the touchstone of Turkey today, though there are some who would like to move past it.

Although Ataturk labeled headscarves and the fez as signs of backwardness (men were encouraged to wear fedoras), far more women were wearing the head scarf today than when I was in Turkey 15 years ago. Was Islam growing stronger? Would Ataturk cringe?

He would in any case be thrilled at the strides Turkey has made economically. Newspapers described a rush of foreign investors, and said the national budget had a billion liras to spare. Is that an enviable situation or what?

Textiles are the country’s principal business, but tourism must be a close second. Everywhere we went ours was one in a stream of tour buses, all stopping at the same restaurant/gas stations to use the toilets and eat lunch, inevitably rice and some kind of kebab.

We were all heading to the same spots — the ruins; the calcium cliffs and volcanic springs at Pamukkale; the underground cities and fairytale landscape of Cappadocia where erosion has carved soft volcanic rock into cones, pillars and pyramids that are now people’s homes.

Wherever we went, the landscape was gorgeous. The weather was lovely. Wildflowers bloomed.

Still, the trip was exhausting. We piled in and out of our bus four and five times a day, visiting museums, a 13th century caravanserai, two medrassas — anything on the route that Turkey wanted to show us.

And wonderful as it all was, the jewel was still Istanbul.

Rowland and I had been in Istanbul for four days before the tour began, visiting Shellie, an ex-pat from San Francisco who had moved to Turkey six years ago and bought a cafe in a hillside overlooking the Bosphorus. Thanks to her we had seen a bit of offbeat Istanbul — thriving cafes, bohemian neighborhoods, stunning rooftop views. She directed us to the Kariye Muzesi, a former church plastered with Byzantine frescoes of Jesus and Mary. We met her at the Hagia Sophia, a 1,500-year-old church built by the Emperor Justinian that sits alongside the soaring Blue Mosque, alight with shimmering blue tiles and stained glass windows. She led us through the Spice Market where we bought saffron and Turkish Delight.

Sure, we did the usual sightseeing. But our favorite thing was just looking at the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, the broad sweep of water that separates Asia and Europe. We watched it for hours from our hotel balcony and from a rooftop bar, we hung around the waterfront at Eminonu and took a three-hour cruise to the Sea of Marmara and back, looking at shoreside palaces and summer mansions and a historic fort built by Emperor Constantine many centuries ago.

I had been to Turkey before; once to sail the Lycean coast, once to enjoy Istanbul and Izmir and Cappadocia. I’d loved every minute, but was still puzzled to think of my friend Shellie giving up San Francisco for a life in Istanbul.

But this time, after a good look, I finally understood.

Beth Ashley’s column, Since You Asked, appears every other Tuesday.