Turkish Forum

Category: Travel

  • Treatment of the week: Get a Turkish hammam without leaving the country

    Treatment of the week: Get a Turkish hammam without leaving the country

    By Tracey Blake

    Anyone who’s holidayed in Turkey will know that a hammam — a large steam room used in the Middle East for communal cleansing and scrubbing of the skin — is a sure-fire way to give your body a boost.

    And, thankfully, I didn’t have to board a stressful easyJet flight to indulge myself.

    The elegant Bentley Hotel in London’s Chelsea is home to the Le Kalon Spa, with an authentic hammam constructed of grey marble imported from Istanbul.

    Turkish delight: A hammam is a large steam room used in the Middle East for communal cleansing and scrubbing of the skin

    I have booked it for a full, private skin MoT. I’m going to steam my skin, have an all-over exfoliation, a body mask and, finally, a massage — all in a balmy 38c temperature.

    Marble benches flank the walls and deep basins of cold water are on hand. These benches conduct heat and lying on one feels gloriously warming. My pores open up and my skin starts to breathe. My muscles are warmed up and are ready to be pummelled.

    Just as I’m getting comfortable, a therapist emerges through the steam and gets to work exfoliating my body using La Sultane De Saba’s black olive soap and a Turkish Delight body scrub.

    If I get too warm, I give my therapist the nod and am soaked with bowls of cold water . . . It’s a perfect quick fix.

    Once I’m sufficiently clean, there’s a honey-and-rose moisturising mask followed by a 30-minute relaxing massage. Again, I am drenched in cold water if I get too warm.

    An hour later, I leave the spa feeling super soft, squeaky clean and totally relaxed. I will return.

    The Combination Hammam lasts 60 minutes and costs £115. The Bentley London hotel, thebentley-hotel.com

    via Treatment of the week: Get a Turkisk hammam without leaving the country | Mail Online.

  • Tasting Istanbul, From Humble to High Cuisine

    Tasting Istanbul, From Humble to High Cuisine

    By LIESL SCHILLINGER

    SOMETIMES I think it’s no accident that Istanbul’s telephone area code is 212. Despite its minarets and its hilly cobblestone streets, its Grand Bazaar and the sapphire waters of the Bosporus that glide through the city like a liquid sash, this eastern metropolis has a New York state of mind.

    02SUBCHOICE SPAN articleLarge

    Monique Jaques for The New York Times
    A table at Asmali Cavit, which specializes in small plates.

     

    You feel purposeful energy humming in the air as you watch the inhabitants stroll through the maze of streets and lanes, arm in arm. You sense their conviction that the city has been designed for their pleasure; that if they can make it here, they’ll make it anywhere. Sometimes they’re headed to experimental music concerts, gallery openings or simply the office. But very often, they’re bound for cafes, meyhanes (think of them as Turkish tapas bars, serving small plates, wine, beer and raki) or any of the countless restaurants that edge the waterfront and sidewalks.

    Visitors to Istanbul can find it bewildering to decide where to eat. On my first trip there, in 2004, I was squired around town by a friend and his Turkish wife on a culinary Magical Mystery Tour that unspooled like a delicious dream. But on this visit (my fourth), I wandered with the intention of passing along the names of five spots sure to please epicurean newcomers — bearing in mind that couples, thrill seekers and purists have different gustatory goals. But everyone will want a tip for the best meyhane, so that’s where I began.

    Asmali Cavit

    When I’m in the mood for mezes, I usually grab a table at the always-thronged meyhanes Refik or Sofyali 9, which bob amid a torrent of other meyhanes on Sofyali Sokak, in Beyoglu, near Tunel Square. But on my most recent visit, my Turkish friend Mehmet Murat Somer, author of “The Kiss Murder” and other mysteries, insisted I try Cavit, on Asmalimescit Caddesi, just around the corner. A few bites into the chargrilled borek meat pastry (other meyhanes tend to fry them), I saw why. The flaky phyllo crust was marvelously crisp against the juicy meat and sautéed onions inside.

    You don’t necessarily go to a meyhane for great food; a bonhomous atmosphere matters more. But Cavit offers both. From the street, it resembles a snug, wood-faced Alpine chalet, but seems to magically expand as you walk in. On a damp, cool night earlier this year, the second-floor dining room was packed to the (exposed) rafters. Murat, as he is known, waved me to a corner table where he and a lively entourage were already carousing, and called for a bottle of raki as a fleet of well-crafted standards began sailing onto the table: patlican salatasi (smoky, roasted eggplant purée with béchamel), tender braised squid, and lakerda — rose-beige petals of cured Black Sea tunny.

    We delved into the house specialty, topik, a sweet and savory Armenian chickpea dish that has the smooth-grained, dense texture of halvah. Dotted with raisins and tahini, it melted on the tongue. Piping hot sardines arrived next. Each morsel was made of two silver fillets, placed back-to-back and grilled. On the plate, they resembled shimmering butterflies. We spritzed them with lemon and snapped them up, skins and all.

    Asmali Cavit, Asmalimescit Caddesi No. 16/D, Beyoglu; (90-212) 292-4950; 70 Turkish lira, or about $40 at 1.80 lira to the dollar for a generous assortment for two, without drinks or tip.

    Agatha, Pera Palace Hotel

    Last spring, Yigal Schleifer (who has contributed to The Times Travel section) and Ansel Mullins, American expats who created the blog Istanbul Eats, fielded an online question from a diner: “Can you please help my clueless boyfriend (along with millions of Turkish men) find a nice and romantic place to propose?” They cagily did not reveal the place that Mr. Mullins himself chose when he popped the question to his wife a decade ago: Pera Palace, the grand Ottoman Victorian hotel where Agatha Christie is said to have written “Murder on the Orient Express.” Back then, Pera Palace was picturesquely rundown. But last year, it emerged from a meticulous restoration with the elegant addition of a downstairs restaurant called Agatha, which exudes belle époque glamour. As you descend a white marble staircase to the chandeliered dining room, you see, in a glass window case, shining pieces of 1892 Christofle silver, and in another case, a New Year’s Eve menu from 1924, offering “frivolités madrilènes.”

    In 2011, Agatha may well offer Istanbul’s most stately gourmet experience. Each month, the German-born executive chef, Maximilian Thomae, devises a tasting menu inspired by a Turkish staple. One recent theme was olive oils, drawn from 60 orchards; a different variety flavored each dish. His vegetable mosaic terrine resembled a French knot garden, bordered in chard, paved with sumac-spiced rice and pebbled with carrot and zucchini. The citrusy oil he chose — Laleli Taylieli Extra Virgin — united the whole. He steeped his house-cured salmon in jasmine tea, and his velvety, tangy vine-leaves soup was balanced by crab dumplings — fluffy round soufflés the size of cherries, which arrived on their own side dish to be admired before being tumbled into their flavorful bath. He tenderized the quail kebab in milk and encased it in a beguiling peach pestil. As I marveled at these harmonies of texture and taste, I hunted for the Turkish clues lurking in each dish. Even the sorbet, silky smooth, made of limes and olive oil, was redolent of Turkey’s hillsides.

    Agatha, Pera Palace Hotel, Mesrutiyet Caddesi 52, Tepebasi, Beyoglu; (90-212) 377-4000; perapalace.com. Chef’s Degustation Menu (recommended), 125 lira per person without wine.

    Munferit

    Scenesters who come to Istanbul in search of fascinating strangers head for Munferit, right off the bustling Istiklal pedestrian mall. Here Turkish and global gadabouts gather to drink Ferit Sarper’s thrice-distilled Beylerbeyi raki, made from grapes and anise at his family’s distillery in western Turkey, and to sample his stylish menu, notably the smoky fried eggplant with tahini, and the black couscous in squid ink, sprigged with magenta blossoms of grilled calamari. Main courses include chargrilled lamb chops with endive, and lettuce-wrapped sea bass with fennel. For a rustic touch, Mr. Sarper ships in crusty bread twice a week, baked in a village stove in his home province and served with a molten dollop of anchovy butter.

    On weekdays, diners romance each other across candlelit tables that line the narrow terrace adjoining Munferit’s main dining room; but on weekends, Mr. Sarper D.J.’s, manning the laptop at the bar. As the music swells, a fashionable, fun-seeking crowd, redolent of Los Angeles and Moscow, fills the terrace, and the staff whisks away the tables, one by one, until the restaurant has transformed itself into a dance party. As I left on a Friday after midnight, the lyric “I’m in with the in crowd” surged from the speakers — it could be Munferit’s theme song.

    Munferit, Firuzaga Mahallesi, Yeni Carsi Caddesi No. 19, Beyoglu; (90-212) 252-5067; munferit.com.tr; about 140 lira for an average meal for two, without drinks or tip.

    Sehzade Erzurum Cag Kebabi

    At heart, Turkish cuisine is not fussy; it’s unpretentious, locavore home cooking. Grown men in Istanbul routinely have their mothers bus them homemade meals from the provinces. At Sehzade Erzurum Cag Kebabi, a thrillingly authentic hole-in-the-wall near the Egyptian market, I perched on a plastic chair and lunched on an “extremely important kebab” with Mr. Mullins (who willingly travels an hour and a half to taste “the best bean in Istanbul”).

    The lamb at Sehzade roasts on a horizontal spit, which maximizes its juiciness. Ozcan Yildirim, the usta (master chef), beamed at us from his grill, leaned around the doorway and proudly thrust a skewer of lamb toward my lips, coaxing me to pull the meat off with my teeth. His lambs had grazed on thyme and wildflowers in the mountains, he boasted. “Taste, taste!” he insisted. Instead, I used a pillow-soft sheet of doughy white lavash bread to gather up the delectable meat, and ate it with tomato-and-cucumber shepherd’s salad, and thick, lemony buffalo-milk yogurt.

    Sehzade Erzurum Cag Kebabi, Hocapasa Sokak 3/A, Sirkeci; (90-212) 520-3361; 15 lira prix fixe.

    Akdeniz Hatay Sofrasi

    For a broader menu and a more elaborate gustatory spectacle, I took the tram with a Turkish friend and journeyed past the Grand Bazaar to a flower-garlanded restaurant called Hatay Sofrasi, which delivers the aromatic specialties of Turkey’s Hatay province, situated along the Mediterranean and the Syrian border. Waiters in white jackets and fezzes ushered us upstairs, where we took a table among a genteel crowd of bureaucrats and their wives.

    Delicacies arrived in rapid succession: a tinglingly fresh salad of oregano leaves, confettied with red strips of tomato and green olives; a succulent dome of firik pilav — pearly cracked wheat dotted with braised lamb; and fried pastry torpedoes called oruk haslama, stuffed with spicy ground meat, walnuts and chiles. Glasses of rosewater and freshly squeezed orange-and-pomegranate juice cooled our palates, and soon a waiter emerged, bearing a triumphal platter that held a meter-long beef and lamb kebab, bejeweled with pine nuts, pomegranate pips and parsley. We tore off hanks of flatbread to enfold sandwich-size sections of kebab, spooning in muhammara (a creamy dip made of red peppers and walnuts) and barbecued eggplant purée for added savor. Another waiter wheeled in a cart topped with a rock-salt igloo, which he set alight. He then smashed the flaming salt crust with a mallet and unveiled a whole roasted chicken that was stuffed with cardamom-spiced rice and exhaled fragrant steam.

    We could not resist a cool rectangle of the traditional Hatay candied pumpkin dessert, crisp and crunchy on the outside, fruity and jellied within; and the authentic walnut dessert: walnuts in the shell, softened in lime, and boiled in syrup until they could be cut with a butter knife, even the shells.

    Akdeniz Hatay Sofrasi, Ahmediye Caddesi 44A, Fatih, Aksaray; (90-212) 531-3333; akdenizhataysofrasi.com.tr; about 100 lira for a generous meal for two, not including tip. No alcohol.

    A version of this article appeared in print on October 2, 2011, on page TR10 of the New York edition with the headline: Tasting Istanbul, From Humble To High Cuisine.
  • Istanbul: The Maddest City in Europe

    Istanbul: The Maddest City in Europe

    Miles from even the suburbs, hours before it can be seen on the distant horizon, Istanbul can be felt. It seems to get louder and hotter as one gets nearer. The traffic thickens. Dust and cement replace grassy goat pastures. Freeways begin to crisscross the land in a madhouse maze. Like space junk careening around an overpopulated planet, trucks and buses converge and cross paths from all directions, blasting the cyclist who dodges among them with fiery belches of exhaust. By 4 p.m., I had come 100 miles and was immersed in metropolitan mayhem, yet the city center remained 20 miles away.

    istanbul fisherman

    By 8 p.m., I was sunburned, famished, exhausted—yet energized by the intensity of the city. I crossed the Galata Bridge, where scores of fishermen dangle lines into the waters of the Golden Horn, occasionally landing a sardine. On either end, vendors sell corn on the cob and pastries to the throngs of pedestrians, and the traffic—gridlock of the worst order—grinds along as cabbies honk endlessly. I met a friend, Irem, in the Beşiktaş neighborhood, a prosperous downtown port district. She led me several blocks up a steep and winding cobblestone street, through a doorway, down a flight of stairs and into her silent, neat and orderly apartment. I marveled that peace and privacy can be found in Europe’s maddest city.

    Istanbul, once a hub of Eastern dress, food, architecture and exotic customs, is today more like Paris or London. There are skyscrapers, two huge suspension bridges linking Europe to Asia and ridiculously cumbersome SUVs on the narrow streets. In many aspects, it looks like just another westernized city. But the many old buildings and huge monuments still remind us of the centuries that have passed.

    There is a trace of conservatism. Men growl obscenities at Irem as we walk through Beşiktaş during rush hour one evening. I can hear nothing, but she catches their words, spoken from behind cigarettes and mustaches. “These men! They’re pigs!” she says, shaking her head, clearly familiar with such behavior. “It’s because this is a repressed culture.”

    The teeming stray dogs are mostly large, handsome animals, and they navigate the traffic and lie on the sidewalks of the quieter streets, often receiving a pat from passersby. They are treated well. Boys throw them balls along the waterfront and kneel to offer them bread. Some of the dogs are a bit wiry, but few fit the description of Mark Twain, who wrote of “the celebrated dogs of Constantinople” as starved, foul, exhausted and wretched. Today, their descendants wag their tails at life. “That’s the fattest stray dog I’ve ever seen,” I declare to Irem as we walk along Barbaros Boulevard one evening. Other travelers have observed the same.

    Cats, too, heavily populate the city. One may see three or four homeless tabbies at a time on any backstreet in Istanbul. We must keep the windows shut or they’ll spill into the apartment. Posing by flower pots and licking themselves on the promenade, the cats make popular photo subjects, and in shops tourists may find coffee table books and postcards depicting “The Cats of Istanbul.”

    Asia is just across the Bosporus Strait—a continental boundary as arbitrary as they get. Seven minutes and 2 lira on a ferry lands me in Uskudar on Friday morning, after three days in town, and I pedal north along the Bosporus toward the mouth of the Black Sea. An hour later I am in the countryside. I sleep on a hilltop near Şile, in a forest of chestnuts and hazelnuts, the turquoise Black Sea just a mile away, and the only sign of the densest, most frenetic, most inspiring of aggregations of humans on the planet is a calm glow on the southwest horizon.

    via Istanbul: The Maddest City in Europe | Off the Road.

  • Istanbul, The planet’s Hippest Area

    Istanbul, The planet’s Hippest Area

    Positioned with the crossroads of Asia and europe, Istanbul, Chicken is amongst the most well-known urban centers in the world. The original known settlement of your location days to 1000 W.Chemical., plenty of time of California king David in Jerusalem while some decades after the A trojan virus Warfare. A major city was created for the Hard anodized cookware shoreline in 700 W.D. by Ancient settlers although the Byzantines settled on the ecu shore. Inside sixth centuries town was beaten from the Persians, and then Athens. It absolutely was integrated into the Roman Kingdom, then turned a Sterling stronghold during the Old, called Constantinople, until eventually mastered by Moslems while in the fifteenth century.

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    Wonderful this heritage at the rear of it, you may realise that Istanbul is stuck previously, however the urban center has developed into destination for all those factors modern-day the truth is, its new moniker is Hippest Metropolis The traditional properties and mosques mixture together with the new galleries and museums, museums and organizations to create this probably the most thrilling destinations on the globe plus the Istanbul places to stay are area of the enthusiasm.

    Within the ancient section, the Blue Mosque is one of the most well-known and incredible landmarks to arrive at, as is also the Topkapi Structure, the place to find the sultan luxurious way of life and the Fantastic Bazaar, the planet most popular searching hub. The Hagia Sophia is Istanbul most well-known monument but it mimics town track record. Built by Emporer Justinian in 537 on the view of Byzantium acropolis, it had been one of the most stunning church buildings in Christendom, also among the most essential, until finally Mehmet the Conqueror converted it into a mosque in 1453. It had become changed into a adult ed in 1934 and is amongst the most awesome houses on the globe.

    For that more sophisticated take on Istanbul, there are several night clubs and eateries that include good foodstuff and amusement. You’ll find gypsy artists, discos and homemade wine pubs, top notch dining places and reputation locations, a little something for anyone. Andon, for example, includes a beach cafe with lovely vistas with the Bosphorus, a homemade wine tavern offering soloists, a disco on a lawn floorboards, along with Istanbul sanat audio around the third floorboards and fasil audio around the fourth floorboards. Istanbul resorts are as particular and various as the town themselves. Many provide the guest a traditional come to feel, like the Bosphorus Building Hotel room and the 4 Seasons Hotel room Istanbul at Sultanahmet, while other people target an increasingly modern-day solution such as Core Development plus the Marmara Taksim. Still others, for example Ibrahim Pasa Oteli, straddle the two two extremes, older and new, exactly like Istanbul.

    via Istanbul, The planet\’s Hippest Area « Jxyouth.com.

  • Turkey’s best ancient sites

    Turkey’s best ancient sites

    Having visited most of the great Classical sites, Annabel Simms explores some of the lesser-known ancient cities of Turkey.

     

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    The library of Celsus Photo: ALAMY

    By Annabel Simms

    If you want to do a little time travelling from our civilisation yet be reassured that there is nothing new under the sun, go to the museum at Aphrodisias, a Classical site being excavated in Turkey.

    Here, Britannia is shown as a bare-breasted barbarian woman (Boadicea?) lying at the feet of an immensely idealised and youthful Emperor Claudius. This is just one among the many other savage tribes in a series of sculptured reliefs dating from around AD80 showing the size and reach of the Pax Romana – and the extent to which the local Greek dignitaries had bought into Roman values.

    Another group of symbolic statues, one covered by the billowing cloak of night, rams home the message: this is the empire on which the sun never sets.

    I have visited most of the major Classical sites, so a tour of little-known ancient cities in Turkey really appealed to me. The trip began in the Carian city of Caunus with its Lycian temple tombs carved into the rock. In turn, we visited Alinda, saved by Alexander the Great; the Temple of Apollo at Didyma; nearby Miletus, Priene and Ephesus, all of them once thriving seaports before the silting up of their harbours; Hierapolis, next to the petrified waterfall and sacred spring at Pamukkale; and the Temple of Aphrodite at Aphrodisias and Pinara with its spectacular Lycian rock tombs.

    The tour ended at Fethiye, the ancient city of Telmessos, where I sat in the Roman amphitheatre watching the local teenagers flirting on its crumbling stone seats overlooking the bay.

    To see so many places, famous and not-so-famous, in one week is an unusual opportunity to understand both the continuity of Classical civilisation over a millennium and its decline, due as much to the silting up of rivers and earthquakes as to the fall of the Roman Empire. I could now draw you an identikit map of a Carian-Lycian-Greek-Roman city, with its temples, theatre, agora, harbour, necropolis and plumbing arrangements, and even include the delicate frescoes which decorated its villas, having seen them in situ at Ephesus.

    Aphrodisias, with the widely scattered remains of its huge temple, theatre and stadium surrounded by waving poppies and olive trees, was for me the best place from which to make sense of the ruins of the successive civilisations which litter this part of Turkey. Its small museum, displaying and explaining the symbolism of the sculptures found there, is one of the most illuminating I have ever seen.

    I am not a museum fan. I’d rather see a crumbling sculpture in its original setting than the best-preserved Classical statue, stripped of its context, in a museum. But the museum at Aphrodisias is exceptional, partly because of the beauty and significance of the site itself, a fertility cult centre since around 9000BC.

    The worship of Aphrodite lingered on here well into the fifth century, long after paganism had been eradicated in other parts of the Roman Empire. The museum is state of the art as the site is still being excavated by an American archaeological team, which may explain the clarity and helpfulness of the English explanatory notices alongside the Turkish ones.

    Thanks to the display notes, I saw things I would have completely overlooked: an early Classical head of Alexander the Great with a neat line incised across the throat, a pious addition in the sixth century when Aphrodisias had a hardline Christian bishop.

    Other statues had fared less well in this period, some being defaced beyond recognition. The note beside a statue of around AD200 informed me that the sculptor had carved “Jesus Son of Mary” under the hairline at the back, presumably as a secret protest at having to earn a living by making pagan statues.

    Every site we visited was subtly different, with its own peculiar ambience. We all agreed that the biggest let-down was Ephesus, the best-known site and for that reason more crowded than the London Underground at rush hour, and with an even more sophisticated and cranky electronic ticketing system.

    I hardly recognised the city I had visited 25 years ago – at lunchtime, when it was deserted. Apparently the only way to see it like that now is to get up at the crack of dawn.

    But I did discover a fascinating new detour to the Terrace Houses “museum”, just off the main street.

    It is actually a roofed archaeological site in progress, with glass walkways along several levels so that you can look down into the interiors of houses dating mainly from around AD200 and see their beautiful mosaics and frescoes as their owners saw them. The £5.70 entrance fee is probably responsible for the absence of crowds here, but to me was worth every penny for seeing what is in effect a living museum.

    Ephesus is surrounded by little stands proclaiming “genuine fake watches” and the inflated prices are in euros (always a bad sign). Euros were also the norm at Didyma and at Pamukkale, where the vast crowds at the entrance caused one of our group to hurriedly arrange to rejoin us later and flee.

    The famous thermal baths here are indeed over-visited and overpriced. Mineral water at 97F (36C) bubbles from the original sacred spring into the outdoor pool, the bottom of which is covered with broken Classical columns. I discovered them by stubbing my toe on one, although they are clearly visible if you look down through the limpid water. But I am glad I sampled the water because it really does have therapeutic properties. I emerged feeling warmer and psychologically lighter, much as I did after an open-air sauna in Finland.

    The other good reason to brave the crowds at Pamukkale is to visit the abandoned city of Hierapolis close by. By great good luck it was late afternoon when we reached it, the best time of day to stroll through its colonnaded main street and triple-arched gateway to the necropolis, containing more than a thousand tombs extending for one and a quarter miles (2km) along the road.

    The silence here, with mountains rising in the distance, induces reflection but, oddly enough, not melancholy. The continuity, rather than the transitory nature of human life here, was the main impression we carried away and we agreed that the absence of crowds had a lot to do with it.

    In terms of atmosphere, Pinara and Alinda, both necessitating a steepish uphill climb, were the clear winners. We met hardly anyone at Pinara and no one at all at Alinda, where we picnicked in the ruined theatre encircled by distant mountains, with only the wind whispering through the olive trees which have thrust themselves at crazy angles between the seats and fill most of the stage. The call to prayers drifting across to us from a distant mosque only added to our sense of silent communion with the past.

    As with any guided tour, there were drawbacks, the main one being that there is never enough time for people to do their own thing at their own pace. I also think that, with some exceptions, Turkish food can be better and sometimes cheaper in north London than in the restaurants on tourist routes in Turkey. One restaurateur told me that food prices had increased by 100 per cent in the past two years and, after visiting a local supermarket, I could see that this may well be true. But the Turkish coffee was a pleasure I never tired of.

    In general, the standard of the modest hotels we stayed in was good, and Turks are friendly people. Going with a tour group is a good idea if your aim is to see as many interesting places as possible in a short time, in the company of like-minded people. For me it was also a good way of learning which aspects of Turkey I would want to avoid, as well as an incentive to return and explore this fascinating country in more depth.

    Essentials

    Getting there

    Turkish Airlines (0090 212 444 0 849; www.turkishairlines.com) offers return flights from Heathrow to Dalaman, changing at Istanbul, from around £296. Thomas Cook Airlines (08718 950 055; www.thomascookairlines.co.uk) offers direct flights to Dalaman from Gatwick from around £171, but they can be at awkward times.

    Packages

    The tour as described is offered by Explore (0845 013 1537; www.explore.co.uk). Its eight-day tour of classical sites, trip reference Aegean Sites (TA), starts from Dalaman and returns from Fethiye. It costs £718 including flights, hotels, transport, guided tours and insurance but not meals, except breakfast.

    Getting around

    If you’re not going as part of a tour, then visiting classical sites off the beaten track by car or public transport can be problematic. There is a good summary of different modes of transport in The Rough Guide to Turkey, which also contains useful information on the sites mentioned here, as well as much else.

    When to go

    Spring or autumn is the best time to visit the sites. That way, the weather is pleasant but there are fewer people around.

    The best hotels

    Selçuk, the later name for Ephesus, is a useful base from which to visit Alinda, Didyma, Priene, Miletus and ancient Ephesus. Fethiye would also be a good choice, as it is beautifully situated on the coast, within easy reach of Pinara, Caunus, Aphrodisias and Pamukkale.

    Canberra, Selçuk £
    A small, well-run hotel next to a little park and a five-minute walk from the helpful tourist office and the museum displaying treasures from Ephesus (232 892 7668; www.hotelcanberra.net; from £13 per person).

    Kalehan, Selçuk ££
    Modern hotel built in traditional Ottoman style, with garden and swimming pool, located near the Byzantine castle (232 892 6154; www.kalehan.com; from £23 per person).

    Ephesus Princess, Pamucak £££
    A large, modern five-star hotel by the sea, just over five and a half miles (9km) from Selçuk (232 893 1011; www.kusadasihotels.com/ephesusprincess; from £57 per person).

    The best restaurants

    Tat, Selçuk £
    The menu of this small friendly restaurant in the centre of town offers some welcome variations from the ubiquitous kebabs. I particularly enjoyed a simple starter of fresh runner beans in an olive-oil based sauce (Cengiz Topel Cadesi no. 17; 232 892 1916; www.ephesusselcuk.com).

    Efes, Selçuk £
    This modest restaurant is where the locals go to eat (Namik Kemal Cadesi no. 24; 232 892 2006).

    What to avoid

    Get to the airport in good time for a Turkish Airlines flight. As I only had hand luggage I arrived half an hour before check-in closed, only to find that my flight had been overbooked.

    Although Turkey produces good wine, most people drink tea and visitors drink beer, as wine is surprisingly expensive. Efes beer does in fact come in smaller bottles than the 50cl size you will be automatically served unless you specify kuçuk (small).

    Turkish money is easy to convert now that all those zeros have been abolished. Just halve all prices in Turkish lira to get the sterling equivalent, which is actually a bit less. Euros are more useful than sterling, although cash machines are plentiful.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/turkey/8773959/Turkeys-best-ancient-sites.html

  • Istanbul Adventures: My Study Abroad Experience

    Istanbul Adventures: My Study Abroad Experience

    By Kat Russell

    The Aya Sofya, in the Sultanahmet district, is one of the most famous tourist attractions in Istanbul. The structure, which is well over 2000 years old, was first used as patriarchal basilica, later as a mosque and is now a museum. Photo Credit: Kat Russel

    Who knew that an email could change the course of my life? It certainly wasn’t what I was expecting when I opened the mass email my adviser had sent out. But there it was – opportunity knocking, and opportunity’s name was The Istanbul Project.

    If the universe saw fit, I was to study journalism in Istanbul for five weeks through ieiMedia — an intensive international journalism program.

    Whether or not I was going to be able to pull it off was questionable. I am a single mom and a fulltime student, and making that work is hard enough without me being in a different country. On top of that, I’m not exactly swimming in pools of excess money.

    I was forced to weigh the pros and cons of the situation – could I justify spending five

    weeks away from my son? Could I justify the future financial burdens that would result from my going? Did the benefits of such an opportunity outweigh the cons? In the end, I concluded they did and with that, my journey began.

    The months before my departure were a whirlwind of preparation. There were countless emails back and forth with the program administration, the professors, and my future classmates.

    I spent many evenings glued to my computer researching possible grant and scholarship programs. There were applications to be filled out and essays to write and letters of recommendation to collect. I had to get my transcripts in order and mailed out. Not to mention the finalizing of the actual trip details. On top of all of that, let’s not forget homework doesn’t take a vacation simply because I had a trip to plan. It was madness.

    About a month before my departure, I received some of the best news I could have. All my hard work researching and applying for grants and scholarships had paid off. I had received a $5,000 scholarship from the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship fund to pay for my study abroad experience.

    I was shocked! While I was researching financial-aid possibilities, I always found a reason why I didn’t qualify for that grant or why I wasn’t going to get this scholarship. However, one of the most valuable lessons life has taught me thus far is to not let the details keep me from trying. Lesson learned and reaffirmed.

    With all my ducks in a row, Istanbul became tangible. Istanbul beckoned. Anticipation and excitement and fear and anxiousness all had their way with me. I was going to Istanbul.

    There are likely many students who would love to have the opportunity to study in another country. Over the next few weeks, I will share my adventures in Istanbul ranging from studying abroad, to experiencing a drastic shift in perceptions, to finding unexpected romance.

    I hope my experiences will inspire you to take a chance, fill out an application or two, and see what the world has to offer.

    via Istanbul Adventures: My Study Abroad Experience | Daily Sundial.