Disappearing history

My Google alert on Turkey picked up this article the other day, talking about the house in İzmir that might be the home of the 17th-century Jewish "false messiah" Shabbatai Tzvi. The address it mentions, "920 Agora Girisi", doesn't exist, but there's a 920 Sokak beside the ancient Greco-Roman Agora, so we went there to look. This picture shows what we found.

The ancient brick-and-stone house seems to have had a modern cement block wing added. The wall you can see at the right marks the edge of the Agora excavations. The whole block to the west of the Agora seems to be being cleared, maybe for expanded excavations, or maybe because the whole area is an eyesore begging to be torn down.

But it doesn't have to be that way. On our travels this year we've spent lots of good tourist dollars in restored medieval cities. It's all the rage to fix up your old neighbourhoods and offer tourists places to stay in atmospheric pensions. To some extent Antalya in the south of Turkey has done that, too. But not İzmir. Here the oldest, most history-filled part of town is collapsing about the ears of the Kurds and Gypsies who are the only ones desperate and brave enough to live there. And any tourist who may stray into the Agora is in danger of being attacked by hordes of pestering children and pickpockets. No wonder the tourist books say there's nothing to see in İzmir.

I wish there was some far-sighted generous benefactor here who would restore this incredibly beautiful and historically valuable part of town before it's all lost. Anyone have a spare couple of million lira lying around they'd like to invest in a city's past and future?

This just in (June 9)
This story tells us that Izmir plans to renovate the areas from the ancient castle of Kadifekale through the Agora to the Kemeraltı market. Good work, guys!

It isn't just Canada geese...

who fly in Vs. Tonight we were having dinner on the front terrace, watching the sunset and listening to the evening call to prayer, when we noticed a big scraggly V formation of huge birds flying our way out of the north. It wasn't until they were directly overhead that we were able to make out the black underwings and the long pink legs. They were flamingos They must have been heading to the mouth of the Menderes R. near Selçuk and Ephesus from their main nesting place in the salt pans west of Izmir. They sure looked like funny geese. Just as noisy, though.

The Sahara drops in

Last Saturday it rained in Izmir. Big deal, you might say, except there wasn't any rain last winter and western Anatolia is experiencing a drought. So the rain was very welcome, especially since we were just starting to recover from our exhausting travel and were happy to have an excuse to stay home and veg. But when Ron went out in the late afternoon to forage for some sustenance he noticed that everything was covered with mud, and the kids playing football in the street were actually playing something closer to ice hockey, slipping and sliding all over the place.

Nothing unusual, we thought. It's been so dry here that the air is full of dust and the rain is washing it out.

But the next morning when I went out to hang up the laundry I discovered the shoes I'd left on the terrace were full of mud, and everything was covered with reddish clay. So were the cars parked on the street. By the time we went to church the men were out scrubbing off their cars and the women were sloshing off their balconies with pails of water and brooms.

At church we learned that we'd experienced the south wind that blows in straight from the Sahara loaded with fine sand and silt. It happens regularly and is one reason Izmir's streets are so dusty. The only comparable experience we'd ever had was when we lived in Kincardine on Lake Huron's east shore, and the wind blew the topsoil from eastern Michigan onto us.

It's supposed to rain today, too, and if it does I'll be out with our super-sized squeegee trying to get the muck off the terraces. But I suspect that the sun has baked it on and we may have to learn to like the nice new reddish colour.

Another Turkish experience

So I got tired of my hand hurting and decided to go and get it looked at. I stuck my head into the nearest polyklinik, a walk-in clinic, but they were closed. So I headed off in the general direction of the nearest hospital. But it wasn't where I thought it was, and I had pretty much decided to phone one of our friends and ask him to go with me tomorrow. And then I saw in front of me a radiological polyclinic. I can take a hint. I went in and said something incoherent about a broken wrist (my Turkish has really suffered from the European expedition). The technician replied with a torrent of Turkish that meant, I decided, that the radiologist would see me in due course. I went and sat quietly, scanning my Turkish phrase book for anything that might come in handy, while the doctor dealt with the patients already waiting. Then the technician locked the door - I'd obviously stumbled in at the end of the day - and a lady turned up with a glass of tea. What a civilized place this is!

Eventually, after everyone had had their tea, the doctor showed up. I asked if he knew English and he said he could understand but couldn't speak it. So I described my fall and my pain in a mixture of languages that expanded to include French when he found out I was Canadian and admitted to knowing some French as well. They x-rayed my hand with some equipment that was not the newest I'd ever seen, and in a few minutes produced some pictures that showed a bit of a break. Nothing serious, and healing properly, but it means I should wear a bandage for a bit longer.

And then I asked about paying. They wouldn't let me. It was a gift to a visitor to their country, they said. "Geçmiş olsun" (get well soon), they said. And they sent me off with a couple of pictures of my bones.

How typically Turkish.

As you've noticed, we're home in Izmir now. I find it really hard to describe trips: "And then we went to... And then we saw...". That's no fun at all. So I'll just give you a couple of impressions.

Nice - not nice. Don't try driving in the city. We drove from Susan and Harry's place in the Périgord to Nice, and that was fine, but when we tried to find our downtown hotel we ended up trapped in a maze of one-way streets. We're all still friends, just. To top it all off, a pickpocket (an American woman) got my camera.

Monaco - I hate it. It feels like a black hole, sucking the energy out of me. I've found many holy places in our journeys, but this is the exact opposite, a city built out of greed.

Pisa - a highlight. We loved the moment when we turned a corner and Begüm saw the leaning tower. Her gasp made everyone around us smile. The baptistry and the cathedral beside the tower are quite lovely as well, and Pisa seems like a beautiful small city that would be worth spending a lot of time in.

Rome - surprisingly pleasant. I find the Vatican another black hole so didn't join the other two when they went to see it. Our hotel was very close to the Colosseum, and I enjoyed exploring that area on foot. We had many good meals there, including breakfasts at a charming café across the street from the hotel. And I found another camera in a little shop there for a price better than the big duty-free shops at the airport - got it with the help of an Italian Canadian who happened to be in the shop too (I eavesdropped and heard him talking about Canada with the owner, who spoke no English).

Athens - we were all exhausted by the time we got there, but there was still enough energy to wander the streets in the old section, have a great meal while watching the Acropolis light up, and climb up to the Acropolis in the morning. It was good introducing Begüm to her Greek neighbours. A lot of them turn out to be Turkish, or at least have grandparents who were born there and left in the 1923 clearances.

But Olympic Airlines (now on my least-favourite list of air carriers) was having another of its work-to-rule labour actions so we were an hour late leaving for İstanbul. We had just a few seconds to say hello to the Şamlı family as they collected their daughter, and then we grabbed the flight to İzmir. Fortunately Turkish Airlines was its usual prompt, clean, efficient, friendly self. We knew we were home at last. Whew!


So we're home for a few weeks. Early in June we'll visit the Şamlıs in İstanbul and head north to explore parts of eastern Europe. I haven't forgotten the Englishman of African origin we met in Whitby last year who said he was going to retire in Prague because it was the most beautiful city in the world. We need to see for ourselves. But for now it's time to heal and rest.

Update from Rome

Sorry for the long break. We're still alive, but it hasn't always been easy to find the time and the Internet connections to stay in touch. Today we're taking a bit of time off, and if we open the shutters and hold the computer out the hotel room window there's a bit of a wireless signal available, so maybe this update will work.

So I have to do another quick summary of three very full weeks. When will I learn to write things down each day and upload them when I can? Maybe tomorrow.

After the boat trip we spent a couple of days in Luxembourg - one more tick mark for our country list. Turns out it's a good tick mark to get. We had some great food, and were delighted to find that for 5€ we could get a day bus ticket that would take us anywhere in the country. We went to Echternach in the east, where there's a lovely basilica, and then explored the area around, called "Little Switzerland" because it's so rocky and mountainous. Lovely, and so easy to get around! Don't miss Luxembourg.

Off to Brussels for the weekend, to be met by our favourite son. We'd planned to move on to champagne country in Reims on Monday, but he had Tuesday off (May 1) so we stayed, walked around Brussels a bit more, and spent the holiday with him in Ghent. We'd seen Bruges on a tour from the boat, but I liked Ghent better. Perhaps it's because, as Evan says, it's a real town where real people live; perhaps it's because Evan was showing us around one of the places he likes. I kept thinking that this is surely payback time: the kid was collicky and screamed for his first few months, but now he's a delight to spend time with; a few months of misery are totally insignificant compared to the years of joy we've had with him (and his sister, of course).

So Wednesday morning we set off for Paris to meet up with our Turkish "daughter" Begüm, who arrived from Canada that afternoon. There was a panicky time at first when I couldn't find the tickets I'd been guarding in my purse - they didn't show up until that weekend when Evan was packing to go home. So we bought some new ones, trained to Paris, dropped the bags off at the hotel, got out to the airport by train and were there in plenty of time. No problem really.

Our hotel, the Albe, was in a perfect location right at the St. Michel-Notre Dame metro stop - Ron has found some great places through Trip Advisor. Poor Begüm has had to share some rooms with us, but she's been a good sport about it. Thursday we did Notre Dame, took a tour bus, and went up the Eiffel Tower. Friday was Versailles. Saturday we met Ophélie, the other Rotary exchange kid in Creston when Begüm was there, and did the Louvre. Unfortunately that day I also "did" my wrist by tripping over a cement traffic-stopper and landing on my hand. Moral: never walk and gawk at the same time. I think it's just sprained, although there have been times when I truly believed it was broken. That night Ron's camera got left at a restaurant and hasn't been seen since, unfortunately. That was not a good day. Sunday was better, though: a performance of the opera Simon Boccanegra at the Bastille theatre - great! - and a dinner boat tour along the Seine. Elegante.

Monday we headed off to the Périgord district in the southwest of France to visit our friends Susan and Harry. They have an amazing centuries-old farmhouse with attached guest apartment in the ancient town of Carlux. We enjoyed luxurious accommodations, the best food (mostly cooked by Susan, but the restaurants we sampled managed to look not too bad in spite of the stiff competition she gave them), great wines - Harry knows wine - and friends who are still good to be with after 15 years or so of absence. Those days felt like a real holiday.

Speaking of which, the rest of the gang seems to think we should get back to the hard work of touristing again. More later, inşallah.

If this is Tuesday it must be Belgium...

and it is. We've spent the last 12 days cruising down the Rhine on the Viking Sun, a comfortable but not luxurious river cruise ship that shuttles between Basel and Antwerp for 10 months of the year. It's turned out to be a good thing to do. The only problem: they charge outrageous amounts for Internet connect time, so I haven't been able to be as conscientious as I'd like about staying in touch. And now it's much too late to give you a blow-by-blow. I'll try to cover some highlights.

The boat holds about 200 passengers and 40 crew. On a typical day we'll wake in or near a historic place and, after a suitable breakfast, board a bus for a guided tour of the sights. We stagger back in time for lunch about 1, and spend the afternoon recovering while we cruise to a new place. The days have often not been exactly like that, but that's the general idea anyway.

So, highlights? A bunch of beautiful and historic towns like Strasbourg or Heidelberg or Rüdesheim. Climbing up to the top of the Marksburg castle - a special treat considering when we left Canada my knee was so bad I couldn't walk a block. The string of 30 or so castles along the Rhine gorge, homes of the original robber barons. The marvellous city of Cologne and its amazing cathedral (home of the bones of the Three Kings, they say), and the way the rest of the city has recovered from being bombed to dust 60 years ago. The green parklands along the shores of most of the Rhine, loud with birdsong and happy campers. Keukenhof park outside of Amsterdam, full of the most unbelievable tulips at this time of year - and the tulip fields we saw on our way there. The 19 ancient windmills of Kinderdijk, and the modern wind farms in windy parts of the Netherlands. The hordes of bicycles everywhere, especially in Amsterdam. The ancient and lovely Belgian city of Bruges, which we visited today. It really is a beautiful and interesting part of the world, and I'm glad we've seen it. When I get a little more reasonably priced Internet connection I'll put some pictures on Flickr and you'll see what I mean.

I've noticed in particular the care the Swiss, Germans, Dutch and Belgians seem to take of their environment. All along the Rhine they're particularly aware of what happens when the water gets a little high, and in the Netherlands they feel particularly vulnerable to global warming. They also know what happens when you really foul your nest - I don't think the Rhine has always been as clean as we saw it, but people swim in it now and there are lots of fish, based on the number of fishermen who seem to think it isn't a waste of time to get a line wet. Gas prices are high here, maybe $2.50 a litre, and yet there are still a lot of cars on the roads - small, fuel-efficient ones. There are also lots of buses and trams. Every city seems to be building or extending its subway system. Public transport is a priority. It's not too expensive and very convenient and reliable. North America has a lot to learn from Europe.

I've also had a lot of fun playing around with different languages. I did German in high school and university but this was the first chance I've had to try to speak it. I felt really dumb when Turkish came out instead of German, but at least our time in Turkey has given me the courage to make a fool of myself in another language. It's nice that most of the people we've met here have spoken passable English, but I like being able to struggle with their language, too, and sometimes it helps when they can't find the word they need in English. I spoke French in Strasbourg, too, and it came surprisingly easily. Dutch is hard to pronounce and harder to understand when it's spoken, but Flemish is really quite nice and comprehensible. After spending a day here I feel qualified to say that Belgium seems like the nicest country of the lot.

Tomorrow morning we leave the ship and move on to Luxembourg on our own. Another country to tick off on our life list!

A Happy Easter

I must say yesterday was one of the best Easters I've ever enjoyed. And it was a uniquely İzmir experience.

It began about 9 a.m. with choir practice at St John's. Mick McCann, a retired clergyman who has been helping out for several years at St. John's, has been working for some time with an assorted group of singers to prepare music for Holy Week and Easter. We joined the choir when we got here and have enjoyed practising and singing music for Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, and ultimately Easter. The choir did itself proud yesterday. We did lots of service music and a great anthem, impressing the church full of visitors and long-lost regulars. It felt good.

But Mick didn't stop there. Janet Crisler, who was the regular organist when we were here last year, has moved to Selçuk (the modern town near the ruins of Ephesus) to live in a research library she has set up in memory of her late husband. Janet and he worked for years as archaeologists in Ephesus specializing in ancient texts, and that's the focus of this library. She wanted to show us her library and a DVD that's just been released telling the story of one ancient text. So Mick, whose wife is a licensed tour guide, organized a bus to take a group of us to visit her.

We were an assorted group - three of the Turkish regulars and one who is not part of that group of close friends, about a dozen English-speaking regulars (including us), and an American tourist who happened to be in church and thought it might be interesting to come along.

First we went to the ancient Greek town of Sirince. It was just another Ionian Greek village until 1923, when the Anatolian Greeks were "returned" to Greece (most of them came from families that had lived in Anatolia since the Stone Age). Turkish villagers moved in and seem to be enjoying life in this most beautiful hill town. It's a lovely place, and İzmirlis love to go there on hot summer days for a pleasant meal and a walk through the ancient streets. It's clean and friendly and the food - we had lunch there - is delicious. We enjoyed browsing through the handicraft stalls, too. I was fascinated by the way the knitters hold their yarn: around the neck and wrapped around the left thumb, using the left index finger to throw the yarn over the right needle. I think it allows them to walk and knit, and even to carry something in their left hand while knitting. I bought a pair of traditional socks so I could copy the design, which has been around for hundreds if not thousands of years. We also explored the ancient Greek church of St John, which is being restored under the direction of the Turkish culture ministry. Lovely place.

Then back onto the bus and off to Janet's place in Selçuk for a showing of the DVD. It's about the Abgar letters, which were supposed to be a letter from Abgar, king of Edessa, to Jesus and Jesus' response. It was a very moving show. I'm still sceptical about the letters, but I was most impressed with the way the DVD set them in context and made sense of them.

Finally we walked up the hill to the Basilica of St. John. This is where my favourite gospel (John) was written, and I loved the place. We stayed outside this time, not having the time for a really long stay, and I went to sit on a rock beside a bit of waste land. I heard a slithering in the grass, and there was a snake! A Turkish gentleman nearby denied that there were any snakes at all anywhere nearby and insisted I must have seen a tortoise. Very conveniently there happened to be a tortoise just behind me, but I saw what I saw and it was most certainly a vipera lebetina. What kind of stupid tourist did he take me to be?! I picked up the tortoise and turned it over to determine its gender (female) and it emitted a copious stream of pee. Missed me, though. I've never had a tortoise do that before.

There were other neat things to watch outside the Basilica, too: our friend Cathy playing drums with a severely handicapped guy who earned his living that way, and a very healthy stork's nest with one parent tending the eggs and the other keeping watch and looking for prey. And our little group provided some diversion for the locals, too, because it's quite unusual for a mixed group of Turks and foreigners to hang out together. Our Turkish friends got lots of questions.

All in all a most pleasantly diverting day and a great way to spend Easter.