The ancient Greek city of Paestum is a must for its ancient temples and it’s easy to get to. We took an early train which dropped us off an easy 15-minute walk from the entrance. It took little over an hour to get there.
This is a view of the amphitheater even before getting into the park.
We weren’t alone but the park wasn’t crowded. First up was the so-called Temple of Ceres which was later found to be the Temple of Athena.
It dates from the 6th century BC and is composed of Doric and Ionic columns on a mound. It faces the rising sun.
Next was Heroon, the “tomb of mystery”
It looked like a tomb but it was uncharacteristically placed within the town. Also there were no bodies found inside, only some nice vases.
The site was spread out and traces of the later Roman settlement were a pleasure to seel.
Next up was the Temple of Neptune dating from 460 BC.
The Romans changed a lot when they arrived but left the temples alone. No need to aggravate Zeus, Hera & Co any more than necessary.
Perhaps the most impressive was the Temple of Hera, the oldest Greek temple on earth, dating from 550 BC.
The silence and beautiful landscaping of the park made it easy to conjure up the days when the pantheon of eccentric Greek gods ruled the region.
After visiting the park we stepped inside the museum which displayed artifacts, vases, votives and statues. The most precious find is the tomb of the diver. These frescoes are the only ancient Greek tomb frescoes ever found and date from 480 BC. The Greeks believed that death was nothing more than a dive into the unknown.
After the visit we hurried to catch the last train out but got completely lost, walked about 5km in the wrong direction, missed the train and dragged ourselves back to Naples several hours later.
Caravaggio was on the menu today. We headed out in the morning to Po Monte Della Misericordia which took us through the Spanish Quarter.
Miraculously there was no line to get in to see The Seven Works of Mercy which was in itself a Mercy.
I liked that the other works on display showed how other contemporaries of Caravaggio were influenced by his style.
Across the street was the Duomo dedicated to San Gennaro.
There was a lot to look at there. Like many baroque churches, too much is never enough. Not my style.
After a decent pizza nearby in Spuzzuliamm
we returned to O Sarracino to collect our luggage and move across town to Avia Suite.
By this time it was clear that I had caught some kind of bug and was feeling very poorly indeed. I had fever, chills, coughing, sneezing. The works. Also the internet was out and certainly couldn’t be repaired on Sunday. Chiew brought me a pot of Japanese noodles which was perfect and a Doliprane which was essential.
October 21
I was still doing poorly in the morning but presided over the internet repair and then napped.
Feeling a little better after lunch, we took the funicular up to the hilly Vomero neighborhood. The broad, leafy streets lined with elegant buildings contrasted nicely with the city below. Plus we met a couple of great guys! A little thin but sharply dressed.
We wandered the Villa Floridiana park, enjoying the turtle pond and the view.
Our birthday dinner was at a local Japanese restaurant. We both enjoy sushi so why not?
It was a smooth but long day on the trains. Nice-Ventimiglia-Milan-Naples. Left Nice at 7:24, arrived in Naples in the pouring rain at 6:05. The Frecciarossa from Milan to Naples is comfortable and has wifi but the dining car was 4 cars away so I stayed put.
The B&B, O Sarracino, was only a five-minute walk from the train station. In theory. In fact, it took us 15 minutes in the downpour to get oriented. Using Google maps on a rainy night is challenging.
Alfredo welcomed us with Neapolitan warmth and we settled in.
Dinner was nearby in Trattoria Avellinese. It was simple and so local that a family brought a horde of their screaming kids. Good food but noisy.
October 19
Still raining! Hard! So much for exploring Naples on foot. We figured it was a good day to explore the Archaeology Museum but the first job was to figure out whether a pass that included that and other sights would be worthwhile. After scrutinizing the fine print it appeared that it wasn’t so we bought transport passes and headed out.
All the mental work left us hungry for pizza.
We headed to the celebrated Starita which serves up the best pizza in town. Fried pizza? Oh yes! It was heavenly with a chewy flavorful crust. And then we dragged our soggy selves down to the Museum
It hardly seemed possible that there would be a long line to get in on a rainy October afternoon but there you have it. It was discouraging.
We took a lengthy tea break in the elegant Galleria Principe di Napoli across the street. 45 minutes later the rain had stopped and the line had shortened so we headed in.
The massive museum displays finds mainly from Pompeii and Herculaneum. It was entrancing. Here are the highlights:
The Toro Farnese depicts the torture of the seductress Dirce by the enraged sons of the father who abandoned them. Carved from a single 13-foot high block of stone, it’s the largest intact statue from antiquity.
And then there’s “tired Hercules” so finely carved the veins in his arms were visible.
There was so much to take in.
Tiberius? He looks like Elvis
We finished in the “Secret Room” crowded with giggling teenagers eager to see Porn: Classic Edition
We returned to Trattoria Avellinese for a simple dinner of penne arrabiata.
I staggered into Konya at 6.30am after an all-night 14-hour bus ride from Mardin. It sounds worse than it was. Turkish buses are first rate. There was plenty of leg room and I was lucky that the seat next to me wasn’t occupied. The bus companies are highly competitive; they try to outdo each other with amenities. There was wifi, chargers, snacks, drinks and frequent rest stops. At some point in the middle of the night we even stopped for a hot meal.
Nevertheless I was exhausted by the time I checked in to the Seljuk Hotel. The spacious, comfy room was a perfect place to gather my forces and plan my my trip to Catal hoyuk. I did manage to swing by the tourist office who recommended a taxi driver they work with. The other alternative would have been a train to Cumra and then a taxi which didn’t sound like fun.
The following day I set off to explore Konya’s main attraction, the Mevlana Museum.
Although now a museum, the place also holds the tomb of Mevlâna Jelaleddin Rumî, founder of the Mevlevi order of dervishes, commonly called the Whirling Dervishes. Rumi is a saint with a message of peace and love that he preached and taught in Konya. It was throbbing with visitors who come from around the world to pay hommage to his tomb.
Also fascinating was the row of dervish cells that depicts their lives and teachings with artifacts and displays.
Next to it is the Selimiye Mosque
In order to prepare for Catal Hoyuk, a visit to the Archaeological Museum was mandatory. It was way out of the center at the end of the dustiest and ugliest road I’ve seen in Turkey or maybe anywhere. The museum itself was in a dusty, unimpressive building but the exhibits made it highly worthwhile. The staff seemed surprised to see someone show up and didn’t bother with an entrance fee.
The first hall had some startlingly good Roman sarcophagi, including one depicting the labors of Hercules.
There were also perfume bottles terra cotta jars, obsidian tools and other objects from the Hittite, Assyrian and Byzantine empires. Most interesting to me were the objects excavated from Catal hoyuk including this figurine of an lady (goddess? wise elder?)
And then this skeleton of a child with wrist and ankle bracelets, also found at Catal Hoyuk
There was also a wall fragment with a painted motif.
I finished up the day in the beautifully maintained park surrounding the Alaadin Cami mosque.
And took a peek inside the 13th-century mosque.
A stroll through the neighborhood north of the park revealed a modern city with fashionable stores on busy shopping streets. Unlike the neighborhood around the Mevlana Museum where I was staying, here fewer women wore head coverings. It was a younger, more relaxed vibe. One of the things the hijab does is eliminate class distinctions or at least blur them. From the rows and rows of gold shops and good infrastructure, it was apparent that Konya was a prosperous city but you’d never know it from the covered-up women. Maybe they wore Chanel under the black robes or maybe not. There were no outward signs of wealth.
Catal Hoyuk
Catal Hoyuk is one of the world’s oldest towns, dating from around 7500 to 6400BC. At its height the population may have reached 10000 although probably fewer inhabited it at any one time. It was a notably egalitarian society. At least 1100 years with no walls, no wars, no kings and no slaves! (We did it before, maybe we can do it again?).
At last the big day arrived. Mr. Ahmed picked me up at 12.30 and then we fetched the other passenger, Mark, a British-born adherent of Sufi Islam who came to Konya as a religious-themed holiday from his work as a chemistry teacher in Qatar.
It took about an hour to get there as we drove through dry but cultivated fields of wheat and barley. Like Gobleki tepe, Catal Hoyuk appears as a mound. In fact there are two mounds: the western and eastern. Here’s what it once looked like:
Here’s what it looks like now:
To deepen understanding of the site, archaeologists supervised construction of a small simulated village.
There were no doors or windows. People entered their abode via ladders from the roofs. It’s thought that village life mainly took place on the roofs. The oven is clearly visible here as well as the wall paintings that are now on exhibit in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara. The platforms were for sleeping and probably covered with mats.
Wall fragment
Under the floors were the bones of ancestors whose flesh had probably been picked clean by vultures. I tried to imagine what it would be like to live over the skeletal remains of my parents. Weird. It’s not clear how high the roofs were because when people needed more space they knocked down the walls and built over the former space.
Between the living quarters were spaces for grain storage.
This was a pre-agricultural society. People harvested wild wheat and barley which supplemented their diet of fruit, fish, wild vegetables and game. It must have been nutritious because they were not short, reaching 1m65 to 1m70.
They had everything they needed in this Garden of Eden. Although dry now, there was once a river teeming with fish, fruit trees, nuts, berries, aurochs (wild cattle), sheep, goats, birds, foxes and other goodies.
Woman with Leopards. Fertility goddess? Matriarchal society? No one knows. The original is in the Ankara museum.
The people were trading with other settlements throughout Mesopotamia and as far as the red sea. Obsidian was particularly prized as it was used for making tools, mirrors and jewelry. Adornment was a big things. They just loved bracelets and necklaces and may have even painted their bodies. With all the food just hand-grab away, I suppose they had a lot of time to pursue beauty and pleasure. We could learn.
After extensively combing the old and new visitor centers we finally left for a nearby site that was even older!
Boncuklu Hoyuk is still being excavated. It’s thought that the folks from this settlement moved to Catal Hoyuk for some reason. Here’s what their houses may have looked like
And then as an added bonus, Mr Ahmed told us that we could catch the Whirling Dervish ceremony in the evening. I was delighted as I thought it was only done on Saturdays.
Beautiful and unusual Mardin, sprawls over a hill only 20 miles from the Syrian border and 120 miles from the Iraqi border. Historically, Mardin was linked to northern Syria and northern Iraq through the Artuqid dynasty which ruled the territory from the 11th to 13th century.
The population is Arab, Kurdish and Syriac. Undamaged by the earthquake of February 2023, the town opened its doors to Syrian refugees as well as other dispossessed people from the region. The stunning 12th-century Artuqid architecture qualified it for its denomination as a Unesco World Heritage Site. Looming over it all is a fortress
Whatever I ate the night before did not agree with me one single bit. I slept poorly and had to run to the bathroom numerous times. I meant to get up early to say goodbye to Klaus and Martin as they were on their way to do the same tour of Gobleki and Karahan tepe but I overslept.
Desperate to leave the dreadful Grand Babil Hotel I dragged myself to the bus station and boarded a bus to Mardin. Klaus and Martin raved about Mardin so I changed my plans and decided to visit it.
The only problem was actually getting there. Klaus and Martin warned me that the bus does not actually go directly to Mardin but I couldn’t quite piece together what I was supposed to do. As it turned out I got kicked off the bus in Kisiltepe along with most everyone else.
In about 30 seconds my bag was moved from the bus to a waiting taxi and I was herded inside along with a black-robed old lady. I pulled out my Google translate app to try to figure out what was going on but it was clear that the old lady couldn’t read. She passed the phone to the taxi driver and I gradually figured out that the taxi ride was included and was going to the actual bus station of Mardin. For a few extra Turkish lira he brought me to the lovely Hotel Raymar.
It was late in the day and my stomach was a mess and I was exhausted so I was just happy to crash in the small but very comfortable room. They were so kind and wished me a happy birthday and even sent a fruit plate up to my room which I couldn’t touch.
I got a late start the following day after having a little bit of breakfast that included mostly bread and pastries because my stomach was still very tender. Although a comfortable four-star hotel, it was not located in the heart of the Old Town but a taxi ride was fairly inexpensive.
Mardin is a major destination for Turkish tourists. The main drag, I Caddesi was jammed with shoppers swarming around jewelry shops, tea boutiques, shops selling beans, herbs, spices, nuts, sweets and scarves.
Notice how the products come out of big sacks with nary a plastic container in sight? We could learn.
There were also restaurants with rooftop terraces overlooking the Mesopotamian plains to Syria.
Knowing that the Mardin Museum was going to be closed the following day, I decided to tackle it right away. Located in a restored late 19th-century mansion, the museum was beautiful to stroll through and gave a good overview of Mesopotamian civilization. The five exhibition halls were organized according to the themes of Belief, Trade, Life, Food Defense and Ornamentation.
I was glad I had most of the following day to look around more before my overnight bus to Konya. It was a pleasure to wander the ancient streets.
Grand Mosque (Ulu Cami), 12th-century Iraqi Seljuk structure
And of course I had to take a look at the extensive bazaar.
Mardin is conservative but nowhere near as devout as Sanliurfa as it attracts Turks from around the country including cosmopolitan Istanbul. My headscarf was in no way necessary but it did keep my head cool!
