Our break over the Christmas/New Year period was a really great time of adventure, exploration, relaxing, and reflecting. We spent a little over 3 weeks travelling from Istanbul to Syria and through Jordan, and Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories. Here is some of what we experienced. BE WARNED, this is going to be long!
First up... TURKEY!
East meets west in Istanbul, a clash of continents, cultures, landscapes, architecture, and style. Might be a cliché but we found it to be accurate. We were impressed with the history of the place, the food, the abundance of apple tea, and the beautiful sights and sounds. The call to prayer, held at regular intervals throughout the day was actually an amazing sound, quite beautiful blending as muezzin at different mosques called to each other across Sultanahment, where we stayed, and over the Bosphorous. It reminded us, though, of the religious conflict over the centuries. We saw beautiful mosaic work that had been covered when churches were converted to mosques, and equally beautiful blue iznik tiling in the huge mosques in different parts of the city.
First up... TURKEY!
East meets west in Istanbul, a clash of continents, cultures, landscapes, architecture, and style. Might be a cliché but we found it to be accurate. We were impressed with the history of the place, the food, the abundance of apple tea, and the beautiful sights and sounds. The call to prayer, held at regular intervals throughout the day was actually an amazing sound, quite beautiful blending as muezzin at different mosques called to each other across Sultanahment, where we stayed, and over the Bosphorous. It reminded us, though, of the religious conflict over the centuries. We saw beautiful mosaic work that had been covered when churches were converted to mosques, and equally beautiful blue iznik tiling in the huge mosques in different parts of the city.
After 3 days of these wonders, we were hitting the road – or the rail, to be precise. We caught the train from Istanbul to Adana in South Turkey. An overnight journey in a really nice train, with our own two bed compartment, a dining car, and some free food! The landscape, unfortunately, was not that exciting but we still got to see a slice of life in the Turkish country side. The next day, the train arrived a couple of hours late so scuppered our plans to press on to Aleppo, in the north of Syria. Instead, we caught a late bus to Antakya, near the border of Turkey. There, we spent the night in a very modest travellers lodging, and then, early next morning caught the bus, across the border, to Syria. To be continued..
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