Frontiers clients, Jeff & Peggi Johnson, traveled to Turkey in May 2015. Here is their review.
“I was wrong about Turkey.” Jeff Johnson, May 2015 (Uttered with genuine gravitas and some astonishment.)
This adventure started several years back when our neighbors showed us their travel photos of Turkey and I got my first glimpse of a fairy chimney. Add to that a long term interest in visiting the major domes of the world, a designation for which Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia definitely qualifies, and I launched a campaign to travel to Turkey.
Jeff relented because of my relentlessness. To his credit, he actively participated in the planning process but continued to insist, “This is Peggi’s trip.” He was just making sure the creature comforts were up to his standards. He was afraid I might have us traveling on camels and staying in youth hostels.
We cruised on a ferry on the Bosphorus. We stood under the great dome of the Hagia Sophia, marveling at the ingenuity involved in building such a thing 1000 years before St. Peter’s. We belatedly learned of the amazing accomplishments of Sinan and Attaturk. We toured astonishing mosques. I’ve had my skin sandpapered in the luxury of a hamam designed by Sinan himself. We rode in a hot air balloon over those very fairy chimneys that launched this trip for us. We crawled through an underground city and we overnighted in an Ottoman mansion near the Bulgarian border. We walked the blood stained land of Gallipoli and wept over the senseless loss of life. We marveled at the antiquities of Troy, Ephesus, Pergamum, Assos, Aphrodisias, and Knidos. We came to expect the appearance of minarets and the sounds of the call to prayer.
We expanded our Turkish vocabulary tenfold (starting with one word “merhaba”: it only takes nine more words!)
We learned about cooking and eating Turkish food. I’ve learned far too much about Raki and Efes.
We indulged in the hedonistic pleasures of sea, sand and sun offered by this gorgeous coastline rimmed by the Taurus Mountains tumbling down to the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas.
Most of all, we fell in love with the Turkish people. Everyone was unfailingly warm, friendly, helpful, generous, and kind. They’re a proud people, as well they should be. In addition to our wonderful guides, drivers, waiters, and hotel staffs, we enjoyed chatting with teenagers at a Gallipoli monument, talking with a 5th grader at the underground city who was visiting his grandfather in Turkey from his own American home on Long Island, and regretfully refusing the offer to join a group of men for breakfast in Istanbul. (I should have joined them; at the least, I should have taken their photograph.)
Muge, Husam and Berrin have made a permanent imprint on us and we are so grateful that they shared their marvelous country.
We felt very safe every minute as long as you don’t count crossing the street in Istanbul or dealing with some challenging road conditions such as an unexpected change in surface from paved to not paved and the sudden appearance of vehicles inexplicably driving well below the speed limit; thankfully, Muge was behind the wheel instead of Jeff.
A book I am reading (and one I highly recommend) is Bright Sun, Strong Tea by Tom Brosnahan. He came to Turkey in the late 1960s with the Peace Corps to teach English and ended up a travel writer. He suggests we travel to figure out the world and our place in it. Turkey, for me, is a piece of that puzzle. I am grateful to have been treated with tenderness by the people of Turkey.
“I was wrong about Turkey.” Jeff Johnson, May 2015
“I was right about Turkey.” Peggi Johnson, May 2015