Once upon a time, there was a magnificent city on the banks of the Akhuryan River whose splendor and prominence rivaled that of Baghdad, Cairo and Constantinople. On the map since the 5th century, it became the capital of the Armenian Bagratuni kingdom in 961 A.D. and enjoyed a golden age during the reign of …
It is impossible to understand the history of Istanbul or of Turkey as a whole without getting a good feel for the history of the Ottoman Empire – one of the largest and longest-lasting empires in history. The Ottoman Empire peaked in the 16th and 17th centuries under the rule of Suleyman the Magnificent, with …
All I Ever Wanted to Know About Ottoman Architecture Read More »
“What the hell have I gotten myself into?” I stared out of the dusty back window of the black clunker that had carried me less than a mile from the Turkey-Georgia border to a gas station in the middle of nowhere. The large Turkish man (we’ll call him Berk) who had been at …
From Turkey to Tbilisi: The Not-Quite-By-The-Book Way Read More »
Thunder rumbled above me as I gathered my bags out of the back of the minibus that brought me from Erzurum to Kars. Dropped in the center of the city, I knew my hotel, the Grand Ani Hotel, was somewhere nearby and with raindrops starting to fall, time was of the essence. I walked less …
What do you do when you arrive in a new city at 6:00 a.m. and you can’t yet check into your hotel? After fueling yourself at McDonald’s, you take a self-guided walking tour of course. And that is exactly what I did when my bus pulled into the otogar in Trabzon, Turkey at 5:35 a.m., …
It suddenly occurred to me that there might be snakes. I was about 45 minutes into a steep hike leading out of the Turkish town of Amasya, the sun beating down on me and sweat dripping off my brow. All I could think was “what if there are snakes?” Wearing capri pants and short socks …
A Little About Amasya (and its really cool castle) Read More »
I cringed as I glanced out the hostel window and saw nothing but clouds for miles. It figured that the morning I booked a cruise on the Bosphorus was also the only cloudy morning since I arrived in Istanbul four days earlier. And it figured that all of my long pants were still at the …
Istanbul’s Spice Bazaar & Cruising the Bosphorus Read More »
While most visitors to Istanbul begin their exploration in Sultanahmet (the old city), my introduction to this historic city came across the Golden Horn in the Galata district. I made my way from Sultanahmet to Galata by foot, following the tram tracks to the Galata Bridge and then stopping for a late lunch at the …
I have been spoiled. Traveling through Russia in the offseason and through many places in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus that don’t attract large numbers of tourists in the first place has spoiled me. I forgot what it is like to push through crowds and to hear American and Australian accents at every turn. I …
