Women Talking Turkey

Turkey clearly is one of the hot destinations these days and sister womantraveler Joanne Omang, former Washington Post foreign correspondent and one-time Peace Corps volunteer in Turkey, returned recently for a girlfriends trip. I caught up with my longtime pal for a four-part interview.

Q: Why is Turkey being “rediscovered” as a travel destination?

A: Turkey has more Greek ruins than Greece, more Biblical sites than Israel, more Crusader forts than France, great food and culture and nightlife and more jaw-dropping scenery and unique sights than anyplace else I’ve ever been. Also it has fabulous shopping, is reasonably cheap and perfectly safe for the most part. What’s not to like?

Q: Where should womentravelers put their focus?

A: Soak up the history in Istanbul. Start at the Hagia Sophia, my favorite building in all the world, the biggest and most breathtaking for nearly 1000 years, first a Byzantine cathedral full of marble from all over the earth and dazzling Christian mosaics, then an Ottoman mosque covered in tile and carpeting, and now a museum showing all its layers at once. Climb to the gallery on a circling stone ramp built for an emperor’s palanquin.

• Next door, the Sultanahmet (Blue) Mosque, the only one in the world with six minarets, takes tile artistry to a whole new dimension, and the nearby Topkapi Palace, big as a small town, housed generations of sultans and harems and intrigue in mind-blowing splendor.
• Cool off with a visit to the spectacular Yerebatan Cistern, the underground reservoir that has kept the palaces supplied with water since Hadrian’s time, a forest of Roman columns.
• And put it all in context at the jewel-like Islamic Arts and Crafts Museum, famous for its antique rugs, set amid lovely gardens i n another former palace across the street from the Blue Mosque.

All these are within five minutes’ walking distance of each other – and your hotel too. But figure two days for just this much. By then you’ll be ready to soak up some history literally, in one of the area’s hamams, the Turkish baths. You can soak and steam yourself limp amid lion-headed gold faucets and Roman-era marble basins and then loll on a warm marble slab while shapeless old women exfoliate you – that is, massage and scrub you down with raw-silk mitts.

Second most important thing to do is certainly shopping. Buy all your year’s holiday and birthday and wedding presents within a one-mile radius of your hotel in the Old City. I guarantee you will find the entire range of very cheap to kings’ ransom in just about anything: jewelry, carpets, decorator pillow covers, textiles, copper pots and plates, antiques, tribal goods, ceramics, leather goods, spices, food and clothing – and all of it in exotic Middle Eastern style, if you like, or modern if you don’t.

Save the famed but overwhelming Covered Bazaar (4,000 shops!) for last, after you’ve scoured the Egyptian (Spice) bazaar, the street markets and their hundreds of rug and textile shops. It took my friends and me about two hours just to walk two blocks because we simply had to check out what we saw in so many alluring shop windows. If you are truly Supershopperwoman and still not satisfied after surviving all this, cross the Golden Horn to trendy Beyoglu where you’ll find the latest European imports as well. Save your feet by taking the lovely old “tunel” underground cable-car to the top of the steep hill – it’s the oldest funicular in Europe.

The third thing a woman traveler must do is see more of Turkey than Istanbul.

Take a day trip on one of the regularly scheduled commuter ferries up the Bosphorus channel that divides Europe from Asia, admiring the elegant summer palaces along the shore. Get off on the next-to-last stop on the European side near the mouth of the Black Sea. Meander back via cheap buses from one fishing village to the next, stopping for lunch at one of the elegant waterside seafood restaurants. Beautiful.

If you have more time, arrange a visit to the underground cities and weird rock formations of Cappadocia near Kayseri in central Anatolia, the dry heartland. Or take a cruise or a land tour of the various Greek ruins along the southwest coast: Troy, Ephesus, Didyma, Aphrodisias and Aspendos are only the most famous of hundreds of breathtaking temples and ruined-city sites. And you’ll just be getting started!

Stay tuned...