Eskişehir

 Another day, Nathan and I took the high speed train from Ankara to Eskişehir for the day, while the kids were at camp and Eliza was home with Kadem. The high speed train station is about a 20 minute cab ride from our house. It is relatively new and was almost empty that morning! 

We arrived at the station about 45 minutes before the train departed and were able to board 30 minutes in advance. 

We got first class tickets for the equivalent of about $6. Our wagon only had a few other passengers. The seats were comfortable, we had individual TV screens, and they passed out waters mid-ride.

Eskişehir is about 230km west of Ankara and is a 3.5 hour drive, or a 1.5 high speed train ride. We enjoyed the nice scenery of the countryside, made two very short stops (literally 1 minute at each station) then arrived at our destination. It was such a pleasurable way to travel!

One of the train stops

We arrived in Eskişehir  at 10am. Eskişehir means “Old City” in Turkish and was founded by the Phrygians around 1000 BC. Today, Eskişehir is known as one of the most beautiful cities in Anatolia. During the Roman Empire, Christianity reigned through the region. It is also the site one of the First Crusade battles, and the town later fell to the Turks in the 13th century.

The train station is near the old part of the city where there are many shops and restaurants. The streets were pretty empty at this hour and stores were beginning to open, around 10am when we arrived.

The Porsuk River runs through the city and there are many small bridges to pass to the other side. It was very quaint!

We tried to take a gondola ride, but the line was long and we didn’t feel like waiting.

We settled for Turkish breakfast instead. As always, it was so good!

After breakfast, we took a cab to Sazova Park, which has a science and space center, several playgrounds and restaurants around a nice lake, a princess castle, and a giant pirate ship. It’s a great place to spend the day with kids and we look forward to brining them back next time.

This is Nasreddin Hodja, a famous philosopher and Sufi that was from Eskişehir and lived in the 13th century. He is famous for his funny stories and anecdotes that are prevalent throughout Turkey. I have read many of his stories in Turkish books for class.

Next, we took a cab to a park that has an artificial beach. It was in another nice park with lots of green space and a long wide sidewalk.

The artificial beach was interesting. It was a very long concrete pool like structure filled with probably dyed water and they put sand on the shore to make it look like a beach. As far as you can see, was the structure and it went about that long in the other direction.

After that, we took a taxi back to the old part of the city called Odunpazarı and visited the Museum of Modern Art.

I don’t know how to appreciate modern art, and most of it seemed really weird to me. But I’m glad we went and it was definitely not a good place to have little kids! This was a structure made of bamboo strips. It took 12 days to construct in place.

From what I could tell, this was a hock of wood that looked like a dead cow. I forgot to look at the description.

This was interesting. It was a depiction of how industrialization was killing the climate and natural environment. 

This was a bunch of bonsai habitats built into carved out books. While I don’t appreciate this kind of stuff the way it was intended, I was very impressed with the creativity of these artists. It reinforced that I am definitely a left-brained person!

On the way back to the train station, we passed by the Mayor of Eskişehir’s office.

We took a final stroll through the streets and stopped for pizza and coffee before going to the train.

The ride back to Ankara was just as pleasant, and we enjoyed the beautiful scenery of the countryside.

It was a really fun day exploring together, and we look forward to brining the kids next time!

Beypazarı

I have fallen behind on blogging again. Over the past few weeks we have been out and about exploring different parts of Turkey, and this post is about our day trip to Beypazarı, a town about 100km west of Ankara. It is an old town that has been inhabited since the Hittites by many groups of people, and current day is an example what Ottoman life used to be like. The streets are narrow and cobble stoned, they have traditional-style Ottoman homes, busy markets, museums, and lots of delicious food. We arrived mid-morning and the streets were empty. 

Our first stop was the Living Museum, which has many example of Turkish culture and various exhibits about Turkish traditions.

The kids enjoyed spending time in the courtyard playing with different simple wooden toys, while Nathan and I tried learning a little from workers. We saw a couple exhibits about copper pressing, traditional puppet show called Karagoz, and extended family living.

These were some example of what a traditional home in the Ottoman time would look like, with grandparents, parents, and grandchildren all living together in one home.

On the top level they had a loom where they would make carpets, sew dresses, and make robes and towels.

This was the view of the town from the museum.

The lady giving us a tour was learning English at a local university so she could work in tourism. She was so friendly with the kids and they enjoyed the time with her.

Afterwards, we walked through the market. You may wonder why there is a giant carrot statue in the middle of the road? Beypazarı is famous for producing about 60% of the carrots for all of Turkey. They sold carrots products everywhere, from carrot juice, ice cream, cakes. We left realizing we didn’t even try a juice, but I guess we can rest assured that the carrots we get from the store probably come from here.

By lunch time, the streets were starting to get more crowded and the market was busy.

A large variety of dried beans and spices.

They dry lots of fruits and vegetables here too.

We enjoyed lunch at a recommended restaurant and had pide, traditional Turkish meat-topped flatbread, similar to pizza but with no sauce, chicken seekers, grape leaves, and of course french fries and soda.

 

We ended the trip with a drive through Inozu Valley, a little north of the town. There are large plateaus on both sides, with caves, tombs, and churches carved into the rock structures. 

It was fun to explore another new place in Turkey, and a great day trip!
 

Visit with Kadem’s Family

Another day during the break, Eliza and I went to visit Kadem’s family one afternoon for lunch and to spend time with them. I was excited to finally get to meet her husband, Mustafa. They grew up together in a small village in another part of Turkey and got married when they were 16 years old. The have two very sweet grown girls, Ezgi and Ebru. Ezgi lives in a province about 10 hours away on the Syrian border and she was home for the week for the Eid holiday, and Ebru lives at home with her family. Every time Ezgi comes to town, she comes to see our family, and Ebru comes to our house with Kadem once a week to help out and spend time with the kids. They are a very sweet family and we are very thankful for them!

This is Mustafa, Ebru with Eliza, and Ezgi.

Eliza loves the girls and quickly made herself at home, haha! 

Kadem prepared a delicious lunch with some of my favorite Turkish dishes. She made mercimek corbasi (lentil soup), dolma (stuffed peppers with meat and tomato), and etli pide (similar to flatbread pizza with cooked meat and no cheese). Afterwards, we had ice cream and watermelon. As always, her cooking was delicious!

In Turkish culture, it is customary to sit and have tea following a meal. Eliza enjoyed giving all of us (too much) sugar. Mustafa and Ezgi do not speak any English. Kadem speaks good English and Ebru has been taking English classes and is learning quickly. We spoke in Turkish the entire time, and it was great practice for me. I was able to make some jokes in Turkish about things Eliza was doing, it was fun (and mentally tiring) to be able to talk to everyone!

Eliza loves Kadem and was very excited to see her today:)

Eliza had a lot of fun with Mustafa. You can tell he too loves children. He chased her around the house, played catch with her with pillows, and tossed her all around. It was very sweet to watch them together.

Ebru is like a big sister to Eliza. She loves when Ebru comes on Fridays and they have a lot of fun together.

They are a sweet family, and it was a lot of fun to spend the afternoon with them!