An incredible museum – all to ourselves!

Hello!

SO hard to chose photos from the museum for the blog ... WAY too many.  So, I've decided to do two posts.  One, (this one) the story of our day, and I will follow that up with photos from the museum!)

Well, to catch up from last night.  After our lovely glasses of wine and the mezze platter in the hotel’s lobby, neither of us was very inclined to go out for dinner.  Rather, I got ready for an early night to bed, and R ordered a pizza from room service – and it was fabulous!  Basic cheese and mushrooms, but more than enough to take us through until morning.  My problem last night, I think, was that I was too excited about today’s museum to sleep!

There were basically three things that I felt I really needed to do on this trip.  One was the see the refurbished and reopened Museum of Anatolian Civilizations here in Ankara.  Number two is to walk the entire interior of Hattusas, the Hittite’s capital city.  (Robert declines to do that part of the trip, but has told me that, like with cyclists, he will drive the “support vehicle” and will be right there with water and a warm car if and when I need them.  So sweet!  The third thing – silly as this may sound, is to buy a gold bracelet in Adana.  Everything else we’re seeing/doing/eating is gravy for me!

So … number one!  The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.  I was up around 6:30 am and R around 7 am.  Dressed and ready to go out at 8, as the museum’s opening time is 8:30.  The front desk estimated it would take about 20 minutes to get there, because as it was early Sunday morning, there was very little traffic!  Fascinating to note that whereas yesterday, in terrible traffic, the taxi ride cost us almost 30 Lira (a little less than $8 US) this morning, it was 18 Lira – about $4.85 US.  Tells you something about the traffic, doesn’t it?! 

The driver left us off at the top of the hill, by the Kale gate, and next to the museum we went to yesterday.  Today, we just had to walk downhill for a few minutes, and we were there.  Just as we were entering the gate, a big tour bus drove up – dropping off Chinese tourists, who already had tickets.  We, however, had to wait at the ticket kiosk until it opened, a few minutes later.  And, unfortunately, we didn’t have any notes smaller than 100 TL (Turkish Lira) a little over $26.00 US.  They finally gave us our tickets, but told us we would have to come back later to get our change.  Oh well!  However, as we were entering the museum, girl who sold us the tickets  did chase me down with the change needed.  I was just hoping they’d let us into the museum!

The Chinese folks were beginning in the Paleolithic stage, and, as we didn’t want to be around people, we headed straight through into the heart of the collection, the stone collection.  Seriously, I don’t know where the people went!  The Chinese group entered the stone collection just as we were finishing it, and we never saw them again!  There was one other Turkish family with a small boy about 7 or 8, and honestly, that was the extent of the people – there were more guards than visitors!  We did pick these winter dates to avoid the tourists, but this is totally amazing!

We made our way around the collection slowly … in all, it took us about three hours to cover the two floors.   One of the interesting things we noticed is that pieces are being returned to Turkey from various countries, including the U.S.  There were several very large pots on display that had been returned “anonymously” from someone in Washington DC.  Also some returns from the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia.  Nice to see it happening, but as Robert says, if something is safely included in a collection in a stable country, then at least a part of that home country’s heritage will be preserved; case in point, the Greek Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.  Enough said.

We very, very much enjoyed the Museum’s collection.  They have a stunning collection of wall paintings from Catal Hoyuk, where we have been twice, and many other Chalcolithic to Middle and Late Bronze age artifacts.  We both also love the sun disks (we’ll put some in the photos) and the stylized deer that were mounted on sticks to lead religious ceremonies. 

One interesting thing (among many!) about the Hittites, is that as they took over different areas, especially those in Anatolia, in order not to piss off the Gods, they would incorporate the Gods of the newly acquired territory into their own pantheon.  Apparently the Hittites were known as having the pantheon of 1,000 Gods!  That would truly take a king-size effort to keep on top of all the religious ceremonies and rituals that happened on a yearly basis.  One of many of the responsibilities of the king!

Finished up the museum about 11:30 and wandered first into the new gift shop, which is, even now, in the process of being set up!  Robert asked how long the refurbishment had been completed, and I told him a year and a half or so, and as he said, “And they’re just now setting up the gift shop?”  Not much there, so we had a quick look around and decided to think about lunch (seeing as how we skipped breakfast!)

I suggested that at the top of the hill, there was, first, a taxi stand, and second a Divan Hotel that would probably have a restaurant – so up we went. 

Enclosed central courtyard of Divan Hotel

Lovely, comfy space!

The hotel itself is really stunning.  Several old buildings have been incorporated into one, and the huge central courtyard has been enclosed, carpeted, and is lovely.  Their restaurant was (naturally) down a level, and we were seated at a nice table for two.  They were still serving breakfast, but as we wanted more than that, they gave us the dinner menus.  Wow!

I ordered their chicken stuffed with goat cheese, and R started with their tomato soup and followed with the beef tenderloin.  Excellent glasses of red wine as well as sparkling water.  As we don’t know (but should probably find out!) the Turkish word for “rare” Robert did the best he could with the waiter, and we figured we’d take our chances.  

The soup was flavored with all kinds of spices and had a scoop of some kind of tapenade in the center -- all in all, a real treat.  Well … R’s tenderloin was VERY rare, and absolutely delicious.  So was my well-prepared chicken served in a tomato sauce with peas.  Yummy!  For dessert, Robert got their cheesecake with berry sorbet and dollops of raspberry sauce, and I had their chocolate mousse. 

R's tomato soup

R's delicious tenderloin!

My chicken stuffed with goat cheese

Well … the mousse was incredible, and came covered in orange paprika (!) and a boule (ball) of Mango sauce, which I spread over the top.  If we’re doing true confessions here, let me only say that I ate every last bite of it.  Whew!  Robert mentioning that we need to watch how much we spend for food, only to have me tell him that that exquisite meal ran something like 220 TL ($58 US!).

By this time, Robert was falling asleep (helped, I think, by the antihistimines I had given him to help clear his left ear – a leftover from the cold he had last week) so it was clearly time to head back to the hotel for naps!  Got here around 2 and are now snug in our lovely suite, with Robert sawing away.  We still have the Australian Open (Andy Murray just lost!) but I was wondering if there was any chance at all we might be able to get some NFL football playoffs this afternoon … we’ll see!  (Just googled NFL, and it appears that the two games will be played at 11:05 pm and 2:40 am local time … so maybe not!)

View from the restaurant/hotel balcony patio

R's cheesecake

My yummy chocolate mousse!

Much love and more later!

m

xxx