We’ve made it to Ankara!

Hello!

Up this morning around 7 am and down for breakfast about 8 am.  Honestly, the breakfast was a bit disappointing, so I wasn’t unhappy that Robert forgot to bring the camera down with him.  There were a few hot dishes – a cheese filled phyllo dough pastry, and some very funny looking eggs.  Robert, however, very much enjoyed the olive selection as well as the simit bread.  Then back upstairs to gather everything together, pay the bill and head out toward Ankara.

On the road to Gordion

Some lovely distant mountains

Today, with the temperatures running around -1 to -2 degrees (roughly, 28-30 F) our first stop was Gordion – yes, the Gordion named after the knot, which Alexander slashed through with his sword on his way through these parts, conquering everything as he went. 

Midas Tumulus

Beautiful pitcher in the COLD museum

Entry into tumulus

You have to go back a LONG way!

As it turns out, we had stopped at Gordion about 8 or 9 years ago, on one of our first trips.  The tumulus, named after King Midas (yes, he of the gold touch and donkey ears!) that was excavated was really incredible; such an amazing way to protect bodies from grave robbers – put a huge wooden structure around the body, roof it, and then start adding debris from the area.  When it was about 4 feet thick, add a huge layer of clay on top, and then keep going with dirt and debris.  The result is a huge mound 165 feet high that can be seen from a long distance away – and absolutely no way to get to it.  Talk about security!

Last year, we read about a special exhibition that was coming to the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia with finds from the Midas collection.  So, obviously, we had to go.  It was excellent, and included some wonderful things from both the Gordion Museum as well as Ankara’s Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.  Now we wanted to revisit the original – as obviously, there was no way the actual tumulus could ever have been moved anywhere! 

No problems gettig out of Eskisehir, although it probably helped that it was Saturday.  Soon we were out in the country; snow on the ground in places, and definitely on the peaks that we could see in the distance.  It took about 2½ hours to get to Gordion – and again, we could recognize the mound from several miles away. 

We first toured the museum – which we definitely had all to ourselves.  That was the good news. 

Huge logs making up the tomb

Original wood timbering; modern steel bracing

An incredible structure!

So what is under those mounds?

The bad news is that the door was open directly to the outside, and it was just as cold as being outside.  There was excellent signage in English, though, which really helped.  Then, as we headed toward the tumulus, a guard ran quickly past us to open the gate, open the door and turn on the lights for us!  It was about noon, but I’d be willing to bet that we were their first customers of the day.  Marveled again at the construction used for the tomb, and wondered – there are about 90 more tumuli in the area, but only about 35 have been excavated – what might be under all those other mounds! 

(Robert did some research, as follows, on the original excavations at Gordion!  If you want to see the paper from 1958 describing the dig, go to https://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/PDFs/1-1/The%20Gordion.pdf

Back to the relatively warm car, and out for the final 90 km or so to Ankara.  Well … there are something like 4¾ million people in Ankara, and to say that driving here is wild is to put it mildly.  However, as we have done this before a few years ago, I figured if we could get to our hotel, we could then keep the car in the parking lot or garage for the duration until we were ready to leave on Monday morning! 

Entering into Ankara

HUGE mosque!

Our living room!

Our bedroom!

Found the Ankara Hilton in the lovely embassy area of town, and were quickly escorted inside.  We were fortunate enough to be upgraded to a lovely suite – and we are really getting spoiled!  (I need to keep telling myself that, as our next stop – Hattusas, home of the Hittites - has very few tourist facilities, and we’re just hoping for some hot water this time around in our hotel!   Oh … and did I mention heat?)

Suite 501 is in the corner and we have lovely city views from two directions.  However, this suite only has 1½ bathrooms … only one tub … but at least it’s a tub!!  We got everything inside, and while I unpacked, Robert got the computer set up. 

We had thought about going to the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations both today and tomorrow, but Robert came up with an excellent alternative – a new museum, called Erimtan Archeology and Arts Museum, which opened in 2015.  As it turns out, it is directly above the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations and right next to the ancient part of town, the Kale or “castle” so we got to do some additional sightseeing as well!

Now, for the cab ride … seriously, we have taken cabs all over the world, and I’ve never experienced anything like today’s ride.  Not sure if it was because it was Saturday, and there were people everywhere or whether there was something special going on – but the Polis had blocked off some streets heading to the hill, and we literally had to go around and back again to even start to get there.  Our cab driver was incredible.  I know I always feel that I can get a car anywhere, but between the honking horns and the traffic going every which way, this was really amazing.  Paying for the cab ride was a cheap price to pay to keep my sanity, that’s for sure.

We were finally at the top, and dropped off in front of the museum and across the street from the castle.  Interestingly enough, there was a lovely Divan Hotel (sister to our hotel of the past two nights) right at the top that is in the converted caravanserai. 

View from one of our windows

Hotel lobby

Erimtan Museum mail gallery; 3 floors!

Hittite artifact!

I LOVED these bathrooms!

Wow … can’t imagine being a tourist and driving a car up that way, but I’m sure it happens all the time.  Or, maybe it doesn’t!

The museum was really interesting.  The collection covered everything from Chalcolithic times to the Byzantine, with an emphasis on Roman artifacts.  There was a wonderful coin collection (a hoard was discovered in 1972 inside a large pot that had been buried in somebody’s yard!) and lots of other fun things to see.  We were impressed firstly with the lovely building, and then with the signage and presentation of the artifacts.  There were many different stories and quotes from historical sources written around the time that the specific artifact was created.  It gave the whole place just a wonderful sense of “presence” as well as a sense of humor.  Someone very clever did a lot of work here, that’s for sure. 

My favorite part, though, were the bathrooms we stopped at on our way out.  I think they were worth the price of admission by themselves!  There was no labeling of “Men” “Bay” or “Women” ”Bayan.”  Instead, there were just unlabeled doors.  If you open the door, you see a very interesting set up – rather like a private toilet on a train – everything in perfect order but first of all, you have to step completely inside before the light would come on!  And, as becomes my usually electrically-challenged state, when I stepped in, of course it did NOT go on … Robert had to walk in first.  So … Lovely facilities, very cleverly positioned and utilized.  Hopefully you can tell from the photo what things looked like.  I thought they were a hoot!

From the museum, we walked across the street, and into the Kale that dates from the 9^th century A.D.  It was fascinating to see buildings and walls built with stone blocks quarried from earlier buildings.  It’s really an odd type of place.  I mean, if you look around, you will see housing and facilities and everything else for literally millions of people.  Yet here, you have the old Ottoman houses and workshops just like in a very rural village in the country!  Lots of souvenir shops et. al to see, so we walked a ways, trying hard to avoid the mud which was also in evidence.  Finally decided to make our way back to the hotel, as we were getting a bit peckish (no lunch!) and thought we would have a rest.

"Kale" or castle at the top of the hill!

Lovely restored houses and shops

Ottoman street

Ankara in the distance!

The cab ride back to the hotel took probably 10 minutes less than the trip going, and we avoided all the traffic that had been there on the way up!  Hmmm….Decided as we walked into the hotel to stop for a drink first, as the lobby and bar area was quite lovely.  Sat in the bar, between women’s basketball game on one TV and men’s Australian Open tennis on the other.  We each had a lovely glass of Turkish sauvignon-blanc wine, and ordered the mezze platter to share. 

The mezza platter was very good – except for the fact that what I thought was a marinated onion turned out to be marinated FISH!  Ugh!! [That is just Margaret’s opinion.  I thought the fish was quite good.  – R]  Left the rest of that for Robert!  We had marinated and grilled eggplant, hummus, a cheese and spinach dip, wrapped grape leaves, feta cheese, marinated onions on grilled eggplant, cucumber slices and several other things that I have forgotten.  Back up to the room about 6, and now I am blogging and R is sleeping in the easy chair in front of the TV set.  Not sure if we’ll even go out for dinner; may do room service.  Will decide later … possibly after I take a nap!

So, this may be it for today!  Lots and lots of love to all!

m

xxx

Note stones taken from other structures!

Hotel bar

Mezze platter!  Yummy ... but for the fish...