We’ve reached Hattusas!

Hello!

Last night’s dinner was pretty much a repeat of Saturday night, as we had had such a lovely big lunch, we weren’t really very hungry. 

Sun setting over Ankara!

Heading towards the mountains east!

Very pretty countryside!

So, another pizza, this time with a couple of glasses of red wine (they do have lovely wine in this country!) and a large bottle of sparkling water.  I think I was in bed by about 9 pm; not sure what time Robert turned in, as he had a lovely long nap in the afternoon.

We were up about 8 this morning – and it’s still fairly dark outside then! – and down for a lovely breakfast about 9.  I didn’t want to hit any form of rush hour traffic – and definitely hoped for better traffic then when we drove in on Saturday.  The Hilton’s breakfast buffet was enormous and quite, quite lovely.  Next time I promise to have R bring the camera down with us.  We had eggs, and cheeses, and wonderful bread, along with freshly cut up grapefruit sections and some wonderful sliced apricots.  My final breakfast item looked and tasted like a wonderful chocolate pudding, served in a cocktail glass with pomegranate seeds on top – YUMMY, and that I wish we had photographed!

More countryside

Home of the Hittites!!

Me at Lion "tub"

Out of the hotel around 10 am, and really, didn’t have any trouble at all getting out of town, and heading to Bogazkale, where we are scheduled to stay the next three nights.  Bogazkale is the town that is built next to the Hittite capital city of Hattusas.  It is a very small place – a couple of hotels, a small store and a bank are I think everything that is here.   And, being definitely “off season” even a few of the available hotels are closed for the winter.  We are staying at the Baskent Demeralian, where we have stayed before.  As we recall, the rooms were very basic but not uncomfortable, and while I do remember having heat, I have a distinct recollection that warm water was hard to come by … so we’re hoping!   The other factor that we need to take into consideration is that there is the threat of an approaching snow storm coming this way, and we have decided that, while we don’t mind driving in the snow, if there really is going to be a blizzard coming on, we would rather be in a larger city than a very small town out in the country.  (Call us spoiled; go ahead!  We are!)  So…we are considering cutting our stay short by one night here, and adding another night on to Kayseri, about 200 km to the south.

We pulled into the hotel parking lot at  around 2 pm and there was a truck also there, so we were hopeful. 

Steps into main temple

Storage jars for grain; 3,000 years old!

Me on walk ...

Housing area, looking down from the top of the hill

Finally ran the guy to earth – don’t recognize him from the past, but no matter, he at least knew we were coming!  We got into room 211 on the first floor, and turned the heat on.  As we found last winter in Greece, these concrete buildings get SOOOOO cold when no one is in them and running any heat; it will take a while to warm up!!  However, we did find a little bit of warmish water, which is definitely a good sign!  We dropped our luggage and then headed directly to Hattusas, as it was nice and blue sky and sunny, and about 36-37 degrees. 

There is a brand-new entrance to the ruins, which looks very nice, as well as a portable shop outside (which was definitely closed up at present.)  As this is our third visit here, we were fairly familiar with some of the excavations, and wanted to revisit some of the gates as well.  Saw the famous “green stone” that sits in a room right at the bottom of the site, near the largest temple complex.  As of yet, no one can say why or what the huge stone is for, but it’s attractive, and we always look for it.  We also found what one of our books calls the “lion tub.”  Not sure if it really was a bathtub of some sort, but it sits rather at the entrance to the temple complex, and I don’t really remember it from before – but you can definitely tell a Hittite lion when you see one!

My plan had been to walk the complex, which is what I started to do, with my faithful companion ever near in the car.  The thing was, I hadn’t realized that the first half of the hike goes entirely up hill – at quite a steep incline!  (You don’t tend to notice those things when you’re in the car, do you?) So I made it up to the first gate, the Lion Gate, and decided that discretion would definitely be the better part of valor … or some such thing, and got back into the car.  There definitely weren’t many people visiting.  We saw two cars of what looked to be business types when we first went in, and as we were heading down the slope, we passed a third car of people who stopped at the palace ruins. 

The weather, being winter, there was still snow on the ground in places (especially at the top) as well as a fair amount of ice on the road.  The interesting thing is that while most of the road was cleared, at the very top, it was still very icy, and Robert had to be very careful driving, and we had to be very careful walking.  In some clear sections, there was a lot of mud about – and you should see the bottoms of our blue jeans as well as our shoes!  It was just nice to be back here, and I was able to make my formal “good byes” to the Hittites. 

Lion gate

Second gate

Sphinx Gate

From Hattusas, we headed to Yazilikaya which served as the religious center for the Hittites.  This open air venue has two different chambers, where Hittite sculptures have been hewn into the rock walls.  One gallery – Gallery A - is very, very weather beaten, and honestly, I think the rocks definitely need to be covered up, if we’re not to lose the sculptures entirely.  In Gallery B, as it wasn’t discovered until the beginning of the 20^th century, is in much better repair.  Again, it was truly amazing to have this entire venue to ourselves, as who but crazy Americans would think to visit central Turkey in January?!  It is an odd sensation to be standing on the very spot where a Hittite artist stood, carving the images in the face of the stone wall – 3,000 years ago!

If you look closely, you can see the hole made by the gate post!

Chamber 2 with Hittite Hieroglyphics; king sculpture in back

We had a nice look around and then headed back up the road 2 km or so to our hotel, getting here about 5-ish.  Robert was able to set up the computer, and we have a good WiFi signal.  We even got the satellite TV to work, but didn’t find anything worth watching.  We have decided that we will stay here tonight and tomorrow night, and then hightail it for the big city on Wednesday, (hopefully) before the storm moves in. 

 

King sculpture

Yazilikaya Gallery B

We will have dinner here at the hotel tonight.  The food was just fine, as I remember it, but in January, who knows?!  Figure we’ll go down in an hour or so, so I will report more later!

Bye for now!

12 Gods of the Underworld

Me in Gallery B

Double click on photo to enlarge!

m

xxx

Okay … slight change of plans here!  We went down to see what might be possible to have for dinner, and found the entire property dark as pitch.  Nobody in sight anywhere; no lights on; really, actually scary – as Robert says, Norman Bates can just walk in!  So … with that thought, we went back to our still-freezing-room (It’s kind of scary when poor Robert is sitting in a chair with his sweater on and his jacket over that, and he has the hood pulled up over his head to try to keep warm.)  My thought was:  OUT!  So, Robert called the Anitta Hotel in Corum, about 60 miles away, and found that they had a room for the night!  In less time than it takes to turn around, we had everything packed up again and out the door.  We left the cancellation fee (first night’s payment) and the hotel key, and we were gone.

"Before" picture

I'm SO happy to be warm!

[Added note: Having stayed at the hotel in Bogazkale before, we knew it would be pretty basic but we weren’t prepared for the utter lack of service.  The building was as cold as a meat locker, probably because they haven’t had any guests for weeks (during which time the heat was turned off) and, when we found ourselves completely abandoned by the “staff”, we knew it was time to go.  One wonders what we would have found in the restaurant, since they probably would have opened it just for us.  Fortunately, Margaret’s knowledge of the area gave us a way out. - R]

It took almost an hour to get to Corum, but we had stayed there some years ago at the Anitta and I knew we could find it in the dark – it’s the tallest building in town, and has ANITTA written in red neon on the top!  Hard to miss! 

R's mushroom soup

My tomato soup

Two warm people!!

No problems at all getting here and in we went! 

We’ll be here for the next two nights – room 1505, lovely non-smoking room with a view towards the museum!  (Great museum, by the way!)  We’ll head there tomorrow.  Checked in and headed upstairs to the 12^th floor for dinner. R

R's beef stew

My chicken curry

My mystery dessert with chocolate sauce!

R's fruit plate

Excellent food!  R had mushroom soup to start, followed by a beef stew without the liquid – he loved it!  I started with their tomato soup, and followed that with a lovely chicken curry served with both rice and chips.  A lovely red wine from Turkey to go along with the food.  For dessert, R had the fruit plate – it was beautiful! And I had something with chocolate sauce – not exactly sure what, but it may have been vanilla ice cream rolled into a ball and then coated with chocolate and nuts, and topped by pistachio.  Very good!  Then back down to the room, and it’s just after 10 pm.  We have Eurosport on the TV, the room is lovely and warm, and even the bathroom floor is heated!  Warmth!  What a concept!

That’s it for the moment!

m

xxx