Travel Tips

The area called Sultanahmet is where you would find all those historic edifice like the Hippodrome, Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Basilica Cistern, Topkapi Palace, and alittle on the edge is the Grand Bazaar and Sulaymaniye Mosque, and some other buildings under the UNESCO world heritage list.

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The national mosque of Turkey, the Blue Mosque or the Sultan Ahmed Mosque.

The city's icon, fronting the Hagia Sophia, constructed in 1609 in response of Sultan Ahmed 1 to the Hagia Sophia.

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About 8 hours drive from Istanbul is the city of Safranbolu, located in the black sea region in a province called Karabuk.

Several old buildings, with 1008 registered historical artifacts. One private museum, 25 mosques, 5 tombs, 8 historical fountains, 5 Turkish baths, 3 caravanserais, 1 historical clock tower, 1 sundial and hundreds of houses and old mansions. The Old Town is situated in a deep ravine.

I've visited this town during the winter of 2008 when not much tourists are around and the temperature can be freezingly cold.

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Declared in 1998 as a world heritage site by UNESCO, Troy is located in the province of Çanakkale province in northwest Turkey.

I think we drove like 2 hours from the main town of Canakkale to get to Troy. Excavations revealed several cities built in succession to each other, and excavations are is still going on.

Physically it did not facinate me much but the whole story while wandering around the area and the thought that it has had a history since 3 or 4 thousand years ago plus the movie and Homer's Iliad made the visit worthy.

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One of the most strange terrain found on earth is the Cappadocia region of Turkey.

We based ourselves in Goreme where the open-air museum of rock-churches and chambers are located.

And we took one of those popular cappadocia tours that made us discover the wonders of the region like the Derinkuyu underground settlements, uchisar castle, starwars valley, ihlara gorge, pigeon valley, those fascinating rock-cut churches everywhere, etc...

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Included in the list in 1988, the cloudy-white travertines of Pamukkale with its lovely blue-watered basins, and the historic city of Hierapolis.

It is an ancient spa since the 2nd century BC, there is a complex which is now an archeological museum.

On top of the travertine mountain you'll find the necropolis with lots of sarcophagi scattered around that seemed like a great location for a horror movie of ancient theme (my wild imagination, ok!).
There is also a nymphaeum, a martyrium, temple of Apollo, a huge theater that looks like a castle from a distance.

BTW, you have to take off your shoes before traversing up the white travertines.

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