Jacob takes to the skies, Sarah flees the underworld

It's hard to believe less than three weeks have gone by since we left Toronto. It's been terrific so far and we are still feeling enthusiastic 

despite two flights and two overnight buses, although that enthusiasm may wane if we end up doing another all-nighter. Paul spent the last one white-knuckled after he woke at 3 am feeling the bus was discomfitingly vertical as it zoomed down switchbacks through the mountains, pausing only for a stop at a security checkpoint when machine-gun toting jandarma boarded to make sure the passed out passengers weren't posing any threat. I was grateful I slept the whole time.

That was the bus ride we took to leave Goreme, reluctantly, after seven days of hiking with Kate and Wim and the kids. It's difficult to choose which photos to post, because there were so many breath-taking vistas: the views from the ridge tops,

 the many winding paths,  

the expansive plateaus,

the cool walk through the Ilhara Valley gorge

and the paths through the fairy chimneys and other fascinating rock formations.

The kids loved the cave houses, both the official ones (such as the vast Selime monastery and the open air museum in Goreme)

and those that just dotted the landscape and provided opportunities for exploration on most hikes we did.

They also adored clambering up the rocks,

and were all around great hikers, even the little ones

though the dads helped out when the going got tough...

Kate took a turn with Theo on her shoulders too, and I was on duty when we did the rope rappel down the sandy slopes.

If we wanted a view we didn't even have to leave the amazing cave house Kate had found us online,

we just climbed the staircase to the terrace and there it was, all laid out for us. 

It wasn't always easy herding nine people but we managed to mostly stick together,

and found frequent picnic breaks to be a big help in keeping everyone going.

We had terrific food as Kate and I took turns making dinner from primarily local ingredients. Mornings we would have amazing breakfasts of fresh bread, oranges, and delicious Turkish yogurt with dried apricots, honeycomb and walnuts. We enjoyed shopping at the markets in Goreme and Avenos and paying super low prices for some local delicacies - Kate picked up a kilo of unbelievably good olives for around 8 lira (about 4 Cdn) and the kids loved their 50 cent churros, dripping with honey.

Our only mis-step was buying a 3 pound block of delicious looking cheese that turned out to be butter - discovered only upon tasting back at the house. We were forced to eat lavish amounts of butter on our bread (we bought at least four loaves a day, fresh baked for around 40 cents a loaf), fluffy butter biscuits with our lentil soup one evening, and buttery mulberry cookies. The mulberry cookies we had for dessert after a meal of Turkish lamb chops and a few pounds of roasted potatoes (which were good but possibly not worth carrying for 8 km on our hike home from one market - I couldn't resist buying them but realized the ones at the corner shop near our house would probably have been almost as good!). 

We had fun hosting guests for drinks one evening: another Canadian family - Michelle, Steve, Therese, Lea and Amelie. We met them in town and after hearing that they were completing a ten month journey around the world we asked them over to tell us about their adventures and experiences - they gave us some great tips for travel in Turkey as they had done much of the coastal route we are planning on following. The kids were happy to have even more friends to play with that evening.

Our final day in Goreme held the most extreme experiences. In the morning Jacob and Kate went for a hot air balloon (side story - it was arranged by the nicest man in Goreme, who had helped Kate recover her wallet by mobilizing the entire village to be on alert for it, sending Wim off with one of his mountain bikes - no charge - to the tiny juice stand where she had inadvertently left it behind, and in general doing anything and everything he could to help) at sunrise over the village. Kate and Jacob left at 5:45 for their shuttle to the take-off site, and back at the cave house the rest of us got up on the terrace (wrapped in blankets because it was freezing!) to watch the amazing sight of balloons rising all over the town, first in the fading remnants of the night,

then in the pink of the pre-dawn sky,

 

and finally with the full break of day.

of course capping the viewing off with a cup of coffee to stay awake for the rest of the morning. 

Jacob and Kate loved every minute of their experience, both on the ground

and up in the air.

Later in the day we went in the complete opposite direction, visiting the underground city of Kaymakli, a rabbit's warren of hundreds of tunnels, historically used as a refuge for the Cappadoccian inhabitants fleeing persecution from the Ottomans. It was hard to imagine that people would live down here for days at a time, and using tunnels to travel fairly large distances. I was enjoying the visit until we journeyed downward through one particularly tight tunnel. I thought it was so cute the way Tom fit just perfectly in and so snapped a photo of him and the girls.

I looked at the photo immediately after to see whether it turned out and something about seeing photographic proof of how small it was and realizing I was inside that made me feel a rising claustrophobia. Coupled with the fact that a) we were continuing to angle deeper underground b) there was a large tour group in front of us blocking our way, and c) that there was no way of going back but only forward, was enough to make me feel the beginnings of a panic attack, not good in such a space! Fortunately we emerged out of the tunnel into a holding area that was actually at the lowest point, where I was able to barge (politely-ish) through the crowd and make a beeline up, up and out to the fresh air, taking my slightly less nervous nephew Theo with me while the rest of our group enjoyed exploring for awhile longer. Moral of the story, don't go tour an underground city that goes four stories down via narrow tunnels if you have any claustrophobia! Other than the underground city I would happily recommend every hike and experience we had in Goreme (though Tom might say he doesn't want to walk 10+ km every day).

Istanbul - Exciting, crowded, delicious

I'm writing this on an overnight bus while watching a Demi Moore David Duchovny film dubbed in Turkish - I'm not yet fluent but surely after watching this I will be. We ended our fifth day in Turkey by going to the Istanbul bus station and boarding the bus to Cappadoccia at 9 pm. While it's not exactly flying first class, travelling by bus is actually so far pretty comfortable, with tea, coffee and snacks served to us periodically by the bus attendant, though I may feel differently at 3 am when the lights come on for our third stop of the night. The kids were also happy to learn Turkish by watching movies, this journey they again tried to choose screens over sleep but at midnight sleep finally won out.

As we expected from friends' rave reviews, Istanbul is an amazing place. I knew it was big (almost half of Canada's population packed in its borders) but hadn't quite appreciated its immensity until I experienced it. One of the main pedestrian thoroughfares of central Istanbul, the Istiklal Cadessi is packed from early in the morning until late at night. Periodically the throngs are forced to part by motorcycles, delivery trucks or the historic tram coming down the middle, but the gap created by such incursions quickly fills back in.

Our hotel apartment was at the foot of the Galata Bridge and in close proximity to another bridge, both span the Bosphorous river and both of which we traversed on foot many times, hard to decide whether the view from the bridges was more beautiful at dusk

or at night during the full moon (picture taken during an evening Paul and I had to ourselves thanks to Kate and Wim being on night duty back at the apartment)

The neighbourhood we awoke in each morning was a mini version of the Grand and Spice Bazaars, both just a ten minute walk from our doorstep. Being in a poorer district and just outside of the more popular bazaars meant we could get our morning pomegranate juice freshly squeezed off carts piled high with pomegranates and oranges, our donars grilled over hot coals as we waited, and pide (similar to pizza) dough rolled out and cooked in a wood fired oven in front of us, all at half the price of what it would be in other areas (and an even smaller fraction of what it would cost in Toronto). Besides these and other Turkish delicacies, the amount available to buy in Istanbul is staggering. There are of course the obvious Turkish goods - carpets, clothing, jewellery, coffee - but also a seemingly endless selection of diverse objects for sale in dense concentrations of like merchants.

One street was packed with perhaps fifty stores selling musical instruments, a back alley by the waterfront had vendors selling huge boat anchors and chains, another area had stalls and stalls of bicycles arrayed along a 200 metre stretch. We are spared from the temptation of shopping knowing that we'll have to carry anything we buy around on our backs or our bicycles for the next five months.

On our first day Paul and I and the kids went to the Blue Mosque, entering after the mid-day prayers were done. Some friendly local students approached us to interview us (they wanted to take a picture to prove they spoke to us) for their English class 

and told us when we could enter without disturbing the mid-day prayers. We had already heard the calls to prayer echo through the city, it's an incredible sound to hear and it's audible as long as one is within radius of a mosque. 

Our second evening in Istanbul we were lucky to be joined by Kate, Wim, Lyra and Theo for a continuation of the family visit we started in Brussels. The kids enjoy cavorting with their cousins 

and walking and talking together. Tom and Theo are an unstoppable force on the streets, usually running at full speed though they do have the occasional contemplative stroll as well.

So the next day we all got up reasonably early and went with Kate and her family to the Basilica Cistern.

It was a favourite of the kids 

in large part because of the ghostly carp swimming around in the ancient water reservoir.

Our third day we visited the magnificent Hagia Sophia.

... but I'm ashamed to say after that I was museumed out. It's not that these places aren't spectacular, I just find that after standing in each line for 30 minutes to an hour, paying substantial entrance fees for the family and being surrounded by multitudes of other tourists elbow to elbow, (not to mention trying to keep the kids from toppling important historical relics or offending religious pilgrims by carousing through sacred places!) I can't always appreciate their majesty and importance. So on our final day of round one in Istanbul I took the morning off and opted not to join the others in visiting the Topkapi Palace but instead relaxed at our apartment with Tom and Theo, who played GoGo's, Uno and bad guys while I put together some picnic food and packed up our belongings in preparation for our departure.

More to my speed was our time spent wandering the crowded streets 

and narrow alleys, 

getting to know the city through direct exploration. Each day needs to have something for all of us in order to keep the peace. The winning formula for Istanbul seems to have been to alternate sight-seeing and long walks with playground visits,

games of catch with the travel football

and end of the day ice cream (two flavours minimum) to power the kids for the walk back to the apartment. Fortunately the playgrounds have their own attractions for the adults as well. Gulane Park had a dozen or more white storks nesting high in the trees and gorgeous tulips in bloom, 

and Paul and I could enjoy views of the incredible backdrop while the kids played in the park above Taksim Square. It was a long walk uphill to Galata Tower

so the kids were in need of their double scoops of ice cream by the time they'd finished the journey - the scenic view at the top not quite enough of a reward for them even if it was for us!

I also loved our ferry journeys along the Bosphorous. 

The first ferry journey was just a short jaunt but we saw dolphins which made the kids' day of course. The second day's boat trip was a longer tour of the Bosphorous, basically a trip up and down the river, made even more enjoyable by sipping Turkish coffee and salep (a warm milky pudding drink) as we gazed as the palaces and fortresses along the shore.

Brussels Part I (and the trip to Turkey that almost never was)

After a long flight (7 hours straight of movies and no sleep for the kids) we were so glad to arrive at Paul's sister's Kate and her husband Wim's beautiful 3 storey house in the cosmopolitan Schaerbeek commune of Brussels (grateful also that our bikes survived the plane trip). Reunions of the cousins are always happy and the kids settled immediately into excited but comfortable companionship...

..

...and screaming games of superhero tag in the case of Tom and Theo. I was motivated by Wim into going for a brain-clearing run in the nearby sprawling Josephat park, filled with gorgeous trees, large and old enough for the park to be closed during windstorms to protect the populace from falling wood - an interdiction which we all ignored when we ventured out the next day when winds were high.

We spent the first three days catching up from jet lag, exploring the streets

public squares

and parks of Brussels both above

and below - the underground ruins near the European Parliament were almost empty of other tourists so the kids could run wild through the many caves and recesses throughout.

One of my favourite things about Brussels is the way you look down a narrow street and at the end of it see some gorgeous church or other spectacular architectural facade. Everywhere you look there is something unique, whether it's a beautiful Art Deco facade, an amazing piece of graffitti that would be at home on any gallery wall, or an abandoned corner in the middle of a dense urban retail stretch left to grow wild (this one right around the corner from the second hand bike shop where we bought Jacob's touring bike).

No doubt each leg of our journey will involve mishaps. For the past five days we've had two not insignificant ones, hopefully our record will improve as we go! The first incident was at the lovely Park Leopold, which is almost directly behind the European Parliament (you can see the curved tower in both pictures).

In the park is a huge pond, enjoyed by ducks and moorhens, which that day was partially covered in a layer of green algae. The kids were of course eager to feel it, so after hollering at them to just touch it and then catch up to me, I continued on the walk. I looked back once to see the girls crouching at the water and Tom running down to the edge, then looked back again to see Tom coming up for air, having fallen head first into the pond and soaked from the top of his hooded sweatshirt to the bottom of his sneakers. Kyra pulled him up out of the pond (luckily not falling in herself) while we all rushed to help. Tom was unfazed by his dip in the water on a cold windy day, but then screamed at the indignity of having his entire outfit stripped off so we could warm him up in everyone else's sweaters.

The second incident was more near miss than mishap. After Paul, Kate Wim and I returned home from  an evening of moules frites and vol au vent washed down with local Zinnbier and sour cherry aperitif (kids stayed back watching movies and practicing French with the teenage babysitter) we sat down over tea to confirm our flights and go over some plans for istanbul. Just before we went to bed at midnight I pestered Kate to print out our boarding pass for the our flight to Turkey the next day. She gasped when she looked at the details and exclaimed that we needed to go to a completely different airport than we had thought. It was analagous to thinking we were going to porter at the island but then discovering the flight was leaving from buttonville airport. If Kate hadn't discovered that minor detail we would have showed up at the wrong airport and missed our flight, with all the emotional mayhem and financial stress that would have ensued. Thank you Kate!!!

Fortunately we were able to adapt and caught our extreme low budget flight to Turkey (not even a free salted peanut or glass of water) and landed in Istanbul, greeted by pink skies and the moon.