Le Blog de Duygu

8/14/2013

Sou Mela

Hello to all!

Yard

Before writing about Pergamon and Ephesus, I had decided to write about my Trabzon trip. Due to reasons beyond my control, I visited only Sümela Monastery and Atatürk’s Villa. I was planning to go to Uzungöl Plateau and stay one night there but you know what they say “If You Want to Make God Laugh, Tell Him Your Plans.”

According an oft-told story among Black Sea Greeks, two monks from Greece had the same dream, in their dream they saw Saint Luke’s Panagia in Sümela, thereupon those two monks came to Trabzon by sea, totally unaware of each other’s existence.

They came upon each other and told about the dream. This is the brief story of how the Monastery was founded.

This holy place is located in Maçka (antique Matsuka city). Word of Sümela with the dots above the U letter can look strange but it is pronounced Sou Mela and mela means black in Greek. In accordance with sources which I read before the visit, name of the monastery can derive from the Black Mountains which the monastery stands

But according to other researches it could be associated with the black colour of the icon of Panagia Soumela.

In any case, I’m sure all those researches would agree that Sümela is an unusual and spectacular place

Stars of monastery

This amazingly well preserved place has Greek Orthodox frescos on the walls. The main subjects of the frescoes are biblical scenes.

Monastery was built against side of middle sized mountain. It is possible to reach there by car but you have walk and climb like 300 meters to reach Monastery.

Take your time while walking, enjoy the amazing view, take photos, take a deep breath and enjoy pine trees, fresh air.

Don't forget to wear something with hood. Even at the summer it is possible to be caught rain. Eat something before go to there, at Monastery there is small café, there is nothing to eat there. There is restaurant down the Monastery, It was looking like a nice restaurant but I haven’t tried it.

The Raising of Lazarus

View

Mother Mary

7/11/2013

Temple & Philosopher

Goddess of wisdom; known as Minerva by Romans, Athena by Ancient Greeks.

Aristotle, philosopher; known as teacher of Alexander the Great and philosopher

One is from ancient spiritual world, other one is a scholar.

Can you separate those two, religion and science? They both born from needs of mankind, one regulates the nonmaterial world, other tries to explain how the material world works.

In my mind, science and religion are attached to each other. No wonder those are my words, my thoughts but under the sun there is a place where science and religion league together…

Temple

Ruins of Athena Temple

Assos, known as Behramkale, a small place where academy of Aristotle is and Temple of Athena reaches to the sky.

Assos was ruled by so many civilisations, Aeolians from Lesbos, Persians and Romans. Persians expelled from Assos of Alexander the Great; city also was ruled by Kings of Pergamon.

Unhappily during my visit to Assos, ancient city was closed, I don’t know the reason. I only saw Athena Temple.

Construction of temple was begun at the second half of 6 century BC; temple was dedicated to Athens, the guardian of the city.

Temple is very important for ancient architecture. Signboard, located at the entrance of Assos says “Athena Temple is the first and only Doric temple of archaic period of Anatolia. At the same time, temple is the only sample which consists Doric and Ion architectural characteristics together. For further information, please refer to http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/artifact?name=Assos,%20Temple%20of%20Athena&object=Building

I suppose, people of Assos didn’t know they built such a unique structure, they only intended to please their Goddess. I hope they achieved to please Athena and found inner peace.

Temple was build to highest hill of the city; so that Athena could protect Assos.

I climbed to the hill; Guardian of the city welcomed me with warm winds and sunlight. Unfortunately many of temple is in ruins, but even the ruins are charmful. Well, I’m always touched with ancient cities. Athena was lucky, hill is surrounded with an amazing view, Aegean Sea, wuthering heights…

After visiting Temple, I stopped by a small café of village which is run by a villager. They have delicious gözleme. I recommend you to have gözleme with white cheese and ayran, after climbing a steep hill, eating and resting will be good.

(for gözleme; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6zleme)

View

Behramkale-Village

Road to Village and me

Villagers

Village Cafe

Ruins

6/17/2013

Troy, Legend and First Beauty Contest

Legend

To the most beautiful one… The most important battle of mythological world began with this simple sentence. Eris the goddess of strife and riot was not invited to an important meeting which was arranged by Zeus the God of Gods and Goddesses.

So Strife and riot goddess sends an apple to the meeting to take her revenge

Athena, Hera and Aphrodite quarrel and cannot decide who is the most beautiful one. So Zeus sends the Goddessed to Paris son of King Priamos and asks him to choose “the most beautiful”. Paris chooses Aphrodite the goddess of beauty and love as the most beautiful one. But of course nothings is gratuitous. Paris wants Helene the most beautiful woman in the world and wife of Menelaus King of Sparta.

Aphrodite does not return his wish and make Helen fall in love with Paris. Paris elopes Helen to Troy with help of Aphrodite.

So the Greeks who believe they are insulted declare a war to Troy. So a war called “Trojan” begins between Achaeans (Greeks) and Troy. We can say Trojan is the first war between east and west.

With the help of God and Goddesses (Athena, Aphrodite and Ares) war continues more than 10 years. Odysseus who is loved by Athena Goddess of wisdom makes a wooden horse. According to plan Achaeans would act like they withdraw and leaves that wooden horse behind. Odysseus and other skilled generals hide inside that wooden horse and others sail to Tenedos and hide. Achaeans leave only one soldier with the horse and send him to gates of Troy. This one soldier tells to people of Troy he hates Greeks, he escapes from them and runs to Lands of Troy, this wooden horse made as holly altar for the sake of Athena”. People of Troy let he wooden horse enter to their city to beg for mercy and peace from Athena. That night people of Troy get drunk with the joy of peace and in a sudden army of Achaean show up, destroy the city. After this great mess Menelaus takes Helen and sails to Greece.

This is a very brief summary of Iliad and Odyssey of Homer.

The Wind brought wealth to Troy

Troy till the archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered the city was presumed as mythological city. But is an ancient city which contains 9 cities or 9 layers.

Troy I (3000 – 2500 B.C.) : Initial settlement of the early bronze age

Troy II (2500 – 2200 B.C.) : First settlement, Center of contemporary civilization. Ended in a raging fire

Troy III ( 2200 – 2050 B.C. ) : Surrounded by walls, Buildings were larger and more developed than the previous period

Troy IV ( 2052 – 1900 B. C. ) : Blocks of the houses were attached to each other

Troy V ( 1900 – 1800 B. C. ) : More advanced techniques and workmanship in the construction of the walls and the houses

Troy VI ( 1800 – 1300 B.C. ) : Middle bronze age

Troy VI A ( 1300 – 1260 B.C. ) : Large storage jars that were set deeply into the ground and covered with a heavy stone slab to store solid and liquid supplies for an emergency

Troy VII B 1 ( 1260 – 1190 B. C. ) : Founded on Troy VI A * Similar construction techniques with Troy VI A

Troy VII B 2 (1190 – 110 B.C.) : New settlers

Troy VIII ( 700 – 350 B. C. ) : Repopulated by Greeks from Lesbos and Tenedos

Troy IX (350 – 400 A. D. ) : The city spread and covered the whole mound Hisarlik. Emporor Augustus rebuilt the city. The temple of Athena was the most important building

City Walls

Odeon & Bouleuterion

How Palace House looked like B.C. 1700

How Palace House looks like as of 2013

Holly Area

6/09/2013

Canakkale / Dardanelles

After Gallipoli, we went to Canakkale. We stayed in this lovely, small city just one day. The day after our stay, we hit the road to visit Troy, Assos, Pergamon.
Canakkale is a peaceful, lovely city. The city owns this reputation to students and in my humble opinion sea. Canakkale is a student city, 18 Mart University is located there. City shore is full of bars, students, young people.

Where to Stay
We stayed in Anzac Hotel, Hotel is rated with 4 stars at TripAdvisor, in my opinion it's an average hotel but staff is lovely and very helpfull.

Things To Do
There are so many things to do in the city. First you can take walk at the city shore. While you are walking sea coast, you'll see a big, wooden horse. Have you seen the movie Troy? If you have watched it you'll recognize the wooden horse. But if you didn't watch here some pictures of the Trojan Horse

Trojan Horse

Well, of course Trojan Horse is not only link to film-Troy. (Please note trojan horse at the pictures was given away to Canakkale by the film makers)

According to legend Iliad (written by Homer) Trojan Horse is model which was made by Odysseus in order to cross Troy citadels and enter the city on the quiet. After visiting Troy, I'll write the details about the Trojan War and Iliad .

After seeing Trojan Horse If you are interested in military things you can visit maritime museum, but if not, you can just sit on branches and watch Dardanelles.

Sunset at Maritimes Museum

Maritimes Museum / Atatürk

There is a small bazaar called "Aynalı Çarşı", for sovereigns you can visit there, but you won't find interesting things. For sovereigns I recommend you to go a pedlar who sells beeds, rings, colourful rocks on his wheeled vehicle near to a cafe called Şakir'in Yeri. Speaking of Şakir'in Yeri, it's a lovely cafe at seaside, for food you can try there.

Some pieces at Aynalı Çarşı

Şakir'in Yeri

Gallipoli

Gallipoli means "beautiful city" in Ancient Greek. Gallipoli is one of the cities which is located in Canakkale (Dardanelles) province.
We could not spend so much to discover the city, we stopped by Gallipoli on our way to Canakkle.

EATING

We have found a lovely fish resturant by the seashore, name of this lovely restaurant is İlhan. I strongly recommend you to go there when you are in Gallipoli.

SIGHTSEEING

Gallipoli is hometown is great Turkish Marine Piri Reis. Piri Reis is famous with his world map. He drew second world map. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piri_Reis .

So there is a Piri Reis Museum in the city center.