Tag Archives: Istanbul
Carpet Flashback
There are only a few shopping days left until Christmas, so on this Flashback Friday I though it appropriate to return to a post from December 13, 2016 and a shopping experience I had in Istanbul. I attended a workshop where the speaker recounted how she bought a carpet on a trip to Istanbul. She […]
The Orphanage
It is Flashback Friday once more. Today we go back to March 22, 2015 and some reflections on a visit to Istanbul. I wrote about visiting one of the Princes Islands in Istanbul, and my interest in the abandoned building at the top of the hill. I recently discovered there is more to the story of that […]
A Favorite Place
Had to change planes in Istanbul recently. With only three hours between flights there was no time to leave the airport to show my family the city that may be my favorite in Europe. Instead I just thought of the places I had seen, and today one of the highlights of a previous trip. This […]
2021 In Review: Hagia Sophia Frescoes
We start our review of 2021 today with the tenth most popular post of the year. It is an enduring favorite since it was first published here in 2015, and in 2020 was the most popular post. Sometimes I can’t figure out why a post becomes popular, but I understand the interest in the Hagia […]
Falling Down?
If not for the fog, I would never have seen the orphanage. The building reconciled me to missing a day in Cappadocia. With our flight canceled due to weather conditions we spent the day instead on the Princes’ Islands. There was a big wodden structure at the top of Buyukada Island that we just had […]
Your 2021 Travel Guide
Where are you planning not to go in 2021? Will you plan a vacation for 2022 instead? The never-ending pandemic has changed the way we look at so many things. I expect it will take years for the travel industry to recover. If it ever does. It feels like we are trapped in a dystopian […]
2020 In Review – Hagia Sophia
That this was the most-read post here in 2020 was, I think, largely because of the controversial decision by Turkey’s president to turn a world heritage site into a mosque. Mind you, it was popular in 2019 also (number two for the year), when the conversion was only a rumor. I wrote two posts in […]
Turkish Politics and You
With the world concentrating on COVID-19, you may have missed Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s latest not so subtle move to reshape his country. He wants to turn a museum into a mosque. Not just any museum though, but a UNESCO world heritage building, the Hagia Sophia. This is a popular move in a country where […]
Testament of Time
I understand why this piece, originally published in February 2015, was popular in 2019. There has been a movement in Turkey for a number of years to convert the Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque and it seemed there was increased talk of that this past year. This was the second-most read post […]
Buying A Carpet
I attended a workshop where the speaker recounted how she bought a carpet on a trip to Istanbul. She talked about the process, recounted how much she had paid, then displayed her purchase. She spent several hundred dollars on what was essentially a placemat. I don’t remember why she was telling the story, probably an […]
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