It is a not if a drive, 3 hours east from Kusadasi, where we are starting 2 nights, to the area of the white castle mountain, Pamukkale with the Roman city Hieropolis on its summit. The calcium rich spring has covered the mountain side for, they say, 12 million years.
Above it, the ancient city is being excavated and restored by an Italian group and the local university.
The museum there has pieces from the excavations of the temple and theater
The gem of Istanbul, this church, turned Mosque, turned museum, back to mosque, to mosque/museum. Non Muslims can’t enter the floor, but our views from the 2nd floor were amazing anyway! Several of the Christian era gold mosaics are still visible and we were able to see them.
The largest palace of the Sultans of Istanbul, 70,000 sq meters, mostly outdoor courts, but beautiful palace too.
Inside this first gate, all the people can enter. The largest court of the palace is open to everyone
Inside the middle gate requires permission from the sultan
Sections of the palace are now exhibition rooms for gifts, armor, jewelry, and robes of the sultans
The last gate, the inner gate,, into the residence is the sultan
This area is the personal lodging of the Sultan, at least 4 wives, and 300 our so concubines…. and of course the children. There is a beautiful viewing place for him to survey his kingdom
Another section of the palace holds the jewels
And last, the Sultans’ robes
Whirling Dervish ceremony
Very solemn, very reverent, and very interesting.
We started out day with a cruise on the Bosporus strait with Europe on 1 side and Asia on the other
Cruises down to the 2nd of 3 bridges and back
We visited the spice bazaar or Egyptian market for a taste of these shopping areas. Instituted by the sultan as a way to pay for the mosques, each is associate with a mosque complex. Each sultan built a more elaborate mosque than the last, 36 of these. Not to be outdone, Erdogan built the newest and largest in 2019, which allows 63,000 for worship.
We visited the area is the ancient hippodrome, where chariot races were held in Roman times. Now it is the central area of old Istanbul
The Blue Mosque, named for the tiles in the ladies gallery, was just ending noon prayers, so we were able to visit today. It is on 1 side of the hippodrome.
After a rest, we visited the Grand bazaar
We arrived in Istanbul after a very very early flight from Amman, and thankfully, our Turkey tour meet us and delivered us to our hotel in the old city of Istanbul, with no agenda for the rest of the day! We walked a bit to get the lay of the neighborhood, found a great restaurant for dinner and just rested! We are in the Sultanahmet district! The great monuments are just around the corner and down the block from our hotel!
Neighborhood streets
Dinner! A Michelin recommended place and a delicious dinner
Delicious dinner!
Our last full day with the Viking extention in Jordan started with a long drive. 4-5 hours. Viking had a great lunch arranged for us before we went to the ruins of the Greco Roman city Jerash from 1st c BC
The theater
The colonnaded street
The object of our trip! At last! The walk in has stunning views and is more impressive on person than you can imagine
The narrow canyon or Siq. Notice how few people are in our pictures. Tourism is down 90%
Everywhere along the way, the caves carved into the rock are tombs, and the niches one held images is the Nabatean gods of! There were 2 aquaducts feeding water to the city from 2 springs, miles away
And at last
There were so few people there, it was amazing. And we walked on. The Street of Facades
The street of colonnades
This is a fast as we went, enjoyed a bit too easy and then decided to head out. In total we walked about 14,000 steps, since we took the golf cart shuttle out. 5 miles was far enough
Our group
An outstanding craft of this area is mosaic. We visited Mt Nebo, the place Moses was allowed to see the holy land.
The Monestery here, which marks the spot, is decorated with 3 levels of mosaic floors, each very impressive.
We visited another Greek orthodox church where a 3rd c mosaic map was found, describing the holy land
We had to them visit the workshop for mosaics.
On the drive on, we passed a crusader castle from the 1100s, once beseiged by Saladin.
Our stop this night is excellent! Right across the street from the entrance to Petra! The contemporary town of Petra is called Wadi Musa, or Moses Valley. Our room and our view. Tomorrow is the big day!
We’ve arrived first to travel past many bedoin camps along the road to view the dead sea
We stayed right on the dead sea at a really nice spa hotel, the Movenpic Dead Sea
