Neile's Turkish Holiday

July 4th

as transcribed from my journal

We had breakfast on the patio, then showered and walked to a tea house, had Schweppes limon (our beverage of choice here, when we can find it) then continued on in the sun to the Open Air Museum. A short but hot walk.

 

	A view of the peribaci on the way to the Open Air Museum.

 

This is a place where the Greek Orthodox came and carved out a nunnery and chapels out of the peribaci. The first place you see on entering is "the monastery of nuns" (just imagine!), then move on the various chapels, with mosaics in various stages of disintegration, what with fading and chipping and the ravages of age, as well as the movement later on to remove faces from icons. Several of them are quite elaborate and lovely. There are frequently grave holes in the floors.

The "monastery of nuns" in the Open Air Museum. Please note that it is not a "nunnery" or a "convent".

 

Best was one called The Dark Chapel, which had a separate admission price of 3,000,000 lire--more than the admission to the whole place. No one wanted to go in but me but for some reason I didn't want to miss it. I paid for Christina's way in, even though she didn't really think she wanted to. Matt and Jim soon followed and it was really worth it--the frescoes were bright and gorgeous and more complete than other places. Matt and Christina immediately got busy reading the names and trying to figure out who everyone was. Jim and I just looked. I especially loved two leaping goats at the nativity scene, and how there was a line from the star shining above in the heavens right in Jesus' halo. Wonderful saints and apostles and angels. The lights went out partway through and the guide came in with a powerful fluorescent battery light and showed us some more things he particularly liked. Eventually the lights came on again. We spent about 45 minutes there, and at the end the guard told Christina she could take one picture (quite a coup as there were "no camera" signs everywhere).

Walking back to the tea garden near the gates for a drink but they didn't have food, so we walked back to another tea garden halfway to town and had toasted sandwiches--very good. Stayed a long time as the proprietor took a liking to us after we had to complain about getting sausage meat in the sandwiches, which Matt and I didn't mind but Christina couldn't eat. Anyway, later he brought us a special kind of flower tea, and sat and played a soz for a while--his playing was very good.

Me, Christina, and Matt at the tea house at the Open Air Museum. Note the sunglasses from Ankara and the tins of Schweppes limon on the table.

 

Matt and Christina checked in to see if their friend Mehmet in his carpet shop, but he was away in France. His partner Ali welcomes us, and we were there for hours, seeing many carpets and having three sets of tea, and he gave Christina and I embroidered hangings and very good prices but still we didn't commit to buying anything. There was an unusual one Jim liked a lot, though, and one I quite liked for the dining room.

Ali talked a lot about dyes and weaving and brought us madder root to see the red dye and looked to see if carpets were double- or single-knotted (double are stronger). Christina and Matt had already taught us about how the nap affects the colour (you can see this when you turn carpets around--they can look like the colours are dramatically different), about silk, cotton, and wool, and about artificial versus natural dyes. Ali brought in mulberries for us to taste that they use in dyes (and of course mulberries are what silkworms eat--we are at the very western end of the Silk Road here).

Also brought out their guest book, and Christina went up the hill to get Matt's and her chops, and a "good luck" sticker. It was a long process--longer than any others by far and Ali was charming.

My ankle was bad and Jim was sneezing, so we finally left. I limped up the hill with Christina carrying everything and put my ankle up and lay on their bed. Jim and Matt got take out for dinner, and we sat and at and joked and talked about carpets, and Christina and I brought out the ones we'd already bought in Ankara to admire again. I pointed out how I was now aged and a crone and therefore wise, so Matt brought me dinner. I lay back and ate.

Now we're back in our own little den, Jim's sneezing and I'm getting sleepy.