Magic Carpet Ride

"They say" that no trip to Turkey is complete without a serious carpet encounter. Carpets everywhere - wall coverings, cushion coverings, inside, outside. The colours are rich and the patterns are traditional.

 

Inside the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum
some of these carpets date back to 16 century AD 

On every street, in every shop there are carpets for sale and everyone is anxious to entice you into see them. "Where are you from?" or "Are you sisters?" any form of conversation to get you talking and perhaps into the shop. It became a game with us. Even on our tours we taken to see how carpets are made - "no pressure - just information".













Our first encounter of a serious nature was in Istanbul on our second day. We were taken to a shop not far from our hotel. We are told by our guide Mustafa that we are "under no pressure to buy", just to sit and have a cup of tea and learn about how carpets are made and look at some examples. We get our tea and see many carpets that are unfurled with skill as we hear about double knots (Turkish knots), flat knots (Persian knots) and kilims, hand dying wool and the colours and patterns from the different regions of Turkey. After ooing and awing we escape.

Our next carpet encounter comes on day 8 of our time in Turkey. We are taken to a carpet cooperative weaving centre. We are told how they die the wool and silk for the carpets using natural dyes. They take some time to tell us about the silk worm, how it was brought to Turkey from China, how they get the silk from the cocoon.  

Pictures showing the various stages of the silk work cycle

Silk worm cocoons




"Reeling is a technique whereby live cocoons are placed in hot water, and boiled for five to ten minutes to kill the worm. To get the highest quality silk, the temperature of the water must be lowered before the reeling begins, so cold water is added. A brush is used to catch a strand from each of the cocoons and the silk is pulled off the cocoon in a single strand while the cocoon is still in the hot water. Those strands then are moved to a simple roll-up apparatus that creates four bunches of silk threads."

The silk is pulled together

Run over this hook

Pulled through and onto a skeiner

To make a Turkish knot or double knot, the yarn is passed between two adjacent warps, brought back under one, wrapped around both forming a collar, then pulled through the center so that both ends emerge between the warps. These ladies fingers move so fast - knot made and cut with the small knife held in her right hand.



 

These shears cut the pile evenly with the top of
the carpet - the little comb pushes all the knots
tight

We are offered Turkish coffee, apple tea and even Raki. They bring out carpet after carpet but again "no pressure to buy - just look - ask questions - walk on them". Carpet after carpet is unfurled and thrown through the air at our feet. After an eternity - and some people buying and we escape once again.

 

The next visit we make is on day 10 and although not on our itinerary, our guide wants to take us to a small carpet cooperative for a demonstration. This is truly a no pressure place. They did not even mention buying. They just showed us how they got the silk from the cocoon, how they dyed the wool using natural dyes - we even got to see the various plant matter that they used and a description of the mordants that setup the colours into the wool or the silk. We were shown some beautiful carpets and I came so close to asking "how much" but I bit my tongue. When we left here Tracy said to me that is the last time she is going to see a carpet place and if I am seriously going to buy - I am going by myself - fair enough.

Okay so we avoided all and any mention of carpets until - UNTIL - we visited the one place that was on my list to see while we were in Turkey. I found this wonderful blog on felting in Turkey - Ikonium Studio. Their felting is fabulous. On our last few days in Istanbul we took part of a day to find it and have a look.

 

Mehmet and Theresa generously showed us how to felt on to a silk scarf. They talked to us about dying wool and about the hats and bags that they create. We had such a wonderful time.  

Coloured pieces of wool are applied front and back
to a wet silk scarf

Mehmet is rolling the scarf to felt the wool

 

We are treated to a wonderful lunch of tomatoes, grape leaves, lamb and bread. During our meal the subject of the various uses that they have for the wool that they dye and the conversation turned to carpets.

 

 They had some upstairs that are made in the Taurus Mountains near Konya out of their wool. Of course I wanted to see - Tracy and Cheryl leave for a bit - I look -  we talk - finally I am asking "How much?" and "do you have any smaller ones - say 4 x 6". I spy this beautiful kilim. YES - I bought it.

 

 

 

This is going to sit in my office when and if I get one - but for now it is in the living room in front of the fireplace.

The piece is woven warp and weft with 70% taurus mountain sheep wool and 30% mohair. The hand symbol is a powerful woman symbol, good for fertility and prosperity, warding off the evil eye and aiding in household tasks! I believe there is also symbols depicting the carnation, the female shape, hands on hips, the star, running water. The colors are all natural dyes, indigo for the blue, madder root for reds, orange and browns, and weld for yellow...overdyeing weld with indigo gives the muddy green.

Memories of Göreme

I have had so much fun looking at all our pictures of our trip. These are a few from our time in and around Göreme that are worthy of a story or two.

On our hike in the Red Valley, where we felt we were all by ourselves in the middle of now where, we came around a bend in the trail and what did we see but this fellow who had seen us hiking from a restaurant above us and come down into the valley with oranges and a juice press. How nice to get a refreshing cold drink in the heat of the day.

I took this picture in the Kesklik Rock Monastery housed in a cave carved into a fairy chimney. The frescos on the walls of this monastery are about 1000 years old. They are beautiful but badly damaged by soot and vandalism.

Happy Hour on our patio outside our room at the Local Cave House. Yes we slept in a cave.

Cosy bedroom. The benefits of a cave house is NO AIR CONDITIONING - it is the only part of our vacation that my sinus' did not bother me. It was hot in Turkey and I did appreciate the relief it gave from the heat but the cool damp of the cave dwellings was so much better.

A few steps up from the pool was this wonderful place in the shade. It was a great place to sit on the beautiful kilim covered cushions before our next adventure.

On the roof of the cave hotel sits a solar hot water heater - most of the buildings in this area especially had this but a lot of buildings in Turkey heat water this way. Note the satellite dishes - they just look out of place with the space-like landscape.

The town of Göreme is built on the hillside. Small tractors were forever going up and down through the narrow streets. We followed one up to the top of one of these streets.  They managed to have cows, chickens and even a horse or two in the small yards attached to the houses. These animals do not have fields to roam in and seemed quite content.

The cliffs that line the valleys are full of pigeon homes several storeys high carved out of the tufa. Some are decorated with paintings to attract the pigeons. People in this region used to feed them as their droppings were used and sold as a fertiliser.  

 We saw this elderly gentleman walking along the street. I pretended to take Tracy's picture and took his instead - I bowed to Tracy and said thank you and he smiled - I think he knew that I had taken his picture. His face is so wonderful.

This wonderful woman owned and managed this shop that is the outlet for the creations from a 30 women cooperative. They make the most incredible crocheted pieces to sell. Honeyfan was just one of the fabulous people that we met during our visit in Turkey, who all showed us their great hospitality, generosity and kindness. Honeyfan's husband took us up to their restaurant - My House - and treated us to tea and Baklava.

Somewhere in Outer Space

I am totally at a loss of adjectives for the next few days of our journey. As we travelled from Nevsehir to Göreme I was astounded with the incredible scenery like none I had ever seen before - lunar like or something from Mars.

 

So what makes this place so special? These rock formations or Fairy Chimneys are the result of volcanic eruptions and erosion by wind and water. Within these rock formations people have excavated a network of caves which served as refuges, residences, storage and places of worship dating from the 4th century. 

 

Our guide, Turan, lead us on a journey back in time. He kept us mesmerized , for the next two days with his knowledge of the sights in this area. We visited the Devrent Valley, the Göreme Open Air Museum, Kaymakli Underground City, Kesklik Rock Monastery, Sahinefendi Village (Sobesos), Taskinpasa Village with its Kahramanian Mosque and the old Greek town of Mustafapasa.

Göreme Open Air Museum

This is in the underground city of Kaymakli. These underground cities were carved out of the ground for the inhabitants to store food, animals and hide from the marauding armies that crossed this land on their way to other countries. This city is 7 layers deep.

 Not sure if you can see the round dips in the floor. These were used to put large vessels in to store food.


Some of the openings in the wall were for storage or sleeping.

This round rock was used to seal the entry - sort of like a "Fred Flintstone" door. You can see the base looks like a cradle with a block to keep it going back too far. In one place three of us tried to move it and it barely budged.




Sobesos excavation site near Sahinefendi Village. Archeologists have recently. This site shows is a recent discovery of Roman baths, tombs, basilica and mosaics.

We hiked in the Red Valley.



Our Guide

Pigeon Houses and painting on the walls



There is so much to see in this area and this post does not do it justice. I have included only enough pictures so that you can see how amazing it is.

 

 

 

Travelling in the Dark

We seem to always be travelling in the dark - our flight from Canada to Istanbul was an overnight flight - our trip from Istanbul to Goreme was an overnight bus trip. We left the Tourista Agency via a tour bus to the main bus terminal to get the Suha Turizm bus to Goreme.

At this point I would like to tell you all that our travel arrangements were setup by Rina Svensson of Insight Travel Agency. My daughter Tracy described our best trip ideas and they worked together to make this adventure come off without a hitch. There was always someone to meet us, greet us and get us to the next destination. All our tours and hotels were fabulous.

Back to the bus. We finally arrived at this HUGE bus depot. We did enjoy the sights along the way.

I love this apartment building with all the laundry and satellite TV dishes.

Then we pass by the remants of the old city wall.

I said this was a busy bus depot.

 

So after a short wait we are shown to our bus. Not many people here speak English so it is a little scary thinking you might be getting on the wrong bus but after our tickets are checked and rechecked and checked again we are settled in our seats. Tracy and Cheryl together and me by myself - but not for long. I get a seat companion. I was a little aprehensive at first. It was a young girl and I was worried that this was going to be a long ride with no conversation but it turns out that she spoke some English - and this was a good thing as we soon find out there are only 8 on the bus that speak English the rest Turkish. We have two drivers and a hostess - no English. Any communication with the English speaking passengers is going to be done via my new friend.

 

I am sad that we are leaving Istanbul in the dark as we cannot see the scenery. It seems to take forever to get out of the city. Finally after at least an hour and a half we are on our way. I have lots of questions and with our limited knowledge of each other language and lots of writing down of words we talk. I find out that she has just graduated university as an architect and now has a position teaching until she gets another job in her field. We discuss houses and families - how many generations live in the same house - that her family is living in the same house that was built over 100 years ago. The night is long and we get lots of "pit" stops. As the sun rises the countryside has changed from a city to very desert, desolate looking scenery - almost like around Kamloops. I spy what looks like a soddy. There are houses and farm land. Finally we arrive in Nevsehir and disembark. My partner gets onto another bus to go to her destination and we wait and wait and wait. We are panicking a bit as we have an appointment at 10 a.m. to meet at our hotel for a tour.

 

Finally a bus comes and we get on. We arrive in Goreme at about 9:30 a.m. and are dropped at the bus depot there. Our itinerary says we are to walk to our hotel - well where is it - so I go and ask. I am told that someone will be along shortly. We wait - finally a man comes and we drag our suitcases up the hill to our hotel - The Local Cave House. OMG.

Here now - satalite dishes on ? WHAT IS THIS?

And here was are --- oh this is going to be good. We dump our luggage and depart for our tour - hungry and tired and excited.