Ankara covered in snow

Oh, yes - this is the view from my living-room this week. Approx 70 cm of snow have fallen, but none is cleared off the streets... Temperatures are falling, too.

Ankara moonlight

This week we have loooots of snow in Ankara - I'll show you that soon to. This is summer moonlight, from the archives.

Deir el-Zafaran

The Syriani monastery outside Mardin is a truly magical (and historical!) place. I went there in October. I've been hoping to go back and believe I may be able to during the coming months.

My husband...

... also has a weblog. I promised a long time ago to give the link to you... Do check it out - it's interesting! But he writes about much more serious things than I do! ;-)

Lipstick!

We've also been very busy recently dealing with all the pictures from our wedding and wedding trip. Maybe I should show you some more from our trip through Egypt also. But this is one of the funniest from our wedding day. It's me and my sister, who had done my make-up, busy wiping lipstick (but not my own!) off my face.

More Istanbul

And this is a view over the Bosphorus from the Topkapi Sarayi - also taken last year.
But don't worry, there are more trips to come during the spring here and lots of older pictures to see too! So do keep checking back here once in a while!

Back in Turkey

I haven't taken any pictures at all since coming back from Aleppo, actually, which is more than 2 weeks ago! So, I'll start digging in the backlog again - not least to keep you coming back for more! ;-) This is the Ortaköy mosque in Istanbul, seen from the Bosphorus. Remember I had another picture of it, taken from the land-side, a few weeks ago? This is summertime though and LOVELY June weather. Now there is snow on the ground and the temperature is around zero Celsius...

Aleppo international bus station

Oh yes, this parking lot was the international bus station in Aleppo! The bus ticket office next to "ours" also had buses to Mosul and Baghdad (it wasn't difficult to refrain from that destination!). And almost all the ticket offices offered tickets to everywhere between Sofia in Bulgaria to Amman in Jordan and numerous destinations (Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam) in Saudi-Arabia. Our ticket, from TransAsia Travel, you could find below!

Historic psychiatric ward

Well, this was Aleppos mental hospital, where sunlight, the sound of running water and soft music playing were important ingredients in the treatment of patients. It was active into the 20th century, but no longer.

If I start digging deep into my photo backlog one day, I could show you pictures of an early university hospital in Anatolian Kayseri (Seldjuk-era). Save it for a rainy day!

Aleppo Citadel

In the dusk, this time.

French era-style building

Stone-vaulted alleys

Ottoman balconies

From El-Jdeida - the Ottoman-style and more Christian quarter of Aleppo.

Even more citadel

Citadel again

Some more views of the Aleppo citadel.

Inside the Aleppo souq

These tiny doors (set low down in the BIG ones that were only opened for the camel caravans) were intended for the traders entering and exiting from the khans. More like a cat-flap, huh? ;-)

You can also see the bricked inside ceiling of the souq.

Typical? Old and new, and all squished together!

A stretch of old Aleppo city wall with a Arabic inscription on - complete with housing leaning on it and satellite dishes!

And one of Aleppos oldest mosques, built inside a Roman triumphal arch (can you see the arch?) - situated just inside the Bab Antakya (Antioch Gate) where the Arab conquerors first entered the city walls.

A classic Middle East hotel...

...the Baron in Aleppo! Not at all as dusty as has been said - a very nice surprise, I must say! Very helpful and friendly staff, too.

We stayed at the Cecil in Alexandria for our wedding earlier this year, too (no pics though, unfortunately). Guess we should try the Pera Palas in Istanbul too and complete the classics circus - but that is supposed to more than live up to it's dusty reputation, so I don't know...

Silk Road trading houses

Old Aleppo is full of old khans and caravan sarays from the days when Aleppo was the last port of call on the Silk Road, where the trading route met Mediterranean merchants. They are still there and in function, often as wholesale warehouses specialising in certain goods. The merchants elect an experienced and respected man among them to mediate in their trade disputes. Here are interiors from two of the larger ones, the Khan el-Jumruk and the Khan el-Wazir (the khans of the customs and of the minister).

Architecturally, these are typical examples of sarays, with courtyards (often a mosque in the middle) and stables and warehouses in the surrounding building. Then, upstairs, more warehouses, behind a pretty row of vaults and arches.

Often, a khan or saray was part of a foundation including also a mosque and some charitable or educational institutions (hospital, soup kitchen, school, library or similar functions) where the proceeds from the trade financed the other activities.

Waiting for the bus!

Here we are again. In the Antakya bus-station, this time, drinking tea, reading papers, writing postcards and waiting for the bus to Aleppo.

Salah ed-Din's citadel

I think we've seen enough of Antakya at the moment and can continue to Aleppo. This is the Aleppo citadel, towering over the old city. There is no water in the moat any more, but imagine how unprotected any invader force trying to get over that bridge would be!

Urban oasis

The yard of the mosque in Antakya was this beautiful on New Year's Eve.

Preaching in a cave

This is supposed to be the cave where St Peter preached. The wall is Crusader-era. Antakya (Antioch) is where the first Christians of non-Jewish background where accepted to the fledgling community and where the word Christian was first used for it's members and followers. It is also where Monty Python's Holy hand-grenade originated! Remember ? ;-)

The Evile Eye!?!

See how the little figures to the right are all attacking the evil eye? An odd but powerful image, isn't it? Still in Turkey, everywhere (by shopkeepers for instance) you are given little symbols to protect you against the evil eye. But the belief in it apparently goes waaaaay back!

Antakya mosaics

As I mentioned, the mosaics in the Antakya museum are reputed to be the finest Roman/Byzantine mosiacs in Turkey.

Me again...

One last picture tonight - me as I appeared in the 'Umayyad mosque in Aleppo (not as fine as the Damascus one, though).

Donkeys!

Before getting into details of our trip I'll just show you some cute donkeys we met in Aleppo!

IRL travelling

Yeah, there is still such a thing! We have spent the better part of a week going to Adana (which is more of a transport hub) and Antakya in southern Turkey and crossing the border to Aleppo in Syria. We've had a wonderful time - Antakya has remnants of early Christian life outside the Holy Land, with a cave church were St Peter is supposed to have prayed to the first Christians calling themselves so and a museum with the most beautiful Roman/Byzantine mosaics in Turkey (it was once quite an important city in the antique Mediterranean world). Aleppo had a wonderful souq and a nicely impenetrable fortress (!) as well as pretty alleys. I'll show you some highlights over the coming days (but I promise to spare you the evidence of the camel butcher!) but for tonight, I think an orange tree bearing fruit and our bus ticket from Aleppo back to Antakya will do nicely as titbits!

Happy New Year!

Better late than never, here are some suitably lopsided versions of ourselves celebrating the arrival of the New Year - in Antakya, of all places... Best wishes for 2006 to all of you, even if the news so far are less than comforting about the state of affairs in the world, I guess. But we've been through that before, and come what may!

Back online

after a whole week spent in real life. Photos to come, so check out this blog again in a day or so!