Turkey Day 8: Cappadocia and Nicaea

Turkey in 10 Days
1. General Remarks
2. What to Bring
3. Day 1: Traveling There
4. Day 2: Troy
5. Day 3: Pergamum, Thyatira, Philadelphia, Sardis, Smyrna 
6. Day 4: Ephesus and Laodicea
7. Day 5: Colossae and Perga
8. Day 6: Galatia: Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra
9. Day 7: Derbe and Tarsus

10. Day 8: Cappadocia and Nicaea
Thursday was mostly a travel day.  Having gone as far east in Turkey as we would go, we would spend most of Thursday on a bee-line toward Istanbul that went straight through the capital of Ankara.  It was also the closest we would come to ground zero of ancient Hittite country (Hattusa, now Boğazkale).  The Hittites were at their peak around the time of Abraham (see Genesis 23).

Cappadocia
Cappadocia is mentioned in 1 Peter 1:1 as one of its destinations, including several other places we had already visited (Asia, Galatia).  But for Christians, probably the most significant aspect of the region is the fact that the Cappadocian fathers were centered here: Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa his brother, and Gregory of Nazianzus.

Cappadocian cave houses

Everyone assumes that we get the Trinity from the Bible, but I don't think Christians realize how much of what we believe about Jesus was a matter of serious debate in the 300s.  Both sides claimed to have Scripture on their side and there were a number of decades where the Trinity as we know it wasn't winning.

The Cappadocians went philosophical because biblical debates had reached a stalemate. The Cappadocians were the ones that worked out the "one substance, three persons" that would become part of the Nicene Creed at the Council of Constantinople in 381. (By engaging philosophy and the Greek liberal arts, they also helped Christianity become a premier religion :-)

After breakfast on Thursday, we made our way to Göreme, which is super-easy to find from Nevshehir.  Just east of town is where Christians carved monasteries and churches out of the relatively soft rock that once upon a time had been formed by lava.  Earlier volcano activity had left "fairy chimneys" all over the place.  This is the general area where Star Wars filmed Tatooine.

Cappadocia

Here, not only in times of persecution but for centuries, Christians had monasteries and churches inside the fairy chimneys.  It's 15 lira to get into the "open air museum."

Cappadocian monastery

The 11th century art in the churches in these "chimneys" was exquisite, especially in the "Dark Church."    This cave church is an extra 8 lira but definitely worth it--the best part of the entire site for me.  For the record, I didn't take this photo:

Dark Church at Cappadocia

We had pretty much finished walking around the main site before the bulk of the tour buses arrived. We didn't go to  the "Buckle Church," about 50 meters down the hill (the ticket to the open air museum gets you in there also).  We heard it was fabulous.

Travel
To get back toward Istanbul, we decided first to take 300 west to Aksaray (about 70 kilometers) in order to get on the larger highway 750.  If you've paid attention to the road numbers, both of these are familiar.  300 goes all the way to Izmir near Ephesus.  750 goes south down to Tarsus.

But our goal was to take 750 north through Ankara, which soon joins up with the superhighway 0-4.  0-4 goes all the way to Istanbul, but our sights were set on Nicaea.  It's about 540 kilometers from Aksaray to the environs of a town called Sakarya.  It's near this city, only about 150 kilometers shy of Istanbul itself, that you finally turn south on 650.  Take that about 50 kilometers until you can turn west onto 150 around Mekece.  That will take you to Iznik, which is modern day Nicaea.

Nicaea
After that much travel, it's nice to settle into a hotel.  There is a string of hotels along Lake Iznik.  You can get to the lake easily simply by following the ruins of the medieval city wall, which you will hit eventually if you just keep driving through town from any direction.  650 itself actually goes straight to the lake.

Lake Iznik at Nicaea

Ross was now an expert at negotiating hotel rates, and we could have had our pick of a half dozen.  He got one of the best down to 120 lira a room.  Its proprietor was also a pro--a worthy adversary.

A central road led from the lake to the main road through Iznik, a road that runs roughly parallel to the lake shore.  We decided to walk there for a change.  We found the mosque created out of the church that housed the seventh ecumenical council of 787, where Christians decided it was okay to use icons, images and art of saints.

Nicaean church now mosque

It doesn't seem like we know exactly where the Council of Nicaea was originally held, where the Trinity was first decided (325).  But I wouldn't be surprised if a later church was built on a significant earlier site.

Some more lovely baklava and we walked back to our hotel. In the morning we would return to Istanbul.

Turkey Day 7: Derbe and Tarsus

Turkey in 10 Days
1. General Remarks
2. What to Bring
3. Day 1: Traveling There
4. Day 2: Troy
5. Day 3: Pergamum, Thyatira, Philadelphia, Sardis, Smyrna 
6. Day 4: Ephesus and Laodicea
7. Day 5: Colossae and Perga
8. Day 6: Galatia: Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra

9. Day 7: Derbe and Tarsus
Wednesday morning came.  The 4am call to prayer was striking to me, seemed very minor chord-ish.  I thought I'd take a picture of the breakfast spread:

Standard Turkish hotel breakfast

Here's our standard fare:

Breakfast plate

So after breakfast, we left the Bayrakci Hotel to find Derbe.  Karaman isn't too big.  From where we were, it was a quick left turn and a couple blocks back to 350 headed east.

Derbe
After years of Derbe being unmarked and books saying its location was uncertain, it was super easy to find.  About 10 kilometers east of Karaman there are signs pointing north (left turn).  Actually there are a couple ways to do it.  We caught a sign facing the other direction and felt ourselves clever to find it that way. But I suspect there was another sign facing our direction just a little further that would have been more of a straight shot (that's how we came back out).

Basically, you're looking for the village of Suduraği.  It's north of it.  The tel is about 3 kilometers north of Ekinözü (latitude N37° 20.741; longitude E033° 21.709).  All in all it's about 95 kilometers southeast of the Lystra tel.

Derbe tel

There is the odd stone here and there.  Keith and Ross didn't go up to the top because we got into some serious stickers at Lystra and they didn't want a repeat.  In fact, with a bit of flair, Memesh had thrown his socks into the fire over which the tea water was boiling at Lystra, to the consternation of his wife.

Ross' shoes after Lystra

Here's looking down at Keith and Ross from the top of the mound.

Derbe looking down

Derbe peeking through

It's hard to imagine but this entire area, now farm as far as the eye can see, was once perhaps a square kilometer of marble and stone city.

Tarsus
After Derbe we were back to 350 headed east.  It's about 250 kilometers to Tarsus so it was largely a day of driving just to say we had been to Paul's birthplace.  If we had wanted, we could have gone from there another 200 kilometers to where Syrian Antioch was at the time of Paul.  It is actually in Turkey today, not modern Syria. We forewent that trip mostly because of the violence in nearby Syria, but it would have been 4 extra hours of driving too to see very little.  I hope to get there one day.

It probably wouldn't be worth taking a tour bus of people to Tarsus just to say you went.  In fact, if a group wasn't interested in the whirling dervishes of Konya, you could stop a Paul tour at the site at Pisidian Antioch in Yalvach.  From Yalvach on it increasingly becomes a lot of driving with little pay off unless you like mounds in the middle of the countryside.

Cappadocia, where our Wednesday ended, would be of interest to a lot of people.  It would be on the "Disneyland" version of the tour.  But as you'll see tomorrow, getting there left us with a whole day that was pretty much just driving to get back to Istanbul.

To get to Tarsus from Derbe, continue heading east on 350 till you get to Ereğli and join 330.  Continue east until you hit 750 south.  Now you have a choice.  Is it enough just to see the Taurus Mountains in the distance?

Taurus Mountains

By the way, you will find yourself on a marvelous new highway that has replaced the earlier road.  I'm not sure if it actually goes through the Cilician Gates Paul would have gone through.

Cilician Gates (not seen)

I think you'll have to get off the highway onto the older 750 to go through Gulek to go through them.  I think I spotted them off to the right of the highway going south, but wasn't fast enough with the cell phone to snap a picture.

So we went on down to Tarsus.  If I had been by myself I would have tried to see some of the old city, but on Day 7 we were happy just to see what was what was left of the Cyndus River of Paul's day.

Cyndus River

We followed Adana Road to a modern mall (with the security needed against anti-secularists in Turkey) and had a very nice lunch.

If we had wanted to see ruins and the old city, we would have taken the highway south a smidge farther till it hit 400 going west (right direction).  The ruins, including Cleopatra's Gate (which probably has nothing to do with Cleopatra), are on the southwest side of town, I think just south of where 400 comes into town.

Tarsus ruins (not seen)

To Cappadocia
So a Doner Kebab and a trip to the restroom involving a hallway of body twisting mirrors, we were back heading north toward Cappadocia on 750.  I'll save the pictures of Cappadocia for tomorrow.  It was 240 kilometers north to Aksaray, then 300 east another 75 kilometers to Nevshehir.

Our hotel was in a great location.

Hotel Nisa in Cappadocia

There was an inner room with a double bed and an outer room of glass with bunk beds and a nice place to sit, read, and look out on the world.  There was a wonderful baklava shop with a very friendly owner just one street behind.  We got there in good time and were able to relax for the evening, even go for a walkabout.