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Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on May 13, 2017 14:35:37 GMT
We flew from Houston to Istanbul, stayed there a few days, then to France for two weeks in the Dordogne region, then back to Istanbul for several more days. The main reason for the odd routing through Istanbul was that Turkish Airlines has a direct flight to Istanbul with connections all over Europe at a round trip ticket price that was about 70% of other airlines. The savings in airfare pretty much paid for the Istanbul portion of the trip. It is a twelve hour flight from Houston to Istanbul so decompressing in Istanbul before continuing on to France seemed a good thing to do.
Istanbul is huge with its 20 million population. It seemed like everyone lives in apartments rather than single homes. The apartment buildings all seemed to be about seven stories tall. They didn't build just one apartment building like that. They'd build ten or fifteen of them, all identical, and all of them close together. This seemed true not only in the center but also in the outskirts. This has led to very high population densities, crowded public transportation, and monumental traffic jams.
History is everywhere in Istanbul. It is like London, Paris, and Rome in that regard. One of the world's greatest cities for history buffs. People watching was my favorite thing in Istanbul. Tourists and business people come there in large numbers from eastern and western Europe, Russia and nearby Asian countries, Arab and African countries. You see a rich mix of dress and costumes wherever you go. The contrast between young women dressed in full burkas, all black, with only eye slits showing, and young British female tourists in leggings and halter tops is striking. Food is really good in Istanbul, much to my surprise. Those people have got ground meat figured out. They know how to blend beef and lamb with Turkish spices like Urfa and Aleppo peppers to come up with some great flavored kebabs. Yummy.
The Dordogne is our favorite part of France. It is where England and France fought the 100 Years War so the area is loaded with bastides and fortified castles. It has some of the most charming villages in all of France. It is a culinary center known for Foie Gras, Truffles, Walnuts, etc. It sports a concentration of caves with prehistoric paintings going back 20000 years. Limoges is near by and famous for beautiful porcelain and tableware. That part of France is so clean and well maintained that it reminds me of Switzerland. You just don't see trash or run down buildings. I only saw one Muslim in our two weeks there. So much for reports that France is overrun by migrants. I think that is only true in big cities where there are ethnic neighborhoods.
Food always seems to top the list of memories when you visit France. Those boys do no how to rustle up some amazing grub.
If you're ever in that part of France the Lascaux IV museum is not to be missed. Of all the world's many prehistoric caves with paintings, the one at Lascaux tops them all in both quality and quantity. The problem is they had to close it off because the paintings were being damaged by so many visitors. So what they've done is to create an exact replica in a museum that is accurate to 1 centimeter with paintings that are identically replicated in terms of dimensions, color, brightness, clarity, etc. This museum just opened in December 2016 and it takes great advantage of modern technology. If you're an English speaker they give you a tablet to hang around your neck that talks to you as you take the tour. It is one of the best museum tours ever. I didn't realize that 20,000 years ago, when they folks were making those paintings, the last ice age was just coming to an end. The climate in France was more like that of Alaska today. Prehistoric people were clustered in the Vezere river valley perhaps for climatic reasons. It had to be a pretty tough life for them with no houses, cars, iPhones, planes, grocery stores, plumbing, electricity, or any of the other necessities that we take for granted today.
The porcelain museum in Limoges was another special treat. It is also very modern and loaded with technology. They have a remarkable collection of Limoges porcelain pieces that are beautifully displayed. In the year 1900, there were 20,000 workers employed in Limoges producing porcelain products. Those products are now antiques that we search for and collect.
The lovely towns of Sarlat, Perigueux, Brantome, Rocamadour, are not to be missed. Saturday market day in Sarlat is really special. The fortified bastide town of Domme is very nice. The chateaus or castles of Hauteford, Beynac, Castlenaud are on par with the best of the Loire Valley.
The Dordogne area is especially lovely in the spring time. Just driving the back roads was a delight.
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Post by blc on May 18, 2017 8:34:13 GMT
Sounds like a wonderful time. I like history and Istanbul sounds fantastic.
It always amazes me how they built those fortified castles in the mountains. The cathedrals too are works of art.
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Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on May 18, 2017 13:25:50 GMT
Sounds like a wonderful time. I like history and Istanbul sounds fantastic. It always amazes me how they built those fortified castles in the mountains. The cathedrals too are works of art. Yes Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is especially impressive considering the fact that it was originally constructed in about 400AD as the main Christian church of the Byzantine Empire. It was converted to a Mosque about 1400AD when the Ottoman Muslims conquered Constantinople and changed the name to Istanbul. Amazing that the Greek architect was able to design such a huge building so long ago. As I stood under the huge dome inside Hagia Sophia, the thought crossed my mind that it was built more than 1300 years before the United States was founded as a country. Texas, where I live, wouldn't even be discovered by Europeans for 1000 years. Pretty amazing.
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Post by blc on May 18, 2017 16:42:45 GMT
Sounds like a wonderful time. I like history and Istanbul sounds fantastic. It always amazes me how they built those fortified castles in the mountains. The cathedrals too are works of art. Yes Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is especially impressive considering the fact that it was originally constructed in about 400AD as the main Christian church of the Byzantine Empire. It was converted to a Mosque about 1400AD when the Ottoman Muslims conquered Constantinople and changed the name to Istanbul. Amazing that the Greek architect was able to design such a huge building so long ago. As I stood under the huge dome inside Hagia Sophia, the thought crossed my mind that it was built more than 1300 years before the United States was founded as a country. Texas, where I live, wouldn't even be discovered by Europeans for 1000 years. Pretty amazing. Some more info. I thought it looked like it may have been added to. The original church on the site of the Hagia Sophia is said to have been built by Constantine I in 325 on the foundations of a pagan temple. It was damaged in 404 by a fire that erupted during a riot following the second banishment of St. John Chrysostom, then patriarch of Constantinople. It was rebuilt and enlarged by the Roman emperor Constans I. The restored building was rededicated in 415 by Theodosius II. The church was burned again in the Nika insurrection of January 532, a circumstance that gave Justinian I an opportunity to envision a splendid replacement.
The structure now standing is essentially the 6th-century edifice, although an earthquake caused a partial collapse of the dome in 558 (restored 562) and there were two further partial collapses, after which it was rebuilt to a smaller scale and the whole church reinforced from the outside. It was restored again in the mid-14th century. For more than a millennium it was the Cathedral of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. It was looted in 1204 by the Venetians and the Crusaders on the Fourth Crusade. After the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II had it repurposed as a mosque, with the addition of minarets (on the exterior, towers used for the summons to prayer), a great chandelier, a mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca), a minbar (pulpit), and disks bearing Islamic calligraphy. Kemal Atatürk secularized the building in 1934, and in 1935 it was made into a museum. Art historians consider the building’s beautiful mosaics to be the main source of knowledge about the state of mosaic art in the time shortly after the end of the Iconoclastic Controversy in the 8th and 9th centuries. www.britannica.com/topic/Hagia-SophiaStill pretty amazing stonework. I wish there pictures of the original as well as each addition and restoration. They built massive cathedrals back then. Notre Dame de Paris is another huge Cathedral. When I was there in 1974 it had two large pipe organs. Spectacular. The cathedral of Chartres is awesome as well. The beautiful sculpting and stained glass.
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Post by DAS (formerly BushAdmirer) on May 19, 2017 0:04:33 GMT
Yes Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is especially impressive considering the fact that it was originally constructed in about 400AD as the main Christian church of the Byzantine Empire. It was converted to a Mosque about 1400AD when the Ottoman Muslims conquered Constantinople and changed the name to Istanbul. Amazing that the Greek architect was able to design such a huge building so long ago. As I stood under the huge dome inside Hagia Sophia, the thought crossed my mind that it was built more than 1300 years before the United States was founded as a country. Texas, where I live, wouldn't even be discovered by Europeans for 1000 years. Pretty amazing. Some more info. I thought it looked like it may have been added to. The original church on the site of the Hagia Sophia is said to have been built by Constantine I in 325 on the foundations of a pagan temple. It was damaged in 404 by a fire that erupted during a riot following the second banishment of St. John Chrysostom, then patriarch of Constantinople. It was rebuilt and enlarged by the Roman emperor Constans I. The restored building was rededicated in 415 by Theodosius II. The church was burned again in the Nika insurrection of January 532, a circumstance that gave Justinian I an opportunity to envision a splendid replacement.
The structure now standing is essentially the 6th-century edifice, although an earthquake caused a partial collapse of the dome in 558 (restored 562) and there were two further partial collapses, after which it was rebuilt to a smaller scale and the whole church reinforced from the outside. It was restored again in the mid-14th century. For more than a millennium it was the Cathedral of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. It was looted in 1204 by the Venetians and the Crusaders on the Fourth Crusade. After the Turkish conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Mehmed II had it repurposed as a mosque, with the addition of minarets (on the exterior, towers used for the summons to prayer), a great chandelier, a mihrab (niche indicating the direction of Mecca), a minbar (pulpit), and disks bearing Islamic calligraphy. Kemal Atatürk secularized the building in 1934, and in 1935 it was made into a museum. Art historians consider the building’s beautiful mosaics to be the main source of knowledge about the state of mosaic art in the time shortly after the end of the Iconoclastic Controversy in the 8th and 9th centuries. www.britannica.com/topic/Hagia-SophiaStill pretty amazing stonework. I wish there pictures of the original as well as each addition and restoration. They built massive cathedrals back then. Notre Dame de Paris is another huge Cathedral. When I was there in 1974 it had two large pipe organs. Spectacular. The cathedral of Chartres is awesome as well. The beautiful sculpting and stained glass. Yes, Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is another amazing old building. I think it was built in the 13th century or about 900 years after Hagia Sofia. Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 when he discovered the Americas. So much happened in Europe and the middle east before that. There was a whole lot of civilization before America was even discovered. History is such a very interesting subject. Travel to historic places like the Tower of London, Istanbul, Paris, and Rome is what turned me on to history. Just reading about it in high school didn't get my juices flowing but being there, seeing the buildings, putting it into focus really did the trick. Touring Dachau years ago brought the Nazis into focus.
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2017 18:09:21 GMT
I stopped over in Istanbul can't remember much about it save it had some good bars 🍸
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