By Isabel Eva Bohrer

Geographically speaking, Turkey lies on the frontier of Asia and Europe. This location has influenced Turkey on many planes – culturally, historically, politically, economically, socially. The food, too, has seen influences of both worlds. Here are some of the Turkish delights you should try on your next visit (yes, pun intended).

Yaprak Sarma

Yaprak Sarma consist of wrapped vine leaves with a filling of rice, onion and spices like mint, currant, pepper and cinnamon. Usually served as an appetizer and ideal for vegetarians.

Lahmacun

This dish resembles pizza; it is flaky thin dough topped with finely minced meat and onions. Over time, it has become a popular fast food dish in Turkey, and many people roll it (to eat it like tacos).

Kebaps

Kepabs have become popular worldwide. For those who haven’t heard of them yet, kebaps consist of meat, coated around a skewer and grilled over a charcoal fire. The most typical version is made with lamb or beef, but nowadays you can also choose chicken.

Döner

Another popular dish that has been exported to many other countries. Döners consist of beaten pieces of meat, skewered on a spit and grilled vertically. Local herbs and spices are also added.

Köfte

Köfte are also known as meatballs, even though they come in all kinds of shapes. Basically, they are ground meat that is mixed with crumbled bread, minced onions and spices.

Manti

In the Western world, these would be called dumplings. The dish essentially has two parts: the dough and the filling. Usually, the latter includes ground beef or lamb, onion, salt and pepper.

Cacik

Cacik are best served in summer with some ice cubes. This way, the dish, which consists of a mixture of grinded or shredded cucumbers with diluted yogurt, garlic and mint, becomes even more refreshing.

Pilav

There are numerous ways of preparing pilav, but the easiest is probably sade pilav. This consists of plain rice, cooked in water with butter/vegetable oil and noodle-like small pasta pieces. Eggplant, chickpeas, meat or liver slices may also be added, as may spices like cinnamon, pepper, thyme, cumin and even almonds.

Baklava

Baklava is a dessert originating in the Middle East made of phyllo pastry filled with chopped nuts and soaked in honey.

Turkish delights

Turkish delights by Sebastian Piedoux

Turkish delights are jellied candies typically flavored with rose water. If you are in Istanbul, head to the Spice Market to try different variations.

Afiyet Olsun!

Isabel Eva Bohrer is a freelance writer, editor, photographer, and translator currently based in Madrid, Spain. She has lived, studied, worked, and volunteered in over twenty countries on five different continents. Equally enthralled by the close-by as the distant, she aspires to share her adventures and advice through eloquent writing alongside eye-catching images. Visit her website at www.isabelevabohrer.com

The old harbor of Girne, Northern Cyprus

By Stephen Bugno

The Karpas Peninsula

Jutting out to the northeast of Cyprus is the wild and wonderful Karpas Peninsula. This is the most remote part of the island where few tourists make the effort to reach. Public transportation is non-existent in these parts, so bring your own wheels or hitch a ride. It’s worth it if you enjoy peace and quiet and the chance to see the wild, indigenous  donkeys, which are the symbol of Cyprus. All the way at the end of the peninsula is Apostolos Andreas Monastery.

Many aim to reach as far as Golden Beach, just shy of the monastery, which may be the best beach on the island. Its white sands and clear waters can be enjoyed in an environment free from development, except for the wooden bungalows where you can spend the night. It’s also known for being a turtle nesting area.

Girne (Kyrenia)

Girne is a picturesque port on the northern coast of the island. Once a Venetian harbor town, Girne is backed by the steep wooded hills of the Beşparmak Mountains. Even though it’s the most popular tourist destination in the north, you shouldn’t be conjuring up images of all inclusive holidays to Ayia Napa. Girne is different.

True, it gets it share of foreign holiday makers, but it still retains its old world charms: cobble streets, an old harbor, and the massive Kyrenia Castle. Located next to the harbor, it is thought to have been built by the Byzantines in the 7th century. Inside is the incredibly preserved wreck of a wooden merchant ship dated to 306 BC, which was found in 1965 off the coast. The cargo of 400 clay jugs filled with olives and almonds was found inside still intact.

The best day trips from Girne are to Bellapais, known for its ancient monastery of picturesque ruins with Gothic arches and stone walls, and to St. Hilarion, the best-preserved castle on the island, which is located halfway between Girne and Lefkoşa.

Gazimağusa (Famagusta)

The old city is surrounded by one of the best preserved Venetian fortifications in the eastern Mediterranean. (Leonardo da Vinci is thought to have been involved in the design.) There are plenty of medieval/renaissance buildings that can be visited in Gazimağusa, unfortunately most of them were severely damaged during the Turkish siege of the city in 1571.

At the top of your list should be the Cathedral of St. Nicholas, which was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest and re-named Lala Mustafa Paşa Mosque, the Land Gate with its drawbridge, the Martinengo Bastion, and a walk around Othello’s Tower.

If you are taking the ferry from Mersin, Gazimağusa is where you will arrive. (Alternatively, seasonal ferry runs a shorter route from Taşucu, Turkey to Girne.)

The best day trips from Gazimağusa are to the many fine beaches along the coast to the north, around Gazimağusa Bay, or to the ancient Greek city of Salamis. Today much of the site lies in ruins, but it is, nevertheless, one of the most impressive monuments to be found on the island. Don’t miss the spectacular gymnasium and theater and what remains of the mosaics.

About Northern Cyprus

The first thing you might notice when researching travel to Cyprus is that almost everyplace has two names: one in Turkish and another in Greek. The recent history of Cyprus has been a complicated one and even bloody at times.

The island is shared by Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots, and even though both sides agreed to a constitution in 1960, they were never practically able to live together. Following a civil war in the mid-1970’s the country divided, but Turkey is alone in recognizing Northern Cyprus as an independent state. Northern Cyprus has only about a quarter of the islands total population living on one-third of the total land area. Cyprus is the third largest island in the Mediterranean after Sicily and Sardinia.

Stephen Bugno visited Northern Cyprus during part of an overland trip from Istanbul to Cairo. He edits the GoMad Nomad Travel Mag and blogs at Bohemian Traveler.

After a vomit-inducing hydrofoil ride from North Cyprus, we docked at Alanya, Turkey—a big city filled with Scandinavian and Russian package tourists. From there we went an hour west to the little town of Side, which was even more densely packed with European package vacationers. From there we moved on to the Lycian coast to the anti-Side resort: Olympos.

We found this ghetto of independent travelers to be as equally annoying as places like Side. However, the great beach in an incredibly beautiful setting made up for the lack of Turkishness, expense, and loud, drunken nineteen year-olds crawling in and out of every treehouse hostel.

Turned off by the whole Olympos scene, we walked 3km north on the beach to the quiet village of Çıralı where we camped alongside Turkish families and enjoyed two days in the sun and sea.

Text and photo by Stephen Bugno

By Stephen Bugno

Traveling through Eastern Turkey, you’ll lose the tourists, see incredible sights and landscapes, and rub shoulders with marginalized Kurdish population. If you’re tired of the crowds at Ephesus, Olympos, and Sultanahmet, hop on a long-distance bus to the opposite end of the country.

Ishak Pasha Palace above Dogubayazit

After traveling through Armenia for two weeks, a friend and I had to return to Georgia before re-entering Turkey. The Armenians and Turks are still sorting through their differences and the border crossing remains closed.

A month earlier, while transferring buses in Istanbul on the way to Georgia, we had briefly seen the infrastructure development enough to realize that western Turkey and eastern Turkey are different beasts. The shabby, rural roads here couldn’t compare to the sleek new highways zipping in and around Turkey’s largest city. Local folks in the east are much more traditional and conservative; the cities are dirtier and more chaotic, the street kids more aggressive.

After harassing my Russian passport-carrying friend for 20 minutes, the Georgian officials finally let us through to the Turkish side of the border, realizing they weren’t going to get a bribe from a 22-year-old student. We were fortunate not to have had other, more severe, conflicts with authorities based on this prejudice prior to now. The Russians aren’t very well liked in Georgia.

The remoteness of this border crossing makes me wonder if we’re the first non-Georgian/non-Turks to use this route. Just then, across the barrier, driving in the opposite direction, an all-wheel drive Subaru plastered with sponsorship stickers and Saskatchewan license plates passes through as our heads turn in astonishment.

The Turks welcome us with a passport stamp and immediately we’re on the side of a two-lane country road waiting for any passing car. There is no bus service, no cars are coming and there is no town here; just a border post. So we walk a couple miles down the road to a little café and drink a cold soda before a guy pulls over and offers us a ride few miles into Posof, the nearest town. There we pitch our tent in a field on the edge of town and decide the next day’s plans.

Ani

The ruined medieval Armenian capital of Ani

The next morning a bus takes us to Kars, which we use as a base to visit Ani. Although today they lie across the river in Turkey, these are the ruins of the medieval capital of Armenia. It is hard to believe that this complex of crumbling structures, in the midst of hay fields, once rivaled noble Constantinople and Baghdad. We wander around the remains trying to piece together in our minds the grandeur it once held.

The fact that it’s situated in Turkey today infuriates the Armenians. Spend any amount of time in little, modern Armenia and any person will quickly preach about how enormous a territory they once held, “…from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea” using both hands to show.

In fact, many of the cities in eastern Turkey (Kars, Bitlis, just to name a couple) had a sizeable Armenian population until the genocide of 1915, which is the cause of much of the animosity between the Armenians and Turks to the present day. As further evidence, Armenian churches are scattered throughout eastern Turkey.

Dogubeyazit

This beautiful and remote landscape of eastern Turkey is peppered with politics. Our bus passes a few military bases as we wind our way from Kars, south to Dogubeyazit. The population here includes more Kurds and due to its borders with Armenia, Iraq, and Syria, the bureaucrats back in Ankara feel they can’t be too cautious. It’s strange to see bases in the downtown areas of cities, as they are set up here in eastern Turkey.

Nearing Dogubeyazit it’s impossible to ignore the imposing beauty of Mt. Ararat from the dolmush window and the biblical history associated with the mountain. Many travelers come here enroute to the Iranian border crossing at Gurbulak or to climb Mt. Ararat. We came merely to see Ararat from the opposite side and to visit Ishak Pasha Saray.

Ishak Pasha Saray is the half-ruined, 17th century palace set on a high plateau overlooking Dogubeyazit. Building began in 1785 to control Silk Road traffic. Originally with 366 rooms, at one point even the Russians occupied it and the original doors are now in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It employs architectural styles from almost every period of Turkish history.

Walking the 6 km-long road up to the Ishak Pasha Saray, a car pulls over close to us and stops. “Do you want a ride up to the campsite? Camping is one dollar per person,” a man tells us from inside the car. He’s got a long mustache over his mouth and speaks decent English. We knew we couldn’t beat that price, so we get in.

The man is Parashut: a bit of a legend in these parts. At his campground/guesthouse just above the palace halfway up the mountain he sits down with us, slices a melon, and pours raki shots while telling us about his drive overland to Central Asia and Siberia and about his work. It turns out he’s being so hospitable with us because my friend is Russian and he feels so indebted to the generous Russians he met in Siberia. He also tells us about the documentary he made and the book he wrote about Noah’s Ark, all while pursuing his real passion: mountaineering. He has reached the summit of Mt. Ararat 165 times

Nemrut Dagi

A view inside the crator of the extinct volcano Nemrut Dagi

From Dogubeyazit we skirt along the shore of the massive Lake Van to Tatvan on the eastern shore. Almost by accident we hook up with Mehmet, a long-winded Kurd who trucks visitors up to Nemrut Dagi. Although it has the same name as the popular mountain with the head statues, it is a different place. This Nemrut Dagi is an extinct volcano rising to 3050 meters. After bargaining Mehmet down to a reasonable price, I’m in the front seat of his dusty van, riding out of Tatvan, on to an unpaved road, and over the crest and into the crater. He points to his small Kurdish village in the near distance and invites us for “free camping” at his homestead for the following night.

The crater, 7km in diameter, contains a cold lake and a smaller warm lake. The water of the cold lake is so crystal clear that I see my feet as I’m treading water. We swim in the warm lake as well, lie in the sun for a few hours and pitch our tent in a field of high grass.

In the morning, Mehmet drives the group back into Tatvan and we choose to hike our way out of the crater, first climbing up the steep rim, and then gradually down the grassy slope into his village.  We find his home and met his extended family, who constantly filters in and out of the house. Just after dark, we’re sitting on carpets at the table eating supper. Soon Mehmet arrives home and shows us the little extension he is building to someday have a guesthouse. His grandchildren take us around to see all their animals. The next morning we’re back on the road early, hitching a ride with Mehmet back into Tatvan.

Diyarbakir

men outside the city walls in Diyarbakir

We arrive in Diyarbakir, on one of Turkey’s, clean, efficient, and timely privatized buses. We have come to walk on the city’s massive walls of black basalt; to peer inside to the maze of cobbled streets, beautiful mosques, imposing hans, stately mansions, and intriguing churches. Outside the walls we see the Tigris River’s flow. The streets here are busy in this city of two million and we try our hardest to lose the street kids that aggressively follow us through the narrow twists and turns of the old city streets.

As usual we head to an inexpensive cafeteria-style eatery for some good food and follow that up with some tea. Despite the fame of Turkish coffee, nearly every Turk drinks tea from a tulip-shaped glass sweetened with plenty of sugar.

Passing in and out of the old city we find each of the four main gateways of the six-kilometer city wall and glance up at the 72 defensive towers. The new city is busy too, with plenty of foot and car traffic in and around the multi-storied apartment buildings. This is a predominantly Kurdish city and a place of discontent that Ankara keeps a close eye on.

After a couple days in Diyarbakir, we continue our journey east to the pilgrimage city of Urfa and then join the masses of tourists on the sunny Turquoise coast a week later.

Stephen Bugno spent four weeks exploring Turkey as part of an overland trip from Istanbul to Cairo. His articles and essays have appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Transitions Abroad. He blogs at Bohemian Traveler.