4Runner Roadtrip – Turkey Part 3

After leaving the Rain Hotel we had just a short amount of coast and then we were headed inland and north into Eastern Turkey. It was this section of our trip that things took a noticeable turn towards social conservativism. The majority of the women we saw were dressed much more modestly and the price of wine continued to rise the further east we drove. It also became more and more difficult for Shani to find accommodations that would allow Sebastian.

Our first stop on this leg of the journey was Osmaniye. On the route we would need to get our Turkish toll road pass. The other sections of toll road we had been on would take cash or credit but this was a different system? We were a little confused but a Turkish guy we met crossing the border had suggested we get this and put some credit on it as the fines would be multiples of the actual toll. Fortunately right before the start of the toll sections there was a Turkish Post branch selling the pass.

View from the hotel.

There was only one hotel in Osmaniye that would allow Sebastian and even that almost didn’t happen. After check-in they informed us that he was not allowed in the lobby, only in our room! We had to either carry him or hide him in his backpack. There were many disapproving looks from the other patrons.

We didn’t linger in Osmaniye though it seemed like a nice enough town, the hotel was up near a university and they had a Migros grocery store near by, our go to for food and wine. Our next stop was Gaziantep, a very very old city with origins possibly back to the Stone Age.

The road to Karatepe.

On our route to Gaziantep we did a little side adventure up to an archeological site called Karatepe. “The place was an ancient city of Cilicia, which controlled a passage from eastern Anatolia to the north Syrian plain. It became an important Neo-Hittite center after the collapse of the Hittite Empire in the late 12th century BC.” (Wikipedia) Karatepe is home to the Karatepe inscription, an eighth-century BC bilingual inscription in Phoenician and Hieroglyphic Luwian.

After parking at the Karatepe site we were literally mobbed by a visiting school group. They couldn’t believe we had travelled there from California, were excited to practice their English with us and they got an absolute kick out of Sebastian barking his fool head off at them! So many selfies were taken until the teachers finally had to get their tour of the site moving along (not pictured due to the headmaster having privacy concerns for the students).

Karatepe is another open air museum setup and we were free to walk around at our leisure with all of the ancient artifacts just sitting out in the open.

We made a critical error when choosing our lodging in Gaziantep. Parking is one of the criteria for any place we stay and one of the hotel choices was in the old city but with private parking. We knew better but still chose the old city center in the sixth most populous city in Turkey. I think you can see where this is going.

A little close for comfort.

As we got closer and closer to the old part of the city the driving turned to complete anarchy. Cars double parked, busses making new lanes, pedestrians, narrowing roads and bumper to bumper traffic. Fortunately the road became one way and we successfully navigated to our hotel but there was no place to stop or park! I turned up a tiny side street while Shani tried in vain to communicate with the hotel staff. After a lot of back and forth we finally understood where we needed to go which required more navigation down old tiny roads and then back onto the one way loop and finally up a narrow road to some very hidden parking behind closed gates. It was a stressful adventure. 

Our evening in Gaziantep was kind of weird. The old town area was definitely very conservative. Our hotel, Anadolu Residences, is in the heart of old town and we got a brief glimpse of several covered bazaars and the famous copper market. I say brief because they all started closing down as we were strolling along and it wasn’t even 7 pm. Almost all of the food shops were closing down too. Very strange.

The next morning involved some professional driving trickery but I managed to get the 4Runner out of old town and onto the motorway and headed to the holiday town of Halfeti. Halfeti is in a small farming district on the east bank of the river Euphrates. Most of the villages were submerged in the 1990s under the waters behind the dam on the Euphrates and the old town of Halfeti is only partially submerged and is now a local tourist attraction, especially for ferry boat rides. We spent two nice days in Halfeti and Shani even took boat ride with all of the Turkish tourists.

Up next was something we had both been looking forward to; Mt. Nemrut, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. “In 62 BC, King Antiochus I Theos of Commagene built on the mountain top a tomb-sanctuary flanked by huge statues 8–9-metre high (26–30 ft) of himself, two lions, two eagles, and various composite Greek and Iranian gods.” (Wikipedia) The timing of our visit was just about perfect.  We arrived around noon and by the time we made the hike to the top there were only a few people and then we had the whole place to ourselves for a while. It was pretty epic.

Leaving Mt. Nemrut we had a pretty long drive that involved going through the province and city of Diyarbakır, the largest Kurdish-majority city in Turkey. According to the Aussie or UK travel advisory (can’t remember which), this was a city you should not go to under any circumstances!

Oh no, here we go!

Continuing our journey we did a night in Tatvan and then a couple of days in Van. Shoutout to the guys in Tatvan that secured us parking on the street directly across from the hotel!

On our way to  Van we did a side trip out to visit some ruins that were on the road to Iran.   Çavuştepe Kalesi is a 3000 year old ruined castle complex. While there we met 85 year old Mehmet Kuşman, one of the 12 people in the world who can read and write Urartian. (Urartians built the castle between 764 and 735 BC) We also took a drive out to Hoşap Castle which may or may not be open. There wasn’t any parking and so we only got to see it from the road.

On the way out of Van Shani had to stop at the Van Cat center. Sebastian and I were not interested. Once Shani had her feline fix we were off to Doguebyazit and then a visit to Pasha Palace, one of the few examples of surviving historical Turkish palaces.

Construction was started in 1685 and finished in 1784 and is a mixture of Anatolian, Iranian and North Mesopotamian architectural tradition. Doguebyazit also has some pretty amazing views of Mt. Ararat, famed as possibly the resting-place of Noah’s ark.

Upon our return to the hotel after our visit to Pasha Palace what do you suppose we saw parked in the lot? Well it was that damned Austrian rig that had held us all up crossing the border from Greece to Turkey. I was a little surprised to see that he had made it so far! We chatted a bit with him the next morning as we were getting ready to leave, he seems like a good guy just out for an adventure in his giant yellow Mercedes truck. 

Our last major stop in Eastern Turkey was Kars and a visit to the city of Ani. Ani is a ruined medieval Armenian city next to the closed border with Armenia.

“Between 961 and 1045, it was the capital of the Bagratid Armenian kingdom that covered much of present-day Armenia and eastern Turkey. The iconic city was often referred to as the “City of 1,001 Churches,” though the number was significantly less. To date, 50 churches, 33 cave chapels and 20 chapels have been excavated by archaeologists and historians. Ani stood on various trade routes and its many religious buildings, palaces, and sophisticated fortifications distinguished it from other contemporary urban centers in the Armenian kingdom. Among its most notable buildings was the Cathedral of Ani, which is associated with early examples of Gothic architecture and that scholars argue influenced the great cathedrals of Europe in the early gothic and Romanesque styles; its ribbed vaulting would not be seen in European cathedrals until at least two centuries later. At its height, Ani was one of the world’s largest cities with a population of well over 100,000.” (Wikipedia)

We both felt that Ani definitely exceeded our expectations. It is a vast and very interesting site and well worth the visit. Of all the sites in Eastern Turkey, Ani was one of the best. With the sites on our itinerary behind us we were ready to cross over into the Republic of Georgia. We wanted to stay up near the border so that the crossing day was as short as possible. 

Shani found us a gem of a place just outside of Hopa. Pınar Kır Evi Boutique Hotel is a mix between hotel and restaurant, tea plantation and trout farm! The room was spacious and modern and the sound of the trout pools made for a very tranquil experience. We spent a couple of days there enjoying the natural environment and relaxing before the border crossing and we met a couple of nice Italian guys doing roughly our same itinerary on motorbikes.

Stay tuned as we cross into Georgia, I eat one of my new favorite foods and live the high-rise life in Batumi and then we venture up to Kutaisi and then spend some down time in Tblisi.