Ottoman House-Hunting in Beypazari

Since last weekend our schedule has been pretty full, with lessons and outings that included trips to a Turkish cinema and a Turkish retirement home. Both excursions seem like they could have been fun and informative with a bit more planning and better organization, but given how they went they don't merit much in the way of recounting here. However, now we have arrived at another weekend and another day trip, and this time we found ourselves just west of Ankara in a little market town called Beypazari. The town was billed as a former stop on the silk road, restored to its late Ottoman style, and now a center of production for carrots and filigreed silver jewelry. Unfortunately for Amanda, the carrots seemed to be far more abundant than the jewelry (though that's not to say the jewelry was entirely absent).

We started our day at a hilltop viewing point that laid the city out in front of us. To the right was the new city, in many ways like a little version of Ankara, and to our left was the former Ottoman portion of the city. From the fine white plaster and the dark brown of the restored woodwork, you could tell that a great deal of effort had been put into turning the little market town into a fine tourist attraction for anyone visiting the area around Ankara. Our tourguide narrated a few of the places we would be able to stop at later in the day, including the market stalls that lined the streets, an old Ottoman house that has been converted into an open-air museum, and a selection of old mosques ranging from the 13th century under the Selcuks to a much larger structure from the Ottoman period.

However, this would not be Turkey or the CLS program if all of that were not planned as a follow-up to a multi-course lunch lasting at least one to two hours. We piled into the bus and found our way to a little garden restaurant where we were treated to several of the local specialties, including Güveç (a stew of rice, lamb and carrots) and a special baklava that is reputed to include at least 70 layers of filo dough. While the stew was amazing and a fine complement to the salad and other dishes that accompanied it, I found that I am perfectly fine with two, 35 layer pieces of baklava, since they tend to be moister and easier to cut. However, there really is no such thing as bad baklava. After lunch we were all a little restless to start our explorations of the town, but we stopped first at a mineral water factory just down the street from the restaurant. If anyone has spent any time in Turkey (or the little Turkish market on Commonwealth Ave. in Boston) then you are very familiar with the many different flavors of Beypazari mineral water. However, I had never made the connection that the popular brand was collected and bottled at a spring near the site of our weekend trip. It was a pretty great experience to hear a bit about the fresh spring and try some of the carbonated water fresh from its source. I'm still not sure if I believe the claim that drinking two bottles a day will "clean all of the imperfections out of your kidneys" but it tasted great nonetheless!

When we finally arrived in the city center, we made our way through the cobblestone streets lined with restored plaster walls and ceramic tile-roofed buildings until we arrived at the Beypazari Culture and History Museum located in the former home of a local Ottoman official. With a front courtyard filled with shade and fruit trees, three floors of furnished rooms, and thick stone walls that act as a natural climate control system, it didn't take much to sell me on the place. The mortgage may be insane but I'm ready to put in an offer. After we finished at the house we were set free to explore the market area, shop for some of the local handicrafts, and try some of the local delicacies, all of which seemed to involve carrots. Beypazari prides itself on providing 60% of Turkey's carrot supply, and has found a way to work the crop into many places you would never expect to find it. Now, in my time here I have opened myself and my stomach to many new things, including some great dishes with eggplant, spinach, and the best tomatoes you will find anywhere. However, even I have to draw the line somewhere, and it appears that line is drawn just short of carrot ice cream and carrot flavored Turkish delight. I did sample a bottle of the fresh carrot juice and, upon commenting that it just tasted like liquified carrots, then had to ask myself what exactly I expected fresh carrot juice to taste like! I finished two-thirds of the bottle but that was about as far as I could go before finding some fresh lemonade to cleanse my pallette. With plenty of time left in the shopping portion of the day I found some great tablecloths and a silver sugar bowl to outfit the new apartment, and a couple other things that Amanda will have to wait until August to see! The one nice thing about being abroad in Turkey during your first wedding anniversary is that there are plenty of opportunities to do the necessary shopping to make up for it.

With time winding down on the day trip, I managed to head off with one of the other students and step into one of the old mosques in the city. The Sultan Alaaddin Camii was completed in 1225, presumably under the reign of the prolific Selcuk Sultan Alaaddin Keykubad I (who also built the beautiful mosque in the center of Antalya that I saw last summer), and combines a brick exterior and minaret with a beautiful wood ceiling, minbar, and balconies. While my time in Izmir last year made me appreciate its seaside location, Ankara definitely wins out for the historic mosques scattered throughout the area. Izmir was bound to be at a disadvantage in that area after the fire that burned it to the ground in 1922, but thankfully this was not a problem that affected the country as a whole. Since Beypazari is a fairly small town and we were in the tourist area between prayer times, the place was fairly empty and we were able to look around pretty freely before heading back to meet up with the group. As it turns out, this was just a taste of what was to come the next day as I went with a group of friends to explore the old Ottoman and Selcuk mosques scattered around Ankara's old city center. Though that update will have to wait for a day when I have a little less homework. After our mosque tour, we rejoined the rest of the group for the bus ride back to Ankara and capped off the day with some great kabobs and a couple mugs of Efes, the local beer. While it can be a bit stressful to have planned events nearly every day of the week, it can be great to just surrender any semblance of control over your life and enjoy the amazing sightseeing and food that we have access to every day of the week. Cap that off with the fact that every day of interacting with the local population provides as much Turkish instruction as a week of classes back home, and you really start to appreciate how beneficial this program really is. I will try to update soon with the trip to Ulus and the rest of the mosques.