BY Natsuko Ito

I visited Turkey, which is the center of cultural interchange between the East and the West, on a group tour with a friend from February 22 to March 3 during spring vacation.

The country is twice as large as Japan, the population is half, and the capital city Ankara is located at the same latitude as Akita of 40°latitude north. Because its geography varies widely, the climate is different in each area, but when I went at the end of February it was 15 ℃, almost same as Tokyo. The temperture is near 30 ℃ in summer, and some places are more than 40℃ degrees centigrade, but Turkey is rather a dry country compared with Japan, so it is comfortable under the shade of a tree.

Istanbul, once the capital of Turkey, extends into both the European continent and the Asian continent, and the city grew as the gateway of the Silk Road betwen the West and the East. It has been a long time since the city was called the cultural crossroads of East and West. European, Asian, and African cultures are mixed there. The European side of Turkey is divided in two and is separated by the Halic Golden Horn. The northern side is called New Town and the southern side is called Old Town.

Old town has many historic buildings registerd as World Heritage sites. The Grand Bazaar, an indoor area of about 300,000 square meters with more than 4,000 shops, is one of those sites and it is still crowded with visitors today. Salesclerks spoke Turkish, English and simple Japanese. There were some people who spoke as many as five languages! There were many shops where we could use U.S. dollars and Japanese yen because the Turish Lira is severely inflated. There are no prices for goods, so the price must be negotiated between the seller and buyer. This is a big adventure and fun for tourists.

Cappadocia is one of the World heritage sites. There are white, brown, redish-brown, and pink colored rocks with unique shapes in a wasteland of 96 square kilometers. Some rocks are shaped like a mushroom, a cone shaped hat, and so on. There also were unique shapes like kissing rocks, a camel, and the Madonna. These rocks are made of soft volcanic rock caused by volcanic activity, and it's easy to mine. It's said that house caves were built there thousands of years ago and some people mined rocks and settled down in this area permanently. In the 3rd century, Christians used to meditate here and to escape persecution from Rome. This wonderful sight was created by nature on a large-scale and its beauty takes ones breath away.

I also visited Aclopolice where there are remains of marble pillars at the Shrine of Trayanus. It isn't a World Heritage site, but it's really great. As we went up the hill on bus from a city called Bergama, purewhite pillars appeared. On the pillars are small sculptures embroidered like leaf ornaments and they are in harmony with blue sky. Even though this was left exposed to the weather for a long time, we can see the high craftmanship of those days. We also could see the steepest man made open-air theater in the world. I was overpowered by this big scale! The seating capacity of the theater was about 10,000, but it seemed much bigger, because the theater was not built wide and circular, but it was built high using the natural slope of the hill. When I visited many ruins, I could see that drama was absolutely necessary for ancient people and that they had an advanced culture.

There are so many attractions and ruins throughout Turkey that I can't write about them all here.

Buses and taxis are the principal means of transportation in Turkey, but sometimes it's inconvienet with only a few people, so I recommend to use a tour bus.

Turkey has become a popular destination if there are Japanese recently. Looking at Turkey's history, culture and geography, it's easy to see why. I want to visit Turkey again someday.