salanmooretravels

Celebrating the Beauty of Renaissance Florence

2009-12-28T16:54:00.000-08:00

I have been back in the U.S. for over a year and but I am still reading about Florence. I finished reading two books about the Medici and have read enough about Renaissance art to realize I could have enjoyed a couple of months in the city rather than two days. I didn't know many names of artists--actually I couldn't have made any intelligent comment distinguishing Donatello and Botticelli and I would have answered mention of Fra Angelico or Cellini with a blank stare. But I had heard about the Duomo with its Baptistry with its famous doors and knew I wanted to see the famous sculptures by Michelangelo, such as David, so there was no question of there being enough in Florence to keep my uninformed eye busy for the days I was there.

Upon arrival, we took advantage of European Museum Day (or something to that effect) and got into the Uffizi Gallery for free. I'm usually good at this aspect of travel--get to the museums based on hours of operation and I'm certainly going to notice half price days and the like. I had a short hit list for the Uffizi: Michelangelo´s ¨The Holy Family,¨ Annunciation by Leonardo de Vinci, and Raphael´s Madonnah of the Goldfinch.¨ The most memorable is "The Holy Family." Perhaps it was the interaction among the subjects and the presence of Joseph that made it memorable--but I often fall for bright colors and Michelangelo's metallic ones certainly caught my attention. Perhaps it was this museum that started my appreciation of The Annunciation as an attractive subject for art. As I walked through the gallery that day, I noticed that in many Renaissance paintings, Mary is show with a book.

After a most satisfying museum visit, my traveling companion had the sense to suggest that we spend some time in the Piazza della Signoria with the adjacent Loggia dei Lanzi. There, I noticed Cellini's Medusa and was captivated. I usually favor biblical over mythological themes and don't know why I noticed this and totally neglected Judith and Holofernes, which I have read a bit about since. The scene in this area was enhanced by live musicians. This public square has quite a history and civic symbolism that lead Michelangelo's David to be placed in it. The original is not indoors and a copy shows where it stood previously.

The next morning, in the Bargello Museum, I spent a lot of time looking at parts of a statue of Perseus by Cellini. Part of the original was replaced outside and placed in this museum. Another highlight was seeing the two competition friezes, by Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, depicting Abraham and Isaac. The competition was for the commission to make similar friezes for doors of the Duomo Baptistry.

I spent quite a bit of attention absorbing the Duomo Baptistry and Cathedral (with the famous orange dome). The museum contains the original panels from the Baptistry doors as well as many other pieces of art from previous decorations of the church. I enjoyed the series of hectagon panels by one of the Pisano guys as well as balcolnies for choirs. The museum had models from which I tried to imagine the former facade of the church, with its statues of numerous Biblical prophets.

The Galleria dell' Accademia was open until 10pm so I saved it for my last evening in Florence. The museum features Michelangelo´s David and there are other of his sculptures knowns as prisoners since they are unfinished and appear as though a guy is trying to escape from the rock.

I came away with the opinion that the best way to take in Florence is to focus on the churches. I went on the morning tours that came free with the hostel so I saw the more famous of the downtown churches but could imagine arriving in town with an awareness of what works were in which churches as well as a plan for enjoying the best of the museums. Aside from the Duomo, The Church of Santo Spiritu (Church of the Holy Spirit) was the most notable. In my book, it certainly wins for atmosphere. There was an organ playing softly and the Florentine style of off-white stuccoed walls and grey marble columns--beautiful!

Shakespeare in London

2008-09-30T21:44:00.001-07:00

London was good medicine for my obsession for historic buildings on the eve of my return to the western United States. London's historic buildings would probably be more meaningful to me than some of the others I encountered this year but, in London, I didn't much notice them due to my love of theater. When I visited London years ago, I went to three musicals--including Les Miserables. Between that visit and this, I heard that a replica of the Globe theater had been built and have long wanted to see a play there. During this visit, I managed to make it to three. In between, I went on the tour and spent time reading the exhibits about the original Globe theater.

As a Shakespeare enthusiast, it was satisfying to learn something about the setting of most of Shakespeare's plays. First, why the theater was where it was: The original Globe was located across the river from the city which made it easier for the company to operate at a time when the Puritans were adamently against theater and the local authorities in London succumbed to the pressure and, inconsistently, applied restrictions. I'm not very clear about theater-politics in those days (royalty sponsored plays and Elizabeth was a Shakespeare fan too) but it being across the river next to the bars and brothels was a strategy to allow the play to go on. How the theater go there in the first place is also interesting. The business guy had a theater on the London side of the river on rented land and when the lease was over, he technically had the right to the building but, in practice, the building would come under the control of the land owner. So one night when the river was frozen over and the land owner was out of town, the theater business guy and some buddies took the building apart and moved it across the river and rebuilt it as the Globe--safe from the increasingly restrictive anti-theater regulations.

The second thing I learned about Shakespeare plays by having visited the Globe was pointed out during the tour of the place. It involves the ambitiousness of Elizabethan theater. A commentary I read soon afterwards explains it well:
Elizabethan theater ... [involves] a complex playing area, with a
central platform, an alcove or discovery space at the rear, flanked by doors, a trap door leading to a cellarage below, a balcony or balustraded space above, with possibly a second level above that,
and on the platform itself a pari of great columns that divide the stage. We have a versatile, multiple playing space which can represent locales such as a field, a castle, a city wall, a ship's deck, a forest, a
desert, a cave, a cell, a tavern, a hall of state, or a street, in free
alternation or succession. Characters can wander in from one
door and out another, lean out of windows or emerge from the alcove, skulk behind pillars or peer from over arrases, and they may occupy two or more parts of the stage simultaneously. ... [Such as] in historical plays, when besieging armies stationed on the platform challenge the defenders of a town or castle situated above ... other theaters aim at compression and selectivity, at making a little stand for a lot. The Elizabethans wish to drag the whole lot bodily onto the stage. The other theaters hedge themselves about with exclusions and taboos. The really exciting actions, the violence, the sensationalism, the amorous encounters, the magical occurrences, all happen, as Victor Hugo complained, frustratingly offstage. Only the Elizabethans, with
their split-level stage, theirm dumb shows, gods, and ghosts,
their gluttony for spectacular effects, try to make everying at once
visible, audible, and palpable" (Jonas A. Barish, "Multiple Scenes,
Characters, and Plots in Elizabethan Drama" 61-64 in Elizabethan Drama, Laura K Egendorf, editor).

The tour guide also pointed out that the Globe theater was destroyed by fire during a performance of Henry VIII. The company decided that they had to pull out all the stops to depict the founder of the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth's father so they used a real cannon--the firing of which lit the thatched roof on fire and that was the end of the original Globe. I guess a case can be made for keeping it simple.

One of the interesting options for theater-goers in the Elizabethan era was to pay a minimal admission and stand up through the performance--to be a "groundling." This tradition was resurrected with the reconstruction of the edifice. When I heard about the modern version of groundlings, I had heard that they, like their Elizabethan era counterparts, yelled at the actors and that the actors responded to them but, unfortunately, the groundlings I witnessed were much more well behaved. I liked the idea of saving a substantial number of pounds for each ticket but figured that my hosts (who let me stay with them a bit outside London) deserved seats. I also wanted to save my legs for walking around town and rather than for standing for a few three hour Shakespeare plays. On my last day in the city I decided to go back for another Shakespeare play and would have done the "groundling" thing but none were available so I sat again.

If I make it back to London, I'll probably trade the ideal setting for the best acting and try to catch a play by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I'd also like to make the ultimate Shakespearean pilgrimage to Shakespeare's home neighborhood at Stratford upon Avon.

When in Rome

2008-09-27T21:29:00.000-07:00

I finally succumbed to the enticement to stop off in Italy on a trip home from Israel. I looked into spending time in Venice and Ravenna and perhaps fitting in some cycling in the Po river valley but finally settled on a more conventional itinerary--Rome and Florence. My first impression of Rome was how quiet is was. I still don't know if my ears were confused after the flight (did I sneeze at high altitude?) or if it really is exceptionally quiet for a big city.

I walked from the airport to the train station and bought my ticket and noticed the train to downtown leaving. So I waited for the next train and hoped that I could still fit in the tourist bus ride around the city and the church and museum that I noticed were near my hostel. The train stopped for a while in the middle and took nearly an hour longer than it should have so I was only able to fit in the tour bus ride. It was the first time I had been on something like that and found it to be a great way to get oriented to the city.

Over the next three days I did a pretty good job of maximizing my exposure to Rome's top sites. The arch of Constantine was at the top of my list and I was prepared with an explanation of what was depicted on every corner of the triumphal arch. I took corresponding pictures and could quickly be prepared with a slide show were anyone to care to hear about it. A couple of days later I caught a different view of the arch from the Colosseum.

The forum is like an old graveyard for historic buildings. An archaeologists dream which I feared would be a tourist's nightmare. I went there on something like European historical site appreciation day. That meant everyone could go there for free and it seemed like plenty of folks took up the offer. I didn't think anything of it until I asked for an audio guide and was told that there were none available. I hadn't read anything about all those pilars lying around but I decided to walk around and try to make sense of the place. Fortunately I found the Arch of Titus and played the part of the Hebrew University student and noted the famous depiction of the manorah that the Romans took from Jerusalem's temple. The Arch of Titus is a lot less elaborate than that of Constantine so I had a more brief absorption period but definitely allowed it time to sink in. The forum has a lot more and I even figured out what a few other things were about but I'm afraid my appreciation of the famous hills and the figurative graveyard could have been more profound.

After having exercised my imagination with the idea of a hippodromo (chariot race track) in Istanbul, running across Rome's was nice. It was interesting to see that the track that the chariots raced around continues to be preserved by some of the more fit of the city's inhabitants. Other than the jogging track, there is little remaining--I'm sure most tourists don't take note of it.

There are various other monuments that I enjoyed seeing and which I'll probably write about as part of this entry later but one of the more memorable experiences involved catching up with an Italian friend who was a fellow student of the Hebrew University and who lives in Rome. We met for dinner and talked about contemporary Italy as well as the Europe (she's an activist advocating the E.U. becoming like the U.S.). Then we hopped on a bus back towards the central bus station as our hostel was very near to it. We tried to get her to explain to us how to pay but she explained that nobody in Rome pays for such things as bus fares. In fact, she noted that the national airline's trouble is largely due to so many Italians being able to fly free due to their being a distant relative of someone who works for the airlines or who works for a complany who has a contract with the airlines. That was one of those mind warping ideas that I still can't get myself to really believe. In any case, I'll confess that I didn't pay for the bus ride--when in Rome, right?

Athens' Golden Age & Byzantine Period

2008-09-18T04:34:00.002-07:00

After Byzantine Architecture ecstacy in Thessaloniki, I resolved to turn my attention to Ancient Greece--after all, I was heading to Athens. My travel companions and I went to the acropolis the first day. At that time, I found the Erechtheum more meaningful and more charming than the Parthenon. As we were preparing to leave, looking at one of the two theaters south of the acropolis, I showed one of the park workers my ticket to that night's performance of a greek tragedy and asked where it was. The answer shocked and disappointed. I had assumed the theater was in Athens but it was a couple of hours out of town. We reasoned together for a few minutes and determined to cut our losses and stay in Athens. There was plenty to see of course including the Theater of Dionysus which partially satisfied my theater loving side but not quite enough.

While the Parthenon didn't immediately strike an aesthetic chord in me, the idea of the statue of Athena (Athena Parthenos) by a sculptor named Phidias did. I longed to see the replica, known as the Varvakios Athena, in the National Archeological Museum of Athens. The Parthenon itself became an exercise in imagination as I tried to piece the parts of the building together. This extended to London where I saw the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.

My level of interest in the building was high but becoming aware that it served as a Byzantine Church dedicated to Mary made it considerably more meaningful. From Istanbul, through Bulgaria, to Thessaloniki and even into Athens the theme remained the same. I was interested in Byzantium and there was no escape. I embrased my fate--aware that reality is multi-faceted and a place like Athens has a present as well as various pasts and that it can be appreciated through various lenses. The same thinking that led me to embraced Jerusalem's Mamluk era.

There were a few of Athens' Byzantine Churches that have proven memorable. One, the Church of Kapnikarea, is in the middle of a street. When Ermou Street was being planned, the idea was to knock down the old church but preservationists fought to save it and the street was built around it. The Church of Kapnikarea shows what the impressive Byzantine Museums in both Thessaloniki and Athens tell--at least some Greek folk value their Byzantine heritage.

I found the church of the Holy Apostles in the Ancient Agora to be the most meaningful of Athens' Byzantine Churches. This church, which was built in the late 10th or early 11th century, commemorates the apostle Paul preaching in the agora to the Greeks as recorded in Acts 17: "Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an alter with the inscription, to the unknown god. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you." Along with being meaningful in commemorating Paul's preaching, the church's design is attractive and it's setting is pleasing.

Another memorable church is the Church of Theotokos Gorgoepikoos and Ayios Eleytherios. This church is unique in it's being constructed of marble as opposed to the typical Byzantine brick.

I spent enough time in Athens to get a taste for other periods as well but the very ancient didn't excite me much and I wasn't there long enough to absorb much of the modern--seeing the original modern Olympic stadium reminded me that the Olympics has ceased to mean much to me. The Roman period ruins were impressive--more grandiose than the real Greek stuff--but not as meaningful as the era of Plato and Sophocles.

Byzantine Churches in Thessaloniki

2008-07-25T00:11:00.000-07:00

Many of Thessaloniki's featured tourist sites are Byzantine Churches and on my first day in the city, I came across a free pamplet called "Byzantine Churches of Thessaloniki." This was very helpful since I hadn't studied much before arriving and my friend's western oriented tour book focused more on where to get drunk than on Byzantine Churches and provided very little information about the few churches it mentioned. The intact (undoubtedly heavily restored) churches functioning as such were a refreshing change from Israel where the Byzantine layer is often destroyed as archaeologists dig through it to get to the Biblical levels and from Turkey where most of the remaining Byzantine churches serve as mosques (in Thessaloniki, many of the churches had been converted into mosques but were converted back to churches at the end of Ottoman rule). I visited nine Byzantine Churches and caught glimpses of a few others but the following were particularly memorable and illustrate different styles of Byzantine Churches:

Galerius' Rotunda of St. George (Galerius' Tomb)

The uniqueness of this church's form is due to it's having been built as a tomb and only later made into a church. The tomb was to be for the Roman ruler Galerius--who was involved in Roman leadership during the Tetrarchy that began with Diocletian and ended with Constantine.
Galerius spent a lot of time in Thessaloniki between 299 and 303 c.e. and had his palace in the city as well an arch dedicated to his having defeated the Persians around 298 c.e. These remains are archaeological highlights of Thessaloniki today. Galerius didn't die there as he seems to have planned on doing so the tomb lay empty until the Emperor Constantine ordered that the empty tomb be converted into a church dedicated to the Archangels.

This transformation from tomb to church involved the addition of a sancturary as an extention of the east bay of the rotunda (shown here protruding towards the photographer from the cylinder-shaped building). There are supports at each side of the apse which were added after an earthquake.

Later, Christians added mosaics to the building. The apse is decorated with a 9th century fresco of the Ascension. The interior of the highest drum before the dome features mosaics interspersed with now enclosed windows. This is explained as having been an architectural feature that allowed significant amount of light to illuminate the gold on the mosaics and interior of the dome.

This church was interesting for me because I have read that the octogonal churches in the Holy Land that usually mark a holy site (such as Capernaum, the original Churches of the Holy Sepulcre and original Church of the Nativity among others) are modeled after Roman emperors' tombs. In this case, it may have simply been that a monument was available and Constantine, having recently adopted Christianity, decided to put the building to use.

Hagia Sofia (Holy Wisdom)

The 5th century Hagia Sofia church was inspired by the famous church with the same name in Constantinople / Istanbul. It may be that Thessaloniki's Hagia Sofia is a copy of the church in Constantinople that was destroyed before the larger Hagia Sofia was built by Justinian in the 6th century. Still, Thessaloniki's Hagia Sofia has features that serve as reminds of the renowned Hagia Sofia. First, there is a dome in the center with supporting pilars. The marble of the Constantinople's Hagia Sofia that stands out is maroon, deep green, and deep green and the walls in Thessaloniki's version are painted in the same tones. The upper gallery of the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul is painted in a dirty yellow with floral designs and Thessaloniki's exterior is a similar color. Finally, both Istanbul and Thessaloniki's Hagia Sofia churches are in a domed Basilica style.

The Saint Demetrios Church is an early Byzantine Basilica (without a dome) and also dates from teh 5th century. Although a reconstruction after having been destroyed in a fire in the 20th century, the Saint Demetrios Church is interesting for it's once standard 5 aisle form. Details such as columns and capitals from the original building and the crypt give the church a feeling of uniqueness. The crypt was part of a Roman bath-house.

These 5th century Basilicas served were designed for the processional liturgy of the early Byzantine church. Such events could involved thousands of worshippers who moved around within the building.

St. Katherine's Church & The Church of the Holy Apostles
Encountering St. Katherine's Church (pictured here) and The Church of the Holy Apostles lifted my Thessaloniki Byzantine church tour from the level of energetic intellectual curiousity to absorbed aesthetic appreciation. I first encountered The Church of the Holy Apostles when my companions had had enough and went back to the hostel to put in some time at the beach. I calculated that being done for the day would make it nearly impossible to hit all the listed Byzantine Churches so I stayed in town for an uncharacteristicly late evening.

I don't know what it is about these two churches that struck my aesthetic chord. As an observer or art, it's rare that I experience the sublime level of appreciation until after I've studied something pretty thoroughly--I reached that point with the exterior of Byzantine churches after chasing down quite a number of them and reading some brief commentaries about features from different periods. Most of my reading about things Byzantine is about emperors and diplomatic and religious issues.

Both of the churches were both built in the early 14th century, during the Palaiologan dynasty near the end of the Byzantine Empire. These are "cross-in-square" churches, which were "dominant in [late] Byzantine ecclesiastical architecture until the close of the Middle Ages ... The idea was very simple and based entirely on structural elements deeply rooted in the Byzantine tradition: that of a dome rising above four barrel vaults, arranged so as to form a Greek cross." This type of church was small and "designed ... to hold a congregation of about one hundred ... the cross-in-square church arose in a monastic milieu. A Byzantine monestary normally numbered a brotherhood of between twenty and one hundred" (Mango, Cyril. Byzantine Architecture, 178). These churches were used for more private worship involving individual prayer and the interaction between the worshipper and icons. This type of worship lead to churches having numerous small spaces including private chapels (Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium, 9-10).

The structure of the two churches is similar--they have five domes with the central and corner domes being nearly the same size. The height of the relatively small domes above the roof creates room for windows with stepped arches around small windows. I think this is what makes the exterior so appealing to me. In addition, each of the churches had appealing unique features: The Church of the Holy Apostles has decorative brickwork on its exterior while the St. Katherine's Church has double and triple openings on the facade.

The interior design of the churches of this period draw praise from art commentators but I wasn't too absorbed by this, although I have been in various of Istanbul's Byzantine churches.

The Church of the Prophet Elijah

The Church of the Prophet Elijah was the surprise of my visit. I had read about Mt. Athos and the style of church that is typical there and was pleased to find that such a church was on display in Thessaloniki. Like St. Katherines and the Church of the Holy Apostles, this church was built in the later Byzantine period which featured small churches built for monastic groups.

The Church of the Prophet Elijah's compact structure shares common features of later Byzantine church design but is also an example of a unique type. The lateral apses were added in order to provide space for monastic choirs. This design is "limited to Mount Athos, where about twenty examples are preserved, and to related areas in Northern Greece and in the Balkans" (Ousterhout, 29 note 40).

Thinking about Byzantine Churches in Thessaloniki brought me an appreciation of the last period of Byzantine: the Palaiologan Dynasty (previously, my interest in Byzantine had focused on the early period when the Byzantine Empire was much stronger and when the creeds were crafted). It turns out that the Palaiologan period was the high point of Byzantine art--and is said to have influenced, or even sparked, the Italian renaissance.

Works Cited

Mango, Cyril. Byzantine Architecture. 1974. Harry N. Arams, Inc.

Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium. 2007. University of Pennsylvania Museum Publication.

Imaginary Return to Bulgaria

2008-07-24T09:06:00.001-07:00

If I were to return to Bulgaria, I would follow the same basic route I took on my recently trip: enter Bulgaria from Turkey near Edirne, then to Plovdiv and Sofia, ending in the southwestern mountains before leaving the country. This path seems to include the most interesting cities in terms of history and provides plenty of great hiking opportunities. Of course the five days we spent along this route was not enough time to experience most of what is offered so here are some notes on what I didn't do but became aware of and would seek to do if I were there again.

First, I would enter Bulgaria after spending time in Edirne, Turkey. Edirne features what Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan considered his finest work, the Selimiye Mosque. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selimiye_Mosque. There are other Ottoman mosques dating back to before the time when the Ottomans conquered Istanbul which show the progression of architectural styles leading up to the pinnacle of Sinan's work.

On the Bulgarian side of the border, I would head straight for Plovdiv (if I really had a lot of time I would also visit Stara Zagora and get to nearby mountain city of Karlovo from which more hiking is available). Many Bulgarians asked whether or not we had seen Plovdiv so it comes highly recommended. The highlight seems to be the old town, which has a 19th century appearance. There are also Roman remains and a fourth century church called the Church of St. Constantine and Elena. They nearby Bachkovo Monestary in the Rodopi Mountains seems to be thought of after Rila Monastery but Rila has been destroyed more often and rebuilt more recently so I think I would appreciate the Bachkovo Monestary more than Rila. The Bachkovo Monestary was built in 1083 by two Georgian brothers and helped preserve elements of Bulgarian culture during the 500 years of Ottoman rule over Bulgaria--the exemplary tale being that the monks, apparently on the eve of some incursion by the Turks, hid an icon of the Virgin Mary and Child in the moutains allowing its preservation and rediscovered by shephards centuries later. I didn't hear the whole story but I imagine monks hiding the venerated icon before being attacked--perhaps it was the last thing they did before being killed.

I imagine that visiting the Bachkovo Monastery would put me on a mountain with well marked trails and mountain huts such as Rila provided. I love the balance of wilderness exercise and a museum / historic city experience. The tourist interest in the monasteries seems to inspire Bulgarians to provide options of public transportation to the mountains as well as well maintained hiking trails in the area.

After Plavdov and environs, I would return to Sofia. Downtown Sofia is an affordable European capitol and there are many churches and museums I bypassed. I would also return to Mt. Vitosha for additional hiking.

I would certainly return to the Rila Mountains and spend more time there. The trails were incredibly well maintained with colored trails and enough signage to prevent the first time visitor from worrying much. While we hiked in the Rila Mountains, we didn't make it to the featured destinations. A hike starting in the outpost town of Maliovitsa and straight up the path to Mt. Maliovitsa and then to Sedemte Ezera (the Seven Lakes) and ending at Rila Monestary should be given two or three days. To get to Maliovitsa, go the Yug bus station in Sofia at 9 a.m. (only available once a day). This seems the best option as you can start hiking and at least get to the Maliovitsa mountain hut the same day. I got mixed reviews about the mountain huts (hizha) and we didn't make it to one to allow for my own observations so I would take along minimal camping gear so as to not be reliant on them.

We considered this route for our recent stay but we were dragging too much stuff along so we made Blagoevgrad our base. This was effective. Blagoevgrad is a big enough city to have things available and is right on the train and bus routes between Sofia and Thessaloniki. It is a college town and was very quiet due to summer break. It also is easy to get from Blagoevgrad to Rila Village and then Rila Monestary and Mountains. It may be best to get up to Rila Village and spend a night there as the buses from Rila Village to Rila Monestary run at 7:40 a.m.; 12:40 p.m. and 3:50 p.m. (with returns available around 6:00 p.m.). It may be cutting it close to hike from Rila Monestary to a mountain hut after taking the 12:40 p.m. bus so the 7:40 a.m. bus would make the most sense.

The manager of Pirin Apartment in Blagoevgrad told of his spending a week every September hiking in the Pirin Mountains. He prefers the Pirin Mountains to the Rila Mountains and hiking there would be a major draw inspiring my return. I'm not sure if there might be another city more convenient as a base for the Pirin excursion but Blagoevgrad is not too out of the way and if Rila and Pirin Mountains are explored on one trip, Pirin is close enough to Blagoevgrad that backtracking wouldn't be too inconvenient.

Aside from Greece, Bulgaria borders other Balkan countries and taking off from the southwest to places like Kosovo, Serbia and / or Croatia might be more appealing than a return to Greece.

For a reader who is reading this as a temptation to travel to Bulgaria, here are some practical considerations. Even with the weak dollar in 2008, everything was on the affordable side. We spent less than $10 per person per meal for abundant food at mid-range restaurants, which is remarkable compared to the typical no-less than $20 that I've encountered in western European cities. The bus rides and train rides between cities and countries were in the range of $20 to $40 dollars. There was a lot of English but we traveled most of the time with a Bulgarian friend. Spanish came in handy a few times--even in the mountains we encountered shepherds and were able to communicate due to my knowing Spanish and one of them knowing Italian.

Bulgaria

2008-07-21T05:40:00.000-07:00

The bus ride from Istanbul to the border wasn't far and my long time friend Carolynn and I had our first extended conversation in a long time so the trip went by quickly. The border took a bit more than an hour as should be expected and then we were in Bulgaria and on the same bus towards Sofia.

The scenery had become a bit more hilly as we approached Bulgaria by bus from Istanbul and once we were on the other side of the border it was getting mountainous. On both side there were many fields of sunflowers. I had initially been attracted to Bulgaria when I heard about the Soviet encouragement of hiking as recreation and the claim of well mark trails was later confirmed. We, unfortunately, sailed through Plovdiv. People rave about it but we had only around five days and split that time between Sofia and the Rila Mountain area, including the city of Blagoevgrad.

We arrived Friday afternoon and went to a restaurant with live Bulgarian music and Bulgarian style cuisine that we enjoyed so much that we returned the next day. Saturday we hiked on the nearby Mt. Vitosha. This mountain provides a convenient escape for Sofia's residents and getting a bus ride there on Saturday morning meant competing for bus space with numerous locals. Our half day made it clear that there were many paths that could keep one exploring for many days. The first part of the hike was along a bolder covered river called "the Golden Bridges" which featured large bolders covering a stretch of the river longer than we managed to explore. We left the trail for a time and sometimes had to jump between the bolders.

We rejoined the trail and hiked along the mountain and then down to Boyana Church, which is famous for frescoes considered forerunner of the Renaissance due to their realism and emotional expressiveness. Outside, it appeared as a quaint neighborhood Byzantine church with a peaceful forest setting most of the way down Mt. Vitosha.

We spent the afternoon sightseeing in Sofia. We saw a Russian Orthodox Church, a Bulgarian Orthodox Church and then a Byzantine Basilica.

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church, called St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral is neo-Byzantine style cross domed basilica. with a central dome and barrel vaults. Among the paintings are realistic depictions of scriptural scenes as well as saints--all of which were well laid out such that the interior didn't feel noisy despite all wall space above about 6 feet being covered with some art work. With the choir singing for the religious service it was a satisfying scene to absorb.

The Byzantine Basilica was in great condition (undoubtedly after restoration) and there was a memorial plaque to Bulgaria's King Boris III, who had refused Nazi requests regarding Bulgaria's Jewish population. I talked to my new friend George about this king and was very impressed by his courage. George explained that Boris was invited to Germany during the war and "fell ill and died." Of course, Bulgarians believe that he was poisoned--a martyr to resistence to the Holocaust. The story was inspiring and I'm hoping to soon read about this King Boris.

Sunday after church we traveled to Blagoevgrad and then to Rila Mountains where we engaged in a long hike with exceptional views and close up encounters with flocks of sheep. Wednesday morning we felt rested and refreshed as we alighted the train to Thessaloniki, taking with us memories of a brief introduction to a surprisingly fascinating country.

Boat Rides around Istanbul

2008-07-21T05:33:00.001-07:00

After passing through Turkey my companions and I spent a number of days in Istanbul. Since my last visit, I have read about Byzantium and Byzantine monuments still existing in Istanbul so I visited a number of additional Byzantine sites and revisited many others (I have added many notes to the February 2008 blog entry on this topic). But one of my companions is a photographer in search of the scenic regardless of historic significance and he wasn't especially interested in historic monuments. He prefered to roam far beyond the walled old city that is so full of historic sites that I was content staying there. I found that there is a lot to see beyong the city walls. Much of our roaming involved walks through picturesque neighborhoods and much was by boat.

Our first scenic boat ride was from the mouth of the Golden Horn to a point beyond the old city wall at a historic and religious neighborhood. From there, we hiked through a moslem cemetary to a scenic outlook where there is a cafe and gift shop dedicated to the French author Pierre Loti. I paid the $6 for his first novel and read a little less than the first third before shelfing it for perceived lack of depth. I haven't yet encountered much of the descriptiveness of late 19th century Istanbul which make his works marketable to visiters to the city. But the view is worth the excursion.

The second excursion by boat was up the Bosphorus--much longer and more rewarding.
Along the way, there are a pair of Ottoman Castles that were used by the Ottomans to cut off supplies to the Byzantines during the seige that lead to the ultimate demise of the Byzantine Empire. The final destination is a Byzantine castle that must have played a role in controlling the strategic Bosphorus. We walked up from the village to the castle and from there caught a glimpse of the Black Sea.

I had taken ferries before to get from the European side to the Asian side but it took a friend's fresh prespective to provide me with the different angle on the city I'm becoming quite familiar with.

Konya

2008-07-21T05:30:00.001-07:00

I felt like the stars where aligned for us when we arrived in Konya and heard that once a week there was a free whirling dervish ceremony in the order’s cultural center. We had dinner and went in search of the place. The ceremony was certainly less energetic than folk dancing concerts I have witnessed. In fact, it was relaxing enough and my bed time is early enough that if it had gone on much longer I would have probably fallen asleep. But it was interesting and reading the short explanation about it in the guide book (again, afterwards as intellectual preparation wasn’t a theme of this trip) enhanced my appreciation.

The guidebook description of The Mevlevi worship ceremony, or sema:

The dervishes dress in long white robes with full skirts that represent their shrouds. Their voluminous black cloaks symbolize their worldly tombs, their conical felt hats their tombstones.
The ceremony begins when the hafiz, a scholar who has committed the entire Quran to memory, intones a prayer for Mevlana and a verse from the Quran. A kettledrum booms out, followed by the plaintive sound of the ney (reed flute). Then the sheyh (master) bows and leads the dervishes in a circle around the hall. After three circuits, the dervishes drop their black cloaks to symbolize their deliverance from worldly attachments. Then one by one, arms folded on their breasts, they spin out onto the floor as they relinquish the earthly life to be reborn in mystical union with God. By holding their right arms up, they receive the blessings of heaven, which are communicated to earth by holding their left arms turned down. As they whirl, they form a ‘constellation’ of revolving bodies, which itself slowly rotates. They sheyh walks among them to check that each dervish is performing the ritual properly. The dance is repeated over and over again. Finally, the hafiz again chants passages from the Quran, thus sealing the mystical union with God.

The museum surrounding the tomb of the poet Rumi (whose followers created the Dervish society) was another highlight.

The mosque on a small hill in the center of town had remnants of Byzantine buildings in the doorway and reused Byzantine columns in the worship area. However, the more interesting part of the site were two tombs in front of the entrance. These were the tomb of Seljuk rulers including: Alaeddin Keykubat I, Sultan Mesut I, Kilic Arslan, Kilic Arslan IV, Rukneddin Suleyman II, and Giyaseddin Keyhusrev I, II, and III.

We met the master felt maker at his workshop. I didn’t know the first thing about felt so my basic questions led to an explanation of what fur from the sheep is initially harvested and a bit about how the process works. We saw some felt at different stages of the process but mostly admired finished and near finished products. It was clear that he was a provider of felt hats to the dervishes and he explained some of the process of making the hats. He told of how he goes to wool festivals in the U.S.A. and that he will be bringing a couple of yurt to sell during his next trip.

At the end of the day, we got on an overnight train to Istanbul. I had been exposed to a new corner of the world that was foreign enough to be full of surprises.

Urfa Style Dinner Party Anyone?

2008-07-21T05:27:00.001-07:00

As we left Mardin, I realized that Tekin’s pattern was to feel hungry and duck into the first restaurant he encountered. It didn’t seem to matter what was on the menu or what the atmosphere was. I guess it was a fast food mentality although the restaurants were certainly not party of any chain. I read through the restaurant section of the tour book for Mardin and noticed the experience we could have had and then searched for restaurants in Urfa which was our next destination. I noticed that there was a restaurant that “occupies a wonderful old Urfa house where you dine on floor cushions in a series of rooms set around a courtyard.” I have vivid memories of eating in such a room in the home of a Druze family in the village of Majd al-Shams in the northern Golan Heights and in a restaurant in Jerusalem and would like to create such a room someday so I recommended to the companions that we go there. I also determined that paying 2 or 3 dollars more for better food would help me as I scout out dishes that I would like to learn for a chapter on Turkish food in the next edition of my next dinner party cookbook.

Finding the restaurant in Urfa required a little of extra effort but the wandering paid off in that it lead us to a CD shop that had traditional Urfa style music CDs for 4 dollars each. I bought two and sensed that the Turkish dinner parties I will throw will be done Urfa style. When we reached the restaurant, we were initially disappointed. Rather than food served nearly instantaneously in the cheap restaurants on the corner, we had to wait for food to be prepared—and this after we found that various menu items were unavailable because the main cook was not there. It may have been because it was well after normal lunch time (two in the afternoon) and he was home taking a nap. But the wait was worth it. The food was excellent and I noted the name of the dishes to later search for the recipes—Bostan and Et Sote. I took some pictures of the rooms with pads around the walls and in a niche in the wall—I imagine stick some pillows and pads in a closet and set up the room for dinner parties and then clear it our for other uses.

Back in Istanbul, it finally sunk in that one of my favorite restaurants here features Urfa’s cuisine. It is even called Halil Ibraham—Halil means friend as Abraham is known in the middle east as the friend of God—I think that’s Biblical. Anyways, Hebron is also called Al-Khalil, which makes sense since it has the Tomb of Machpaleh where Abraham was buried. The restaurant had paintings of scenes from Urfa on the walls. I then noticed that other restaurants in the area mentioned Urfa and Tekin confirmed that this little corner of the Aksaray section of the old city of Istanbul, for some reason, features a concentration of restaurants from Urfa. I returned in search of Et Sote a few more times--once to the Aksaray neighborhood when I had some time alone as well as with the group in restaurants in other sections of the city, including one featuring cuisine from Hatay, which is near Urfa in southern Turkey. There, a sojourner had et sote with mushrooms which I liked even better. If anyone wants to get a taste of it before I refine the recipes and invite you all over, http://www.turkish-cuisine.org/english/ seems to have a good collection of turkish recipes.

Second Oasis: Ihlara Valley

2008-07-04T11:21:00.001-07:00

My second oasis was exactly what the doctor ordered. I think the doctor in this case was a psychiatrist. I used to half go crazy on long road trips and then learned that if I take hikes along the way I can manage just fine. So when I planned on a trip across Turkey and scheduled in a number of hikes. Unfortunately, the first couple of these, which were both to have happened around Lake Van, didn’t happen. By the time we left Urfa, I was in serious need of some added variety to the routine.

So I split off from Tekin and David at Belichek and took an overnight bus to Aksaray—a modern city of around 100,000 people on the west end of the Cappadocia region. It was a bit after 4:00 a.m. and I was at the new central bus station and needed to get to the new one. So I started walking the few kilometers figuring that I had plenty of time before the mini-bus would leave from the old central bus station to Ihlara Village. After a minute or two of walking someone pulled over and offered me a ride. My knowing no Turkish eliminated the possibility of a conversation with that man and another who, at the old central bus station, invited me in to a café where I couldn’t explain why I was refusing his offer of coffee or tea. I left the café after a while and happened upon a young man who spoke English and the remainder of the wait passed comfortably. After a bit of grocery shopping the mini-bus to Ihlara Village finally arrived and I was off towards my long awaited first hike in Turkey.

I arrived at the hostel at mid-morning expecting to find numerous tourists sitting around exchanging tips and making arrangements for day trips. Instead, I found the place a ghost town—perhaps all the hikers all hit the trail earlier. I read a bit and took a nap to supplement the negligible amount of sleep I caught on the bus. I awoke again around 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. and decided to get to the valley for some hiking.

I started the hike and determined that I would hike now and catch the featured cave-churches later. I walked and walked and walked along the flat riverside trail. It was scenic but I wasn’t in the mood to take many pictures. This was a break from being a tourist. When I arrived at the Selime Monestary—a point where I felt okay with turning back—I decided to take in the site. Perhaps the cone shaped hills I saw across from a village I walked through piqued my interest. I then headed back towards the valleys entrance at Ihlara Valley. At the end of the hike I looked at a few of the cave churches. The frescoes of the snake church seemed most interesting.

I returned to the hostel to find out that I was the only client of the hostel. I found that out at 10:00 p.m. after having gone to sleep at least an hour before. The manager hadn’t asked for my passport which always happens at hotels and hostels in Turkey—some registration requirement for the police—and his replacement knocked on the door dispite there obviously being no light on inside. I told the stranger that I wasn’t going to give him my passport as he could be any Joe and that I’d deal with it in the morning unless he was willing to bring the manager who I had met before. He accepted my reasoning and waking up the manager evidently wouldn’t have been as pleasant an experience as waking up a guest so he tried another tactic to keep me from sleep—he brought the cook by asking what time I wanted my free breakfast in the morning. I told him whatever I thought was going to get him out of there so I could go back to sleep but he brought the cook by and they insisted that I needed to tell him a time so he knew when the cook had to go to work. I then realized that I was the only one in the hostel and I told the cook that he could take tomorrow off as far as I’m concerned I would eat from the food I already had (I had purchased sheep yogurt, some fruit, and wheat bread in Aksaray) and GOOD NIGHT! I doubted that I had dealt with real hostel employees (the whole conversation was through the window as I refused to open the door) until the next morning.

The next day I read until Tekin and David showed up in the mid-afternoon. They had hiked the valley before arriving at the hostel so we decided to go to the nearby town of Guzilyurt where we walked around town in the evening and then visited some more cave churches the next day. By mid-morning we were on our way back to Aksaray and then off to Konya.

Two Days in the Land Between The Two Rivers

2008-07-04T11:19:00.000-07:00

A short trip from Batman and we were at the Tigris River. The next two days would be spent in Turkey’s Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "The land between the two rivers"—the area located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers). The first day we visited Hasankayf, Midyat and Mardin.

Hasankayf overlooks the Tigris River. It was apparently avery ancient city and features cave dwellings. There are Ayubbid buildings including a mosque with a stork's nest on top of the minaret (the El Rizk Mosque). The nest has been there long enough to be mentioned in the travel guide book. There was also a mosque and castle atop the hill overlooking the river. The bridge over the Tigris looks to have been quite impressive but the spans between the pillars have collapsed.

We got off the bus in Midyat and walked straight through the small town to a Syriac or Syrian Orthodox Monestary not far out of town (this was not the famed monestary which would have required a 20 minute bus ride and which we didn't make it to). Then we climbed a few stairs of a building that provided a nice view over the city. From there I took various photos of the characteristic Syrian steeples. There are 9 Syrian Orthodox churches in the town.

Mardin has a castle on top of the hill and features a view over the Turkey Syria border. We visited a few monques and madrasas, mostly from the 14th century, from an Seljuk empire—one of the successors to the main Seljuk empire. I stopped at couple of soap shops and bought a bar each of olive oil, pistacio and almond soap. That’s all they had—it seemed Mediterranean. The trip out of town took us along the Syria border. Tekin pointed out the the two countries were clearing a mine field on the border and would allow some folks to grow an organic garden there.

After dark at the end of the first day between the two rivers, we arrived in Urfa. I could tell from the size of the street that we were in a bigger city than where we had been before. The city name is known in history and until very recently as Urfa. The theme for the tourist in Urfa is Abraham as apparently he spent some time in the city. We first went to the citadel overlooking the city and then went to a monument commemorating Abraham's birth (claiming to be his birthplace) and then place spent the remainder of the day visiting mosques and the Urfa museum.

Belichek is on the Euphrates River. We arrived on a bus and I walked over from the bus stop a few minutes before sunset to take some pictures of the river. I was soon on an overnight bus to Aksaray and then to Ihlara Valley where I spent some time reading a chapter about Turkeys dam building in the region. It gave the impression that Turkeys use of the two rivers water would transform the region with irrigation allowing agriculture in the region to flourish not to mention the hydroelectric power. Turkeys use of the water would also inhibit similar development in Syria and Iraq where agriculture is also needed. My time in Mesopotamia and the benefit of my meager Arabic language skills had come to an end.

First Oasis: Batman

2008-07-04T11:16:00.000-07:00

FIRST OASIS: BATMAN

After the descent through the Bitlis Pass, we encountered flatlands that were to continue through the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and beyond. Our first stop was the city of Batman. Tekin’s mother and sister live in this modern town and our agenda was rest. I spent much of the time putting captions on photos as I expect my memory would fade and sights would lose meaning if I didn’t get to them quickly.

We arrived at what appears to be the most recent addition to the northern end of the city and spent a day and a half secluded there before my impression of Batman as po-dunk was corrected. It turns out that Batman is quite a large oil industry boom town. Turkey produces very little of its own oil but oil exported from Iraq through Turkey is refined in Batman.

Our time in Batman was also about spending time with a wonderful family and enjoying great food. Tekin’s brother in law is a true Turk. He talked of his hunting adventures and taught us to barbaque. The dinner was incredible—lamb kabab well balanced with eggplants and hot peppers cooked directly on the coals before being peeled.

Nobody in the family speaks a English aside from Tekin but they spoke Arabic so I was able to communicate—I realized in Palestine that a little Arabic goes a long way but I didn’t realize the extent to which this would be the case in certain sections of Turkey. I continued to benefit from this through the next three cities until we left the Mesopotamia region. Unfortunately the 80-some year old aunt didn’t seem to understand that I am a novice Arabic speaker so many times she lost me. When we were able to communicate we mostly talked about family history and I floated the idea of Tekin writing down a short biography of some of his aging relatives’ fascinating life stories. Tekin liked the idea so I’ll have to follow up with him later.

The Highland Country around Lake Van

2008-06-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

Tekin and I had talked about the idea of flying to southeastern Turkey and visiting various sites on a long trek back to Istanbul over the past few years. He was born in Mardin and has family nearby in Diyarbakir and Batman, but it is more common for his family to visit Istanbul than for him to go east. He prefers the big city and logs travel to Europe and the United States for academic conferences. By February of this year when I stopped by Istanbul (having visited once before) it was clear that the scheme was going to become reality and my exposure to Turkey would finally extend beyond Istanbul.

David and I flew out of Tel Aviv in the afternoon and crashed at Tekin’s place overnight before getting on an early morning flight to Van—a city on the Lake with the same name. We quickly went from the airport to downtown and found a bus to the other side of the lake. Although the bus ride into the city and walking through the main drag for around 15 minutes provided some impressions, I immediately realized that there would be many places we would miss on what could have easily been a journey of four or more times as long. While still on the east side of the lake road signs and glances at a map helped us realize how close we were to Iran.

After a short bus ride we were on a boat to Akdamar Island. The boat trip to Akdamar Island was extremely short as far as boat trips go but the small island is far from land in terms of a place for a church. I wondered what was the purpose of constructing such a church on an island where few if any people could have ever lived? The church is noted for carvings of Biblical and Christian scenes on its exterior. Scenes depicting Adam and Eve and David and Goliath were easy to identify and conveyed their meaning most clearly to me. There are other Armenian Armenian churches in the area and after abandoning Van without so much as absorbing a site this was a mere token nod to eastern Turkey’s Armenian past. But the interest Tekin, who is a practicing Moslem, and I could find in common led us to focus our attention on the Seljuks and their sites are concentrated on the Lake’s western shore.

Our first stop was the small city of Adilcevaz. This was to be the base camp for a hike of Mt. Suphan. However practicalities, elevation and travel weary energy levels sapped interest among the less avid hikers in the group and we merely hiked up a small hill to the town’s Seljuk castle (the Kef Kalesi). From there we descended to the mosque that was next to our hotel but which we had paid no attention to. Lonely Planet only mentions it as the nice little Ulu Camii, built in the 13th century and still used for daily prayer. However the sign on the building indicated that it was designed by Sinan—the masterful architect for Suleiman the Magnificent whose collossal mosques in Istanbul should be near the top of the A list for those visiting that city.

A half day in the small city of Ahlat (population around 30000 near the south-west corner of Lake Van) was the highlight of our time in the area. Ahlat was a Seljuk city—it features impressive Seljuk tombs and a Seljuk cemetary bridge ruins of a bathhouse and a small scale Seljuk museum with finds from the city. Ahlat was the base of the Seljuk leader Alp Asplin when the Seljuks defeated the Byzantines in 1071 c.e. at the Battle of Manzegirt (unfortunately we missed out on the nearby but remote town of Malazgirt where that battle took place). The Seljuk victory in that battle opened Anatolia to Turkish settlement that eventually led to the destruction of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottomans in 1453. As interesting as the historical significance was the realization that Ahlat’s residents still identify themselves as Seljuks. The townsfolk’s friendliness and helpfulness left a lasting impression.

We spent the second night in Tatvan--a small city of Kurdish folk at the south-west corner of Lake Van. Our hotel was about 50 meters from the waterfront and the views over the water were peaceful. There are no antiquities in this modern city but a sunrise stroll yielded some interesting views of peasant houses and women out gardening.

While encountering the unexpected in Islamic architecture wasn’t so unexpected the area’s cuisine was really a surprise. The uniqueness is probably based on the fact that the small cities around Lake Van are inhabited by highland folk. Not only does Van have an elevation of elevation 1,640 meters / 5,381 feet with mountains around it reaching 4,058 meters / 13,314 feet but the inhabitants originate from various highland cultures including Kurds and Seljuks. Even the region’s former inhabitants the Armenians are highlanders. The agriculture and cuisine reflects the environment and cultural background of these traditionally pastoral peoples. There is a lot of lamb and yogurt but the selection of fruits and vegetables is sparce. I couldn’t even find an orange to maintain my citrus-first-thing-in-the-morning habit.

I decided not to insist on hiking Mt. Nemrut as I had hoped to do and we were off to the valley city of Bitlis. While we saw various types of Seljuk ruins in Ahlat we did not encounter a Seljuk mosque. We did so in Bitlis and it reminded me that my knowledge of Islamic architecture has large holes. The minaret is across a small courtyard from the mosque which I believe is exceptional as the minaret is usually attached to the mosque. Why was it built this way? On the inside of the mosque there was a domed ceiling but from the outside there was no dome but rather a cylinder. Is that the way things were in early Seljuk architecture?

The city of Bitlis is on the east end of the Bitlis Pass which leads from the area of Lake Van at higher than 5,000 foot elevation to around 2,000 or 3,000 at Batman. Historically, it was strategically significant not just for the topography but for its location between empires such as between the Byzantines on the one hand and the Persians then Seljuks on the other. The bus ride was scenic—sort of a long Provo Canyon. I reflected on a few days in an area that was foreign enough to reveal various surprises and raise many new questions. I felt that my two previous visits to Turkey, which were limited to Istanbul, had not shown me the real Turkey. Now, however, I felt that I had really encountered Turkey. Unfortunately, the area is so off the beaten track that I may never return to gain much of an understanding of the region’s fascinating people with simple lives.

Wadi Qelt and Jericho

2008-06-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

A hike down the eastern half of Wadi Qelt is enough to restore anyones enthusiasm for desert hiking. The hikes around Eilat have some interesting features and was a great escape from the snowfall a couple hundred miles away, but it doesn't compare to the beauty of the valley that heads eastward from Jerusalem to Jericho. Wadi Qelt has plants at reasonable intervals as well as some man made scenery, including a few monestaries, to go along with interesting rock formations.

At the end of the hike is Jericho. An ancient city that came under Palestinian control in the 1990s. There, the group enjoyed a typical Palestinian lunch featuring the Arab Salads that I love so much. After lunch, we walked through town to Tel Jericho--the ancient city whose wall miraculously fell down in the Bible story.

Ancient Jericho was a disappointment. I had visited the site years ago while it was still under Israeli control. Now, under Palestinian control, it has completely gone to pot. There was virtually no information and most of the fences to keep people from walking around on the ruins were laying on the ground. I imagined that the PA would have put up their own signs that omitted any mention of Israel and emphasized other eras of history but was surprised to find that there was very little signage and that which existed was run down. Still, there were a couple of noticable features such as Rahab's Tower and the city's fallen wall.

Bible Tourism in Northern Israel

2008-06-18T13:27:00.000-07:00

This week's trip to the Sea of Galilee was less well planned than I am accustomed to. It started out as other recent trips have--a trip in a local bus across Jerusalem to the central bus station and an intercity bus for a couple of hours. But we (David Sandberg, who is visiting from the states and I) only had a rough outline of where we would be going and we had a long list of what we wanted to see. We ended up hiking a lot less than expected--I don't mind hot weather but David wasn't doing too well in it--so we saw the sites on our list more quickly than anticipated.

We arrived in Tiberias Monday evening, did some shopping and walked around town. The next morning, we hopped on rented bicycles for a little less than 10 mile ride to the Christian sites on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee. It turns out that the bikes, aside from being heavy mountain bikes, had some minor technical problems that made the trip a bit more of a challenge than it should have been. But we managed to get first to a church that commemorates the Beatitutes and then to one commemorating the miracle of multiplying the loaves and fishes and finally to Capernaum. At each site, we read scriptures that went along with the site.

By the time we were done seeing the sites, we were in for a ride back to Tiberias in hot weather. That afternoon we took a bus to Beit Shean--a small Israeli city around 25 kilometers south of the Sea of Galilee. We checked into a small bed and breakfast, after being told that there were no rooms available in the hostel, and relaxed--I started reading and before long was ready to sleep--it was 7:40 p.m. The next morning, we visited Beit Shean's archaeology park. It features the very interesting remains of a Roman City--the capitol of the Decapolis. The most interesting features are a Roman style theater, Roman bath house, mosaics, and a Roman bridge over a river. The city was located at a strategic point along the Jordan Valley and the Jezreel Valley so it was fought over many times and there is a tall tel with many layers. I also took note of the story of King Saul's demise at the nearby Mount Gilboa and the connection with Beit Shean noted in 1 Samuel:

Now the Philistines fought against Israel: and the men of Israel fled from before the Philistines, and fell down slain in mount Gilboa. And the Philistines followed hard upon Saul and upon his sons; and the Philistines slew Jonathan, and Abinadab, and Malchi-shua, Saul’s sons. And the battle went sore against Saul, and the archers hit him; and he was sore wounded of the archers. Then said Saul unto his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised come and thrust me through, and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore afraid. Therefore Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. And when his armourbearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died with him. So Saul died, and his three sons, and his armourbearer, and all his men, that same day together. And when the men of Israel that were on the other side of the valley, and they that were on the other side Jordan, saw that the men of Israel fled, and that Saul and his sons were dead, they forsook the cities, and fled; and the Philistines came and dwelt in them. And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his three sons fallen in mount Gilboa. And they cut off his head, and stripped off his armour, and sent into the land of the Philistines round about, to publish it in the house of their idols, and among the people. And they put his armour in the house of Ashtaroth: and they fastened his body to the wall of Beth-shan. And when the inhabitants of Jabesh-gilead heard of that which the Philistines had done to Saul; All the valiant men arose, and went all night, and took the body of Saul and the bodies of his sons from the wall of Beth-shan, and came to Jabesh, and burnt them there. And they took their bones, and buried them under a tree at Jabesh, and fasted seven days.

After Beit Shean, I felt like we should go to Nazareth. As we got off the bus near the Basilica of the Annunciation, I asked a young lady and her mother where they were from (I had noticed that they spoke english). They are from Logan, Utah. We visited a few churches together in Nazareth. My favorite was the simple "Church Synagogue." The current building was built in the 12th century but it was supposedly built over a synagogue where Jesus' family likely worshipped as Jesus was growing up and where Jesus first publically suggested that he is the Messiah (Luke 4:16-30):

And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son? And he said unto them, Ye will surely say unto me this proverb, Physician, heal thyself: whatsoever we have heard done in Capernaum do also here in thy country. And he said, Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country. But I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when great famine was throughout all the land; But unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian. And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way,

We caught a sight of the cliff from which tradition claims the folks of Nazareth wanted to toss Jesus to his death as we and trekked down a long street, around a corner and up the hill to catch the bus to our next destination.

David and I then decided to backtrack a bit in preparation for visits to Mount Tabor and Megiddo the next day. Mt. Tabor is a candidate as the site of the Transfiguration. The hike was very steep--pretty much straight up (and later straight down) so we decided to hit the dirt roads and make it longer but less steep. It ended up being a reasonably long hike. Upon reaching the top, we read the account of the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-13):

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afriad. And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid. And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only. And as they came down from the mountain, Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no man, until the Son of man be risen again from the dead. And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

Reading a handful of verses about a scriptural event while you're at a site where it happened, or at is commemorated, has an amazing effect. I wasn't in the mood for the church though. It was built in the 20th century over remains of a 4th century Byzantine church and a 12th century crusader church. Before descending we sat down again and read the verses more carefully.

Then we were off to Megiddo--an archaeology site of an ancient strategic outpost and the future battle of Armaggedon. The sites has a great view of the valley (but it was a dusty day so there are no good photos to show) including Nazareth and Mount Tabor to the northeast. There are remains of various buildings but I took note of the city's gate, the grain storage pit, water system and horse stables. The scriptural connection I took note of was 1 Kings 9:15-19:

And this is the reason of the levy which king Solomon raised; for to build the house of the LORD, and his own house, and Millo, and the wall of Jerusalem, and Hazor, and Megiddo, and Gezer. For Pharaoh king of Egypt had gone up, and taken Gezer, and burnt it with fire, and slain the Canaanites that dwelt in the city, and given it for a present unto his daughter, Solomon’s wife. And Solomon built Gezer, and Beth-horon the nether, And Baalath, and Tadmor in the wilderness, in the land, And all the cities of store that Solomon had, and cities for his chariots, and cities for his horsemen, and that which Solomon desired to build in Jerusalem, and in Lebanon, and in all the land of his dominion.

While the the mentioned tax is more important in connection with the building of the Temple, I took note of the cities for his chariots--one of which was Megiddo. We dragged ourselves down to the main intersection and waited around 10 minutes for the direct bus to Jerusalem. I took out my mini Israel map and followed along as we passed arab villages and cities, some on Israel's side of the wall and some on the other, to the east of the highway. Before long we were back in Jerusalem to rest before a few last excursions before my role as David's tour guide in Israel comes to an end.

By the Dead Sea: Masada & Ein Gedi

2008-06-15T06:44:00.000-07:00

Tuesday afternoon David Sandberg, who is visiting me from the U.S.A., and I made our way across Jerusalem to the central bus station and got ourselves onto the bus that goes through the Jordan Valley to Eilat. It first heads east towards Jericho, skirting it to the south, and heads south past Qumran, Ein Gedi and Masada. We got off in Masada and went to the hostel there. The hostel was not the normal hole-in-the wall hostel. There was a nice pool and everything was emaculate. I noticed a plaque that mentioned that the Ministry of Tourism had a hand in it. That makes sense since Masada is an important symbol in Zionism.

For those who haven't read Josephus or seen the movie (also named Masada), the story takes place few decades after Jesus was crucified, during the Jewish rebellion that lead to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. A group of Jews, called Zealots, took refuge at Masada as it was clear that the Romans had quelled the rebellion. The Romans surrounded Masada and the 1,000 or so Jews who had taken refuge there. The Romans couldn't climb up the path because they would be picked off one by one so they built a seize ramp and eventually destroyed a wall and made their way in. The Jews, once they saw that they could not escape, killed themselves. The seize ramp still exists--it would have eroded faster but there isn't much rain in these parts.

Modern Israeli Zionists admire these 1st century Zealots for killing themselves rather than being taken slaves by the Romans but say "Masada will not fall again." The lesson being that Israel has to be strong to avoid the be killed or be captured dilemma. School children and soldiers are brought to Masada and taught about the lesson. For me, the place isn't so much about a lesson but it's an expression of the New Testament character Herod and illustrates something about about the historical period of time when Jesus was in the region--although he isn't reported to have visited this remote desert hideout.

After an early night we woke up around 4:00 a.m. and headed up the desert plateau. David had his caving headlamp on but after about 20 minutes, it was no longer necessary. The path, called the Snake Path, starts on the south-east of Masada and the climb isn't long nor particularly challenging. The views were worth slowing down for. Masada is directly west of the Dead Sea and there is a flat area between the Dead Sea and a row of plateaus to the west. The country of Jordan is on the other side of the Dead Sea.

We arrived at the top and my instinct for thoroughness kicked in and we headed to the north side to see the minor attractions. The highlight of that side was a cistern. We then made our way along the west side and encountered the synagogue and then the main attractions--a bathhouse and palaces. We made it back to the hostel in time for the 9:00 a.m. breakfast. Later that day, other hostel visitors arrived and our group room started living up to its name (we had been the only inhabitants of the room with 8 beds the night before). Since everyone hikes Masada before the sun rises to escape the heat, it was apparent that there was no escaping the ritual 4:00 a.m. wake up time.

I woke up early the next day to hike around, rather than up, Masada. I had a copied a hike description and basic map from a book--which ended up being accurate and informative except in one way that was later to become apparent. The hike was as expected until I arrived to the area southwest of Masada. There, I encountered a steep incline which lead up to Mount Eliazer--the mountain to the south of Masada. I managed to get to the top without much difficulty and enjoyed the sights of Masada across the gorge. Then I continued on to the other side of that mountain expecting to hike down to the hostel which was directly below. The hiking guide book mentioned that that portion of the hike was steep but did not elaborate further. It was apparent that it was not just steep but precarious. I decided to walk down a few meters to get a better view and this confirmed that me and my mild vertigo would not be fit for this descent. Not only did the path stay near a cliff as it switched back and forth down the hill, but I encountered a rock with hebrew writing on it and a wilted flower in a jar. The rock was a memorial to "our granfather [name forgotten] who died from on fall on such and such date." I was already leaning against the steep path and was the nail in the coffin. I turned back figuring that death was worth avoiding--even if it meant not making it back before the free breakfast buffet closed at 9:00 a.m. So I trekked back the same way. That usually would mean that I would see a while new set of scenery but this was thought of as a scenic hike from the start so I had already turned around and taken pictures many times. But the hike wasn't long and it was pleasant enough. It wasn't particularly hot even when I arrived near the end and asked someone what time it was. I was told it was only 8:15 a.m. so my breakfast was assured.

I returned to the hostel and we worked out a ride to Ein Gedi with some sojourners--a couple from England. They needed a nap though so I worked on my term paper for a while. We arrived at Ein Gedi around 2:30 p.m. and hiked up Wadi David. There was a stream with waterfalls and a lot of living things in an otherwise very barren area. We got to the top with time to spare so we decided to go back in a round about way. We made it over to the spring and Chacolithic temple. I subsequently read about the folks that lived in that period (c. 4300-3300 b.c.) and learned about their making copper things and about what they ate as well as some other things about them. I decided not to read the section of the chapter about their pottery. Near the end of the hike we made it to the Ein Gedi synagogue. I've been interested in churches and synagogues from around the time of Jesus until the moslem conquest so that was a bonus but then we were done. It was back to Jerusalem.

Weekend Trip to Jaffa and Tel Aviv

2008-06-03T22:43:00.000-07:00

I couldn't really avoid Tel Aviv this time. After all this time, on and off, living in Jerusalem, a friend from the states was actually coming to visit. It's about a one hour project to get down there on public transportation so I could have made it an afternoon project but I decided to make it an excursion.

I looked up things to do in Tel Aviv in a way reminiscent of planning to visit sites in Los Angeles after having rarely been inclined to delve into the place all growing up. Like Los Angeles, I found some sites that could easily keep me entertained for a day or two. I talked to a friend who is also living in Jerusalem and we headed down for an afternoon walking around the old city of Jaffa and most of the next day going to museums in Tel Aviv.

We arrived and found the hostel in Jaffa and were told that there wasn't any room except in a tent on the roof. We probably would have chosen that in any case as it was cheapest and there was no possibility that we would be cold overnight in late May along Israel's coastal plain. We dropped off some stuff and walked around the old city, found a Bulgarian food restaurant to eat at--I found that appealing since I'll soon be passing through Bulgaria on a trip that includes Turkey and Greece. Then it was getting late and there wasn't much else to do. But my friend noticed a theater where something was happening. We crossed the street and found out that it was the Gesher theater--one of the two renouned professional theaters in the Tel Aviv area. We soon found out that the play was by Hanoch Levin--thought by many Israelis as the best playwrite modern Israel has produced. We paid our $20 (in shekels, of course) and went in. As we sat down, I asked our neighbors what the play was about and we discussed the playwrite for the 20 minutes until the play started. The play was professional but unusual. My friend is a science guy and seemed to not appreciate the virtue promoting theme under the crust of the play--a perspective that I find is rewarded in theater both ancient and modern. Nevertheless, he took it as a cultural experience. For me, it was a magic moment. I had heard of Levin and bought a book of a handful of his over 60 published plays but had never arranged to see one produced.

We woke up and after the expected interesting conversations with sojourners in the hostel, we walked along the coast from Jaffa to Tel Aviv. We were soon at the building where the Israeli declaration of independence occurred. It is a solid building that was described by the lecturer we stayed around to overhear as a bomb shelter. The table and chairs are left from the historic day and it was very informative.

The other objective as the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. My friend would soon be off to the Diamond museum as I headed to the airport and he talked as if he had some interest in the art but after I described some different eras and pointed out features of Cezanne, Chagall and Van Gogh's work, he sat on a bench waiting for me to get my fill.

I then asked a worker at the museum how best to get to the train station and was on my way. There are a few other museums in Tel Aviv that I'll try to get to but the couple of days helped me to come to terms with the big city on the coast. Like Los Angeles, there are things there that hold my attention for a day or two hear or there. But for much longer than a couple of museums and an ethnic restaurant, I prefer a smaller pond.

Around the Sea of Galilee

2008-05-12T04:40:00.000-07:00

The bus from Jerusalem to Tiberias went along a highway that goes through an area of arab villages (within Israel) and is, at points, right next to the separation barrier between Israel and the West Bank. We then went west through Wadi Ara past the arab city of Umm al-Fahim. It was a bit memory lane for me as I had visited this area on a previous visit to Israel. We then went down the other side of the hill into the Jezreel Valley. I didn't see the archaeology site of Megiddo but thought a bit about Armaggedon and the future battle in that valley. Soon I saw Nazareth from the south (the main road on which we traveled goes through the Israeli city of Afula in the valley below. We stopped in Afula as is customary on long inter-city bus rides but I felt insecure about getting off in search of water (even though my bottle had been empty since Jerusalem). That was fortunate because the usual fifteen minute stop seem about half that long and I was left to wonder how many people ended their bus ride sooner than they had hoped. Soon we were passing below Mt. Tabor--the site believed by many to be the setting for the Transfiguration. I noticed the sign for the hiking trail and took note of where I would ask the bus driver to stop if I were to want to hike that small mountain in the near future. We continued a few minutes more and started down the other side of another hill and the Sea of Galilee came into view. What a peaceful lake! I was soon to enjoy a long weekend of looking at and across it from various vantage points. The bus soon descended to below sea level and on to the city of Tiberias.

Despite my having planned ahead, a lack of signage lead me to wander around the city in search of the recommended hostel. I went south out of the city and then north out of the city and felt like at least I had my bearings. I decided that I would get into just any hostel and the second one I checked out happened to be the one I had been searching for from the beginning. It was clean and seemed new and, like I expect from a hostel, cheap. I didn't have all that much daylight time left so I stocked up on groceries and settled in for an evening of reading about Hammath--the ancient settlement south of Tiberias. The next morning I arrived there early with a bit of understanding of the site. The hot spring had been the draw of the exact location and I dipped my hand in and confirmed that the water is hot. Along with the ancient synagogue (see other blog entry), I looked around at the Byzantine era city wall, gate and roadway. Finally, I walked through the Ottoman era bathhouse that is now a small museum featuring archaeological finds from the site. Across the street, I noticed the modern spa that uses the waters of the hot spring.

It was Friday and there was more Judaism in store for me. In the early afternoon, I met up with a friend who likes to attend Jewish services and we went in search of information about the messianic congregation. We found out that we wouldn't be able to make it to that service but we ran into an adherent of kabbalim. He invited us to their sabbath service. The group whose meeting we attended is that which some singer named Madonna participates in. It was too fast paced for me. Normally in synagogue, I can barely keep up with the liturgy since I haven't chanted it hundreds of times before and because my hebrew still has its limits. But here, the idea wasn't to read every word but to scan pages at a time, subconsciously absorbing the bolded letters which probably were supposed to convey some meaning when absorbed in that way. As far as I can tell, the exercise had no effect on my theology or sense of inner peace.

Things slowed down and we were invited to join the dinner. That was a mellow paced discussion in which we were told that kabbalah could be practiced by anyone, it isn't just for Jews. I later talked to other informed folks about this group and was informed that the group we visited is very much on the fringe--orthodox Jews treat Kabbalah as the mysteries that only the initiated should be exposed to.

Saturday we went to the Tiberias branch of the Mormon church. Meetings are held in what looks like a rich guy's house (which the church owns) with a wonderful view of the Sea of Galilee.
That afternoon, a few of us threw ourselves a picnic on the south end of the Sea of Galilee and then I lobbied for visiting a site. My friend (not the one I went to Synagogue the evening before) is a licensed tour guide in Israel and he took us to a very interesting site that I don't recall having been aware of before--Susita. Susita was a hellenistic village at the time of Jesus and the archaeologic work there has uncovered a cardo (main street) and a number of buildings. There are pillars all over the place a rock channel for water brought from across a valley. Most interestingly, the site seems to fit the New Testament story of the guy who had the legion of devils expelled from him into a herd of pigs. There is a hill with a bunch of caves, which may have been used for graves; flint so the guy had something to cut himself with; and, of course, the hellenistic folks would have pigs while Jews would not have (dietary cleanliness rules). So we thought about Jesus ascending to the village, encountering the possessed guy ... and the pigs running down into the Sea of Galilee. We considered how the inhabitants may not have liked having their pig supply diminished. I thought that perhaps Jesus was showing his Jewishness a bit by cleaning up the food supply. It was one of those discovery moments that makes educational tourism so interesting.

The next day, we visited the church of the Anunciation in Nazareth. We read about Mary being informed about her upcoming motherhood from one of the gospels and we went around to the various depictions of Mary with Jesus from countries around the world.

After Nazareth, we went to Sippori. It is north of Nazareth and west of Tiberias. I think it is one of the better archaeology sites in all of Israel. It had an ancient synagogue with mosaics similar to those in Hammath Tiberias (which I'll write about separately) and there were houses / palaces / public buildings with many other mosaics. There was also a cardo with more pilars laying around and a Roman theater. The last feature we took in was the cistern. Water storage is pretty important around here and cisterns can sometimes be more interesting than they sound. This one was shaped by a fault in the earth so it felt a bit like the Narrows in Zion's National Park.

I decided to call it a weekend and went to the bus stop to see when I could get on a bus back to Jerusalem. I was informed that I would have to wait until I forget what time unless I was willing to go on the slower bus through the Jordan Valley. I soon realized that I wanted to go on that bus. Not because it was slower (it stopped a bunch of Israeli sites including small settlements in the east side of the West Bank) but because it would be a different path than the route to Tiberias and I could look at different stuff. Before long, I was looking into Jordan and then noticing Israeli settlements as well as arab villages or Bedouin camp. A bit north of Jericho, the bus started ascending to Jerusalem.

Enshrouded in Byzantine Bethlehem

2008-04-15T06:07:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I had a really good Palestinian dinner. There were the typical arab salads but the hummus was better than normal. The rest of the food was great too, but best of all, taboon! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafa . There used to be a restaurant at the entrance to Bethlehem that had excellent taboon bread and I fell in love. It may be that it's crunchy but whatever it is, give me some with some hummus and other arab salads on it and I'm a happy guy. I never used to order a main dish because that, considered an appetizer, was my target. I briefly thought of that restaurant as we entered the city and again as I ate the wonderful meal a few hours later. The restaurant is closed now--probably it just moved because it was really close to the border with Jerusalem. The border held my attention much longer than the beloved simple pleasure of taboon with hummus.

As we approached Bethlehem, we were confronted with the separation barrier and an airport like checkpoint. When I was here in 2003, the construction of this wall / fence was the hot topic but was only beginning to be built. Now, it's an accepted, though by many despised, aspect of the landscape (I'll express opinions relating to the wall soon on my opinion blog). Since the wall is a political reality I haven't witnessed previously, and since it was a controversy I followed years ago, I'm interested in taking a few excursions to see where it divides the Palestinian from Israel and Jewish settlements. The graffiti is a nice touch for a tourist who might otherwise lose interest of the architecturally plain, okay, aesthetically ruinous, wall and we had the taxi driver stop a couple hundred meters after starting to let us take pictures of more art work as we returned to confront it as it winded around the city. As we arrived at Beit Sahur, we had a clear view a Jerusalem suburb (Israeli perspective) / settlement (Palestinian perspective, largely agreed to by the international community), the building of which, was a five star controvery issue from a previous era--Har Homa. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE0DB1531F930A25752C1A96E958260. The project is still being expanded but it has come a long way since the tree clearing started around a decade ago.

The visit was on a Saturday afternoon--Sabbath as practiced by Mormons in Israel for what I understand to be practical reasons. I had been at church a couple of hours before but the though didn't even cross my mind that perhaps I should have thoughts centered on Jesus as I approached the city of his birth. The layer of visual aids for political discussions didn't dominate the day, however. I am interested in Byzantine history and the church of the Nativity is an architecturally exceptional Byzantine edifice (I'll blog about that later, too). Of course the special feature is that this is understood to be the birthplace of Jesus Christ. You walk down the stairs from the main level of the old style church with icons, hanging lamps--basically lots of stuff that's hard for a westerner without a specialized education in the stuff to understand--and you're in a pretty simple 'cave' room where the birth is said to have taken place. A birth--deity entering the mess that we know of as life and a couple taking on responsibilities considerably beyond the awe of generic parenthood. A few short decades later and then a short and exceptionally controversial ministry leading up to the most significant of all events commemorated by another small secluded place enshrouded within another noisy, dark, and hard to comprehend, originally, Byzantine church.

Waste Not Want Not

2008-03-24T03:55:00.000-07:00

"Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." –- Miriam Beard

I have long thought that Europeans know how to live better with less. Since arriving in Amsterdam in late winter and seeing so many dedicated bike-commuters brave wind and rain, I have reflected a lot on this idea. As I have settled into living in Jerusalem I find myself adopting a few small habits that may expressions of this type of wisdom. First, I walk just about everywhere. The most interesting historical sites and museums are not far away and the people I know in town tend to live nearby. I live very close to campus so everyone walks there. Church meetings and grocery shopping are similarly close. The furthest grocery shopping I go to is at the outdoor market on the Jewish side of town. There, I was reminded of an advancement over the reusable burlap sacks I use in the U.S. (which are a great alternative to the paper v. plastic dilemma)--grocery carts. I shopped around and bought a $15 version and the shop keeper told me that a set of replacement wheels costs roughly $3. I was about to stock up so that I could bring them together with the bag back to the states but the shop keeper assured me that he'd always have them and I could get them when I needed them (which for me meant closer to when I leave). To not be disagreeable to held off of the extra investment. I filled my cart with fruits & vegetables, goat yogurt, brown rice & lentils, oil and vinegar.

The student dorms have permanent clothes lines out a bathroom window. It hasn't been used much and even my German roomate seems to use the machine to dry his clothes but I washed it and bought some clothes pins and dried my laundry there. I thought of my sister in Arizona for whom doing such is gospel and thought that I had heard my other sister in Australia does the same. Anyways, it also saves time since the machine isn't in the apartment so machine drying would require me to sit there or go back and forth a couple of times. I had fallen out of the habit of using a clothes rack in the states before discovering the clothes lines here.

Finally, I walk up the three flights of stairs to my apartment rather than taking the elevator. Most people use the elevator. In the elevator shaft there is a light switch that you hit and then it goes off in around 30 seconds. A bit of energy saving engineering. The solar water heaters and gas water heater that supplement it are other examples of engineering things for energy efficiency. The gas water heater doesn't continually keep an amount of water hot as most units in the U.S. do. Rather, you push the button and wait a little while and you use the hot water and then you turn off the switch.

Part of why I have been thinking about these type of things while here is the economic news out of the U.S.--principally the trade deficit http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/03/11/business/11trade.php
--and the weakness of the dollar. From here, resource use in the U.S. seems careless. Purchase of many resources, notably oil, from other countries seem to be taking its toll.

Empty Streets in Jerusalem

2008-03-09T06:44:00.000-07:00

I have settled into life in Jerusalem so I may not have as much to write about as I did about the trip over here. However, enough happened this past weekend to justify writing a few relections.

Thursday is the last day of class at Hebrew University before the weekend so Thursday night is like Friday night in the U.S. The mormon singles group gets together for "FHE" (an activity loosely analogous to Family Home Evening that is meant to strengthen families) on Thursday evenings here so I was there during the early evening (the Mormon singles who participate in the FHE activity includes a foreign service officer, 3 Hebrew University students, one nanny, and two young ladies who, together with their mother, have been alternatively working on a kibbutz and hanging out in Jerusalem for most of the past year). So FHE was nice but not newsworthy but then I walked home and when I came into the dorm, my roomates were watching the news. Terrorism had returned to Jerusalem. Unlike many terrorist attacks, where a random sample of the population is killed on a bus or in a cafe, this one seemed carefully targeted--a yeshiva of modern orthodox Jews. This yeshiva is part of the very group that sets up settlements which are only later recognized by the government. Members of this movement are regularly accused of violence against Palestinians. Still, the victims were youths studying their holy books and by no means legitimate targets (see March 11, 2008 post on salanmooreopinion.blogspot.com regarding this terrorist attack). It may have been the lack of randomness or it may be my having been here before and having felt the shock cycle but this time was completely different--I watched the news with interest for about an hour but felt no stress, no worry, no shock. By the next day I left the apartment without a thought of terrorism in the city where I'm living. And that's in the same week when I shed a tear watching a scene from an Israeli movie as part of a lecture on Ethiopian Jews being brought to Israel.

The weekend extends (on the Jewish side, at least) through Friday and Saturday. Jews start their sabbath Friday at sundown so Friday until sundown is a frenzy to get shopping done and get ready for sabbath. Since most stores are closed on the sabbath, you don't have to be religious to join the frenzy. Moslems have the Friday prayer around noon on Friday but the stores that close are only closed for an hour or two so, as part of the Palestinian weekend, Friday is quite a shopping day as well. So I have a bit of a routine (when I'm in town) where I walk to Jerusalem's old city on Friday morning, see some site or visit the Garden Tomb and read a bit, buy some stuff on the arab side and then go over to the Jewish side (west Jerusalem) to buy some other stuff. While on the Jewish side I try to see some other site before walking back to the dorms.

Before the terrorist attack, the week's news had been dominated by Palestinian rocket fire into Israel and an Israeli raid into Gaza so between the terrorist attack and the rocket fire & response with accompanying protests, I should have been on the alert for something abnormal in the arab market area. By abnormal I would think of kids throwing rocks, Israelis shooting tear gas and other projectiles in response, or Palestinians chanting and marching. But the street was a ghost town. Only one in 5 or 10 shops was open (and fortunately the money changer I trust was one of them) and there were no moving cars on the road. During an intifada this could mean a "strike" to protest some Israeli action or Israel in general and on previous visits I've seen shop owners in that area of town scurry to close shop when the Israeli tax collector was coming around. I asked the money changer if there was going to be a protest and he said no, it was because of "what happened yesterday." The clear implication was that it was collective punishment. Another perspective was that it was to prevent protests over Gaza during the upcoming prayer hour, when Palestinians tend to be particularly politically active. In any case, I passed through the Israeli checkpoint manned by around 30 soldiers and police by showing my Hebrew U. student I.D. I was then on the street running east to west on the north of the old city. This too, was almost completely vacant. Shopping day had been cancelled on the Palestinian side of town.

After I saw that the place that sells whole wheat pita bread was closed, I decided to walk to the other side of town and get to the museum all the sooner. But I ran into a friend of mine who is a freelance photographer. He had studied at the Hebrew University years before and knew some arabic and some hebrew. He says he sells his pictures to the Christian Science Monitor and some London paper that I wasn't careful to remember. So I followed him around for about an hour while he took pictures of the relatively empty old city. Once he got what he was looking for, an Israeli soldier escorting an arab under the age of 45 out of the city (over 45 or female and you can pray regardless of the political tension).

I spent the next couple of hours in the Israeli museum and the market on the Jewish side. Then I bought a cheap falafel sandwich (around here I would just say I bought 'a falafel' and everyone would know that it was the whole sandwich rather than one falafel ball) and went to a Christian church that is trying to appeal to Jews by having their service in hebrew and on Friday afternoon. It wasn't bad and the hebrew lesson that I made it into made the pit stop worth while. It was a bit disappointing though as I had been told it was a Messianic Jew hangout and I didn't see one kippa in the whole place. So I walked home. The quickest way was straight through an orthodox neighborhood so I put my shopping bags in my backpack to be less offensive. It was early evening but the sun was down and Jews in orthodox garb were wandering the streets in the most calm manner imaginable--young children barely in range of their mother's view while the men were in or walking to synogogue. There were no cars on the streets which added to the sense of peace--religious Jews don't drive on their sabbath and the government protects the sabbath environment in these neighborhoods by forebidding driving by others. It was nice to see sabbath being enjoyed but I couldn't help reflect on the tense empty street hours earlier on the other side of town.

Sojourners and Newborns

2008-03-05T06:07:00.000-08:00

On February 2, 2008 I flew from London to Istanbul. I expected to spend the time reading a chapter or two in a book called Balkan Ghosts, which is about south-eastern Europe. I would be in Turkey rather than countries such as Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Albania but I may make it over to Bulgaria for a few days this summer so I thought to get a little idea about the history.

Melita Kabashi, who was sitting next to me, noticed my book and struck up a conversation. She is from Kosova and we spent most of the flight talking about her homeland and her experiences studying in the U.S. The conversation was memorable and I thought about Melita when I read the news of Kosova's February 17, 2008 declaration of Independence while in Eilat. Yesterday, I heard a lecture by Albania's ambassador to Israel explaining why Albania supports Kosova's having become independent and why other countries should as well (around 81 countries already have) and today Melita wrote to me pointing out her blog entry in which she shares her thoughts from her newborn country's independence day (http://lucididiocyblog2.blogspot.com/ --scroll down to March 3, 2008, the title is "Newborn").

Meeting interesting people isn't something you include in your itinerary but the discussion I had with Melita Kabashi on the plane was at least as memorable as the museum's or bicycles in Amsterdam or historic sites in Istanbul. Years previously, all night discussions with students leaving the city for an Islamic holiday during an overnight train ride from Cairo to Luxor was at least as memorably as the ancient sites that had motivated the trip.

Since being back in Israel, I have met up with or ran into a number of people I knew from previous trips and have made quite a few new acquaintances. Of course it isn't necessary to travel to meet interesting people but airplanes, youth hostels, and foreign universities seem like fertile places for to get out of one's social comfort zone.

Byzantine Monuments in Istanbul

2008-02-21T06:32:00.000-08:00

Between Amsterdam and Israel, I spent a bit over a week in Istanbul. This was my second visit to Istanbul. Istanbul is one of those places where there are historic sites all over the place--especially within the large walled old city. On my first visit to Istanbul for three days in 2003, I took along a book about the architect Mimar Sinan. He was the architect for Sulieman the Magnificant at the height of the Ottoman Empire. This time, I dug a bit deeper into history and focused on Byzantine monuments (warning: this entry is almost straight from my notes and may be of little interest unless you're traveling to Istanbul).

Many Byzantine buildings all look like they are going to fall apart. Most are made of bricks that are no longer smooth and which are no longer painted over with shiny stuff that probably made the buildings much more impressive. Still, the structures are interesting and the art within--most notably mosaics--still hold their luster.

Here's my list of the best Byzantine works in Istanbul:

Hagia Sophia
A church, a traditional basilica much smaller than the Hagia Sophia of today, was first planned on the site by Constantine and built by his son Constantius around 360. However, this was burnt in 404 A.D. during riots that resulted from the banishment of the popular churchman St. John Chrysostom. The Emperor Teodosius (408-450) ordered the construction of the second church. This was finished in 409 A.D. This church was similar to the first. In 532 A.D., there was a riot against Justinian I during which the church was again destroyed. Justinian I put down the rebellion and had the much larger church built that continues to stand today (there have been many renovations and additions which I won't attempt to describe here). The Hagia Sophia was dedicated by Justinian in 537 c.e.

The Hagia Sophia follows the basilica layout (is rectangular) as is common Byzantine church architecture but it features a central dome with half-domes to the east and west. Freely and Cakmak evaluate this innovation: "Glorious as is the [central] dome, it is the introduction of the semidomes that constitutes the real triumph of genius. For in addition to lengthening the nave [the central area of the church], they make it possible to appreciate from the very threshold the soaring, hovering height; they allow the dome, in short, to play its true and full part in the total effect" (93-94). That is to say, if there weren't half-domes, the walls on the next level lower than the dome would have obstructed the view and the observer would have to stand under the central dome and look straight up to see it.

The Hagia Sophia, as built by Justinian I, had a courtyard with covered walkways around the three sides (the sides that did not include the main section of the building). These walkways surrounded a fountain (Freely & Carmak, 98). Although this area no longer exists, realizing that it was part of the Justinian's Hagia Sophia helps one to appreciate the impact of this building on the Ottoman style mosque that reached it's height with the architect Sinan over 1000 years later. These Ottoman mosques similarly have a courtyard preceding the entry with covered walkways around three sides. The other most prominant borrowed feature is that many mosques have two half-domes. However, where the building has a square, rather than rectangular layout, there are four half domes.

Wikipedia has some photos and additional explaination of the many features of the Hagia Sophia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia

The Church of Sergius and Bachus (Kucuk Ayasofya Mosque)
This is the oldest surviving church in Istanbul—built by the Emperor Justinian in 525A.D.. (like the Hagia Sophia, it was designed by Justinian's chief architect, Anthemius). During the reign of the Emperor Justin, Justinian was blamed for having a plot against Justin. Justin was planning on severely punishing Justinian but two local saints, Sergius and Bachus appeared to Justin in a dream and asked him to forgive his cousin Justinian. Justinian, once in power, showed gratitude to the two saints by having this church constructed in their memory. The exterior of the building is overwhelmingly Byzantine but there have been additions since it became a mosque. There is a portico in front and, of course, a mineret. In addition, there are Islamic tombstones on two sides of the mosque. There is a courtyard that appears original but the fountain in the middle of the courtyard appears to have been added very recently. It was interesting to note that the courtyard in front of the mosque seemed similar to the typical Ottoman layout. It may be that this too was copied from the Byzantines. The exterior deserves various perspectives. I walked around the neighborhood to see it from various angles. The interior of the building has the appearance of a contemporary mosque. The design must be of the original Byzantine and there is a second floor around the outside of the building—similar, in concept, to the Hagia Sophia—but it would require some study to appreciate the design given the Islamic designs. I noticed the columns but don’t recall the types and what appeared to be a bit of original masonry at a particular junction. The dome which is divided into 16 sections.

The Chora Church (now Kariye Museum)
The Chora Museum was built in the 6th century but re-decorated between 1316 and 1321 by Theodora Metochites. A “statesman” who spent his time and money embellishing this church. The church was expanded: "The shell of the Comnenian nave was left in place, but its dome was built anew; the two narthexes and the mortuary parecclession to the south of the church are due to Metochites. ... // the architecture hardly stands comparison witht he deservedly famous mosaics and frescoes of the interior, upon which ... Metochites lavished the greater part of his attention" (Cyril Mango, Byzantine Archicture, 271). I came across commentary saying the the architecture is not proportional. The notable embellishments are the frescos and mosaics. The one that kept me gazing is of Jesus and is sometimes referred to as "land of the living" which has some theological meaning that I don't know about. For a picture of this mosaic, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Chorachrist.jpg

In mid-July 2008 I returned to this church and spent some time drawing it. I noticed the south fourth of the facade is substantially darker than the remainder, being maroon while other sections are pink and white.

Hagia Eirene
This is just inside the wall to the Topkapi palace. It is probably the oldest surviving Byzantine church in Istanbul, roughly contemporary with Justinian's Hagia Sofia.

The Church of the Pantocrator
Just west of the most visible portion of the aqueduct, near the Zeyrek neighborhood there is a compound with two churches and a chapel (now known as the Zeyrek Mosque), and formerly a monestary: a church dedicated to the Virgin Eleousa, the Merciful or Charitable sponsored by Emperor John II Conmenum and the Church of the Pantocrator, dedicated to St. Savior Pantocrator and sponsored by Empress Eirene. Empress Eirene died in 1124 and was buried in the church (her sarcophogus is now in the exonarthex of the Aya Sofia). The Empresses church was built first and John II added his church after Eirene's death. The Emperor also had the churches connected by adding a chapel between the two churches. This required the demolition of part of the exterior walls of the two buildings. Inside the building, original marble in and around the apse stands out.

The Church of St. Mary Pammakaristos (Fethiye Mosque)
This building is located in the north-west section of Istanbul's walled old city, up the hill from the Golden Horn. It is near the Patriarch of Rum's residence. The church was built after the Crusaders were ousted from Constantinople in 1261 (where they had ruled since 1204).

I soaked up the interior and exterior of the small church and appreciated the explanations of what the mosaics and frescoes represented. Otherwise I would have thought the twelve prophets around the interior of the dome were the twelve apostles. I spent some time looking at the mosaic of Christ in the center of the same dome.

The City Walls
One day I walked around much of Istanbul’s old city walls. The walls were originally built by Anthemius, the prefect of the Eastern Empire during the reign of Emperor Theodosius II (408-450). These walls were destroyed in an earthquake in 447. Then Constantine, the next Prefect of the city, rebuilt them in time to stop Attila the Hun from conquering the city. Theodosius’s walls consisted of a moat and three successive walls and stretched for 6.5 kilometers. These walls protected the city for nearly 1000 years. The walls and gates are currently being restored. The pre-restoration walls have certainly crumbled but I prefer these originals to the restored versions.

The Golden Gate / Kedikule (Byzantine & Ottoman fortress)
On the southwest corner of the old city, near the Marmara is the gate built by Theoldosius I. This was used for triumphal state processions into and out of the city. When Theodosius II built the land wall between the Marmara and the Golden Horn, he incorporated this gate into the wall.
The fortress around the Golden Gate had four towers in Byzantine times (Mehmet the Conquerer (Ottoman) added the semi-circular wall on the peninsula side of the wall which has three additional towers).

The Aqueduct of Valens
Valens ruled from 364 to 378. There is a literary source mentioning an aqueduct built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian much earlier than Valens. Some speculate that the "Aqueduct of Valens" may be this aqueduct (see Byzantine Monuments of Istanbul, 11).

"The Romans built an aqueduct to carry water into the city during the reign of Hadrian (r. 117-38). This may be the structure known today as the Valens Aqueduct, but there is no definite evidence to support this supposition" (Byzantine Monuments of Istanbul, 11).

The Basilica Cistern
The cistern The Basilica Cistern is the largest of several hundred cisterns that still lie beneath Istanbul. It is 143 by 65 meters and can hold 80,000 cubic meters of water. There are 336 marble columns (12 rows by 28 columns), each 9 meters high. The columns have capitals in the Ionic and Corinthian style but some of the columns are in no sense decorative. It would be interesting to try to determine which part that was the Basilica and which is the extension. I imagine the expansion areas are where there is little concern for aesthetics as these were to be under water. It is believed that the emperor Constantine had built a basilica and cistern on the spot but that the emperor Justinian I, in the 6th century, responded to a greater demand for water by incorporating the basilica into an enlarged cistern. The cistern is surrounded by a 4 meter thick firebrick wall that is coated with a special mortar for waterproofing. Water from the Belgrade Woods, which lie 19 km north of the city, was brought to the cistern via aqueducts, also built by Justinian.

Mosaic Museum
The mosaic museum features sections of mosaics from Constantinople's Great Palace, which was located where the Blue Mosque is now. My favorite scene is of a man milking a goat.

The Hippodromo
Along with being an ancient sports stadium, a Hippodromo had ceremonial functions. It was also quasi-political as the populous expressed it's attitude towards emperors there. It is believed that the Hippodromo in Constantinople could seat 50,000 people and 30,000 rebels met their doom there after rebelling against Justinian I. The site was such that the empire could display it's glory there which may explain why there is an Egyptian obilisk and what at first seems like a random carved thing in the middle of a park in the most historic section of Istanbul. The latter is part of a statue of three intertiwined serpents (who'se heads are no longer evident except in the adjacent Istanbul Archaeological Museum) which used to be a trophy that once stood in the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. These mark the middle of the Hippodromo's chariot race track. These were on "a raised terrace ... which was adorned with a line of statues, obelisks, and columns" (Freely & Cakmak, 17). The once glorious Hippodromo is otherwise easily missed--tourist books refer to this raised terrace in the middle of the race track as "the spina" but may not explain that this was the part of the Hippodromo. I happened across the curved walls as I walked down the hill towards The Kucuk Ayasofya Church of Sergius and Bachus. The walls of a Hippodromo are evident but unexplained. There are buildings on top so there isn’t a lot to see. The arched doorways are still evident but have been blocked up to prevent collapse. The visual effect is not particularly impressive but knowing where it is at least contributes to an understanding of the layout of the Byzantine city. The above drawing is by by Onofrio Panvinio(Venice, 1600, based on an earlier drawing). It and other views of the hippodrome can be found at: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/circusmaximus/sphendone.html

Constantine's Pilar
I walked by Constantine's pilar numerous times before identifying it as such. It was enveloped in scaffolding which made it difficult to appreciate although it is notable as one of the few surviving monuments from Constantine's brief rule in the city after moving the Roman Empire's capital to Constantinople.

The Million
The remains of the free standing arch that used to be the basis for distance measurements in the Byzantine era are hardly recognizable as the section of column that it is. The utility it served long ago made it an interesting glance.

Location of Byzantine Sites
The sites I've mentioned are big name sites that can be found on a tourist map you would pick up in the city or in your tour guide book. The Hagia Sophia, The Kucuk Ayasofya Church of Sergius and Bachus (a.k.a. the Kucuk Ayasofya Mosque), the Mosaic Museum, and the Basilica Cistern are on the east side of the old city, near the Topkapi Palace and Sultanahmet mosque. The Chora Museum, or Kariye Muzesi, is in the north-west section of the old city. The Wall is best observed near the Chora Museum and northward to the Golden Horn.

The Byzantine sites I have not visited but would like to include the Binbirdirek Cistern and the Palace of Antiochus as well as a sea Palace along the Marmara near the tip of the Peninsula (which has remains which would be hard to identify without descriptions). I found the book Byzantine Monuments of Istanbul by Freely & Carmak to be ideal for the scholarly tourist--concise history, clear architectural descriptions and plenty of photos and graphics.

Tel Aviv Airport to "the Shelter"

2008-02-21T05:14:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Tel Aviv in the early afternoon and took a train and then bus to a suburb of Tel Aviv called Bat Yam. A friend of mine from BYU who grew up in Israel had heeded my yelps for help after the Hebrew University had informed me that the dorms weren't available until a number of days later than I had thought. I could pay for the extra days but then I heard that snow was forecasted for Jerusalem.

The two nights and one day in Bat Yam were a soft landing. The mom cooks like she means it and we hit a nice restaurant in Jaffa's old city (I sort of thought of it as my "rent" and swallowed hard when the bill came). During my one day there, I took a bus ride to Ashkelon to see it's archeology park. The site was next on my list from a previous visit to Israel--I'd say it is a second tier site that might not hold much interest for someone who hasn't already spent a couple of years in Israel and who has read up on the history of the city as I happen to have.

The following morning I made a quick trip to Jerusalem to meet up with some LDS folks in Jerusalem who had planned a birthday dinner in Ramallah with a member of the branch who lives there. I also tried to get the ball rolling in Hebrew University's bureaucracy so that my real arrival later would be smoother than it otherwise would have been. The birthday party was for an American woman who long ago, while at ASU, had married a Palestinian Christian. Their children are not at school in the U.S.A. It was nice to catch up with her and hear about the how those who had been teenagers when I had seen them last were doing. It was also nice to meet some of the LDS folks living in and around Jerusalem.

The next day, intending to escaped the cold weather (including a day with snow) and be in a corner of Israel that will be difficult to take the time to see once school starts, I headed to Jerusalem's central bus station intending to catch a bus to Eilat. When I first approached the bus the driver said a rough equivalent of "too bad" since I didn't have a reservation. I turned to walk away before remembering that I'm in Israel and if you take no for an answer here you get pushed aside all the time. So I stayed with a group of almost 10 others for whom there wasn't room. Finally, the bus driver let us on and we stood, sat, or laid down in the aisles or doorways for the 4 hour trip to the southern tip of the country. A young man pittied me after a couple of hours and traded places with me and then as people got off I managed to get a seat of my own. Much of the drive was along the shore of the Dead Sea which kept my attention as I listed to an hour long hebrew short story on a book on tape--about three times.

Among those at the Birthday dinner, were a young lady and her mother. The daughter had stayed in "The Shelter" in Eilat and recommended it. She talked a little about Christian discussions but didn't give me fair warning that staying at "The Shelter" is truly an experience. The name "Shelter" comes from a reference to verse in Isaiah but there's a sense in which 'homeless shelter' fits as well. Not only is it the cheapest place in town, but you can sleep on the ground outside for half the price (this was only available for males and there were more males outside than in). But folks looking for a cheap night's sleep isn't what's "Shelter" about the "Shelter." There is a guy who comes there every morning to pick up his metal detector so he can make his living at the beach and there is some mystery guest who has stolen 30 mugs in 30 days. One of the volunteers warned me that the homeless come in and take food out of the guest refrigerator all the time.

So what's the charm of the "Shelter?" The pastor runs the hostel as a fund raiser for his work with Sudanese refugees. His Sudanese refugees aren't Darfurians but southern Sudanese Christians--many of whom spent years in Egypt before coming to Israel (only a trickle does so). I was first exposed to this "mission" on Friday evening. As I checked in I was invited to the outreach meeting and was told that there was a Sabbath dinner afterwards. I like seeing other religions in action and I'm not one to turn down free food so I stuck around. It turns out that among the 200people at the meeting, there were people from all over the world including probably 50 from Sudan. The first half was singing with song in various languages in turn. The preaching was quite a scene. The preacher had his say for a few words and then translators yelled out the meaning in Russian, Spanish, and Arabic (I was sitting by three Chinese and the translation for them was more subdued).

If I make it back to Eilat within the next couple of months I hope to have additional discussions with two young ladies--one from the Netherlands who volunteers with the Sudanese and hence stays free at the shelter and a Canadian (Teresa from the Eilat hiking post) who volunteers at the Shelter and so gets opportunities to serve the Sudanese. Teresa mentioned that when the children first came, they took them to a play ground and the children had no idea what to do there. The young lady from the Netherlands says they are making progress. Their fate is uncertain so she says there is no use teaching them hebrew but there is a lot of progress they can make towards fitting in in a western system if they make it to one.

After four days and five nights of budget accomodations I caught the 7:00 a.m. bus to Jerusalem--$100 (including hostel and round trip bus fare) plus the cheapest food I could find poorer but with a bit wider range of what won't faze me.

Hiking in Eilat's Mountains

2008-02-17T05:59:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Eilat on Friday and was soon looking over a hiking map at the hostel. The wife of the hostel director is a hiking enthusiast so she asked me what my hiking plans were. She then suggested some hikes. So I had a rough idea the next morning but I thought I should get oriented so I walked out of town towards the mountains and, before too long, found the trailhead of what looked like the best hiking area. I went a ways further to scout it out and decided on a trail that looked encouraging but returned to the hostel thinking that I'd found a hike for the next day.

Upon returning to the hostel, I encountered two young ladies putting dark brown stuff on their bread. I thought it was Vegimite so I asked them if they were from Australia. It turns out that they were from the Netherlands so I mentioned that I had recently been in Amsterdam and we chatted for a few minutes. I soon found out that they were intending on taking a hike but weren't clear where things were. One of the volunteers at the hostel started explaining to them about their hiking options and suggested the very path I had thought looked good. I invited myself to be their guide and off we went.

The hike was about 3 hours long and included a peak of a small mountain with great views over the city, sea, and Aqaba—the Jordanian city next to Eilat.

Most of the trail was through extremely barren desert--there was not a tree or even a bush in sight most of the time. There were a couple of birds but no other signs of life. I think of hiking as primarily exercise but being in the wilderness can bring a deep relaxation that doesn't seem to be available in a city or suburb. The aesthetic appeal of the route is a bonus. I felt no particular awe at this desert scenery but the view from the peak was nice. We saw into Jordan and may have seen into Saudi Arabia and were a few kilometers from Egypt.

After the view from the peak, we were soon in a wadi--a dry river bed. The aforementioned wife of the hostel director had said that it hadn't rained all winter. There were finally trees and the run-off had shaped the banks in an interesting enough way. While still desert, the variety was certainly appreciated.

After the hike we went to the beach. It was warm enough and most people escaping the snow in Jerusalem probably thought of the beach as the main attraction but a couple minutes in the water and twenty on a beach chair and I was done. Perhaps if I had brought a watermelon, newspaper, book, and volleyball as I had when was a teenager the beach would have kept me content longer. I have said on other occasions that, having moved from California to Utah, I prefer the mountains to the beach and this day certainly confirmed that.

The next morning I woke up and did the same hike with a young man from Switzerland, Mattias, and a young man from Poland. I would have rested for a day but Mattias had a couple of friends who had other plans for other days so he really wanted to get some hiking in and I relented and we followed the same trek. I often hike the same paths many times so I didn't mind. Different features stood out and the conversation was different so I returned content but insistent that I would take a day off the next day.

Legs well rested, I mapped out what turned out to be a seven hour hike. The hiking map had featured areas, one of which was the Black Canyon which became the objective. This is part of the Israel Trail--a trail from the north to the south of the small country. On the designated day, while it was scheduled to snow in Jerusalem, it was a bit cloudy and around 60 degrees (14 C) in Eilat. Mattias' buddies decided that the beach wouldn't be so pleasant so they were willing to hike. Along with that group of three guys, Teresa, one of the hostel volunteers joined in. The hike went smoothly--no wrong turns and the only surprise being a small mountain after the canyon--I hadn't taken much note of topography but no complaints: more good views over the region. The Black Canyon itself was nice--a slot canyon but nothing like The Narrows in Zion's National Park. We saw a small mountain goat and a few birds. More wadis, a few more of the same type of trees, very quiet except we talked a lot. Our stories seem to be more interesting to fellow travelers from different corners of the world but common issues like immigration seemed to be on the agenda of both the U.S. and Switzerland.

We arrived back at the hostel thoroughly worn out and ready for a shower. One of the sojourners complimented my having been an effective navigator, I turned down an invitation to the brazilian meat buffet and went to sleep around eight.

Amsterdam: Cyclist Paradise

2008-02-03T09:47:00.000-08:00

I arose very early on my fırst day in Amsterdam. I read for a couple of hours before sunrise and took abundant advantage of the hotel’s buffet breakfast. Then I decided to wait for the museums’ opening by riding the metro through the city (with little other motivation than to avoid sitting around in the hotel). As I expected, I noticed landmarks I had read about and started getting oriented. But more than the city’s remarkable architectural appeal, I became absorbed watching the city’s innumerable bike-commuters (I subsequently came across the fact that 40% of travel within Amsterdam is by bicycle). I arrived at the central station, situated next to the water, where trains into the city and metro lines converge. I noticed the multi-level bicycle parking complex with what must have been thousands of bicycles. I hopped on another metro and almost immediately after I had decided to get off and walk, a bike commuter gently rang his bell to signal his approach. I realized that I was on the half of the sidewalk that was designated for cyclists. I subsequently took note that intersections had signals and crossing paths specifically for cyclists as well as the normal pedestrian and car signals.

In the early afternoon, after four hours between the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh museum, I began my walkıng to sites of secondary interest in earnest. It was only then that I noticed that along with the young urban professional bike commuters, people of all age bike around in Amsterdam and some sacrifice comfort to do so. I noticed people struggling to keep cadence and a few grimaces in the face of a very cold January day’s wind and the early evening’s reasonably heavy rain. While some cyclists seemed to be extra cautious, and one or two seemed annoyed, none seemed to question the wisdom of their preferred mode of transportation (as I seem to do whenever I encounter less than optimal weather conditions or any other obstacle during of my rare bike commutes).

Along with accomodating cıty planning and the dedication of the cyclists themselves, I noticed that drivers were courteous to cyclists. The cyclists seemed to feel safe as almost none wore a helmet. Through a discussion wıth a resident of Amsterdam, I learned that cycling is a similar phenomenon in the whole of the Netherlands. I’m now on the lookout for a cyclist friendly U.S. cities http://www.bicyclefriendlycommunity.org/ and already dreaming of taking a bike tour through the Netherlands--in better weather, of course.

Amsterdam's Museums

2008-01-18T19:49:00.000-08:00

Visits to the Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum motivated my two day excursion to Amsterdam so I went to the city's museum quarter first thing Thursday morning and again Friday evening (when the two museums stay open late). In between, I visited the Civil Guard’s gallery, the Amsterdam Historical Museum, The Dutch Resistance Museum, the Anna Frank House and a few historic churches, including a Catholic church that was hidden within a canal house—but had an organ.

The Rijksmuseum opened at 9:00 a.m. and I arrived there shortly thereafter. I enjoyed Rembrandt’s “Old Man Reading,” “Jeremia Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem” and a couple of paintings for which Rembrandt's son Titus modeled. I wasn’t touched by his “Isaac and Rebbeca” / “The Jewish Bride” as I had expected to have been.

I had read about Rembrandt’s “The Night Watch” before arriving in Amsterdam and spent considerable time soaking it in in the museum. I learned that the work had been cut down so that it could be displayed in a certain display place back in the day. However, a copy of the work before trimming had made and was on display. The central figure of the piece was more clearly centered in the original and the bridge upon which the militia group is gathered is seen to be above a lower arch. A visit to the Civil Guard's gallery between my two visits to Rijksmuseum provided context for Rembrandt's masterpiece--militia groups would commission paintings and the members ofthe group that could afford to contribute were shown. Typically, the group was seen around a table or lined up in one or two rows almost as portraits in a yearbook. In some, there aren't even any weapons. Rembrandt's group portrait is unique in that the militia group is shown in action.

There were many other paintings that caught my eye in the Rijksmuseum's "The Masterpieces" exhibit (the highlights displayed in one wing of the museum while the building undergoes renovations). Jan Lievens’ “Still Life with Old Books” stood out to me but my favorite was Vermeer’s “The Kitchen Maid” (I anticipate commenting further on “The Night Watch” and “The Kitchen Maid” on my anticipated art commentary blog).

During my second visit to the Rijksmuseum,I revisited my favorites from the previous day and took time with the historical paintings including two of ships by Willem Vande Velde and a portrait the nationally renown naval commander Michiel de Ruyter, who’s tomb is in Amsterdam’s Nieuwe Kerk (“New Church” which is only new when compared with the city’s old church). The city’s past naval and colonial glory is celebrated in the Amsterdam Historical Museum but I didn’t take a lot of time there. I took slightly more time in the Dutch Resistance Museum—which makes the case that the Dutch didn’t support the Nazi’s during the World War II occupation.

In the Van Gogh museum I encountered a few of a series of ten paintings Van Gogh based on peasants painted by Millet. These were made in Van Gogh’s agressively flowing late style and in bright colors in contrast to the somber colored peasants he painted earlier. I planted myself in front of “Still Life with Bible” and noticed the charm of the young woman in “The Potato Eaters” together with a portrait of her. I can’t decide if I prefer Van Gogh’s early peasants and other somber pieces from his work in Nuenen or the passionate paintings of his last days. Throughout, Van Gogh’s feelings are certainly evident.

On my second visit to the Van Gogh museum I observed some of his drawings and then went back down for a look at the paintings they were studies for. I’ll finish “Lust for Life” by Irving Stone tomorrow.