Lycia, from Xanthos to Myra
The Lycians cut their tombs into the cliffs above their towns, wrote in an alphabet of their own and governed this coast as a league. Their cities, west to east, and the hours of the day that suit them.
Journal
Notes on places, seasons and ways of travelling here.
Istanbul from the water
Istanbul grew up facing the water, and when the bridges are full it is still the way across. The ferries, the Golden Horn, a boat of your own, and the hour each shore is in the light.
When to go, place by place
Spring and autumn suit almost everywhere. The sea, the high pastures and the holidays keep calendars of their own: each place in its season, and how to put two of them together.
More to read
Cappadocia, once the balloons have landed
At dawn the whole of Cappadocia looks at the same sky. The rest of the day belongs to those who stay: painted churches at opening, wine from the rock, clay in Avanos, and a valley walked in the late light.
How Istanbul eats
A breakfast that takes the morning, lunch where the tradesmen eat, something sweet in the afternoon and a long meyhane evening of meze, rakı and the month’s fish. The city’s day in meals, and how to order in each.
Bodrum’s gulets, and the coves the wind allows
Bodrum’s wooden gulets carried cargo, fishermen and sponge divers long before they carried anyone on holiday. What the boat is, why the summer wind chooses the coves, and when one day aboard is enough.
Tea, mist and the high pastures of the eastern Black Sea
Forest down to the shore, rain that keeps the tea green, and above the clouds the high pastures where families still spend the summer. The other Türkiye, between June and September.
Downhill from the Grand Bazaar to the Golden Horn
The Grand Bazaar is only the front room: behind it the old trading quarter runs downhill through workshops and the city’s own market to the water. How to walk it, and how to buy a carpet without being sold one.
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