I know many of you already know and love this amazing, vibrant city.  It had been 17 years since I had been there and it has changed so much. Many people now speak English and many are fluent in Spanish too, due to Istanbul’s increased popularity as a tourist destination for people from all over Europe.  This was my chance to get to know the city and explore alone.

Many of the old areas of Istanbul are now being “gentrified”. Just like at home here in Merida, there is a new appreciation for the old architecture and for the advantages of living in the center of the city. Unfortunately prices have sky-rocketed, although I am sure the old homes in the city center are still a good investment. Unlike Merida where most homes are single story, Istanbul’s Ottoman homes are three or four stories high and are being divided into flats. Apartments, or flats, are the most economical option for most people, whether buying a second home or retiring full-time to Istanbul. They purchase one or perhaps two levels in the home, which then is operated as a co-op or condominium.

Our huge older homes in Merida often got divided into slices as families grew, but there are separate footprints and the homes have separate titles. You can see this on some blocks in the city, where there are two to four homes that share a common architecture or even the same roofline, but are painted different colors and now have different addresses. In Merida, because of this, we have no need for the co-op model.  The other big difference between Merida and Istanbul are the construction materials.

In Istanbul, wood was and still is plentiful. And between the wood, they use brick, another Merida rarity.  Here in Merida, when you open a wall,  you find rock and more rock, held together with lime mortar. In Istanbul, both old and new construction includes wood and brick.

The narrow winding lanes lined with tall houses on each side have meant that major fires have gutted and destroyed much of Istanbul’s old architecture. Still,  much remains and can be a challenge to restore…  so much so that in some cases I wasn’t sure whether I was seeing a house being built from scratch or a restoration!  It was quite difficult to get good photographs, too. The owners thought it would be dangerous to have me wandering about on their scaffolding and I also felt sure that some work was being done without all permits being entirely in place. This doesn’t mean that the work was being done badly or not up to standard. I have been told paperwork can be extremely tedious and time consuming in Turkey… always one more rubber stamp to be obtained and another few month’s wait while paperwork sits in the pile.

Here in Merida, while that may have been the case years ago, nowadays we are thankful to have a far more organized permitting system, making it relatively easy and cheap to get your plans approved and work started.

The town of Mardin, is carved into terraces of rock beneath a steep cliff topped with a ruined citadel. It looks out from its perch over the dry plains which run uninterrupted the short distance to the border with Syria. Here, there is one drivable street and a spider’s web of narrow alleys running up and down and around the terraces on which the town is built. Mardin reminded me a little of Zacatecas, Mexico! The town is flanked on both sides with three- and four-story stone houses. No wood here. I noticed this in other parts of Turkey too… stone where we would use wood. In the photo you can clearly see the stone corbels supporting the second story. (Even here in Yucatan where there is much more stone than wood, our corbels are always made from wood.)

This contrasts with Istanbul, where the old houses are almost entirely wood, and few remain after fires, neglect and termite attacks. In Mardin, stone protects your home from these hazards, and the snake goddess will protect it from all others! Just to be on the safe side, locally made Mardin soap, pure and natural will take care of any physical ailments.

We detoured through the town of Diyarbakir, one of the largest cities in southeastern Turkey. At 1.5 million people, it’s about 50% larger than Merida is today. We went there to see the famous black basalt walls which form a 3.4 mile circle around the city and have protected the city for more than a thousand years. These are second in length only to the Great Wall of China.  There are four gates and 82 watchtowers along the walls, all built in antiquity and RESTORED in 349 A.D. (I wonder if any of Merida’s restored houses will last that long…).

In the 20th Century, the city went through many turbulent times, including massacres of Armenians and Kurds.  It was also the site of a major NATO Air Force Base for many years, but this was closed down in 1997. And Diyarbakir has been a center for Kurdish guerilla activity…but as you can see, the locals were singularly unthreatening! (And THAT reminded me of almost all of Mexico… reported in the press to be dangerous, but warm and welcoming and safe when you actually go there…)

Diyarbakir is situated on the banks of the Tigris and was once a hub of the ancient Silk Roads.  It became known for its craftsmen who produced glass and metalwork.  For instance, the gold and silver decorated doors of the tomb of Imam-i Azam in Baghdad were made by craftsmen from Diyarbakir.  There are still some jewelry makers and silversmiths in the city, but the fame of the craftsmen from here has long passed.

Today this city is relatively unvisited by tourists. This is a city where I would love to spend more time.

The main joy of traveling and the impetus to get out and see the world is always the people we meet along the way.

Here in my last photo are two more little friends from Eastern Turkey.

I have been away from the office now for more than a month. The work goes on at Tierra Yucatan, of course, and the wonders of modern communications have let me stay on top of business from some fairly distant parts of the world. For the last few weeks of June that distant part of the planet was Eastern Turkey, on the borders with Syria and Iran.  Eastern Turkey is less developed than the western part of the country and is filled with fascinating people and cultures. People come to this austere landscape of desert and mountains to get a glimpse of ancient cultures through architecture, museums and the living descendants of those cultures… much like they do when they come to the Yucatan.  Ruins and sites date back to before Biblical times… the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament mentions that Abraham and his family lived in Harran for awhile, and this is a city that I visited.

Of course, although the history and archaeology always fascinate me, I found myself consistently wandering off in the direction of interesting architecture. I thought you might like to see some photos and hear about what I saw there.

The mud brick and rock “beehive houses” of Harran (also called Altınbaşak)  are quite unique in Turkey, but I did learn that there are villages in Syria that still are using this method of construction.  The house in the photograph here (and in the photo gallery on our Facebook page) consists of 26 rooms! Each room has a conical roof built of mud brick with no mortar.  The bricks are placed so that each is slightly overlapping the one below. Gravity and I’m convinced a little bit of prayer hold them all in place as the cone narrows towards the top.  A small opening at the tip of the cone allows hot air to vent, and I found the whole house to be deliciously cool and breezy. Even the kitchen, pictured below and to the right, was cool enough. And you can see from the photo how the bricks are the basic building element, which are then covered over with mud. There are not as many colors in the architecture here as we have in Merida – mostly earth tones and the villages blend into the landscape… this architecture is more analogous to the Mayan huts that you see in the countryside outside the city.

These houses are really family compounds, built around a central courtyard where all family activities take place.  As the family grows and children marry, new mud brick rooms are easily added and the house expands. If you feel like enjoying the experience, there is even a compound in the village that serves as a simple hotel where visitors can spend a night or two! I found the architecture fascinating, but was happy to sleep in my more modern hotel.

The architecture in Harran is so different from our colonial architecture in Merida, but I noticed some similarities to both the colonial homes and the Maya houses. The houses in Turkey and the colonial homes of Merida are often centered around a courtyard, the place where the family gathers and enjoys visiting. That is true here in the Yucatan as well, where our courtyards are often the most beautiful place in the home… totally private and hidden from the public eye. The Mayans, on the other hand, seem to build family compounds by having a group of separate oval-shaped houses that all share the same property and often have a common kitchen. Merida doesn’t have the same rug tradition as the Middle East, but in Merida’s colonial homes, we adorn our floors with tapetes (rugs) of tile. Everyone around the world loves a beautiful floor! And it is certainly true that a beautiful handmade Kilim rug looks beautiful in both places!