Leigh in Azerbaijan

Tanya arrived home after nearly two days in transit. I have that joy still to come.  She had most of Saturday waiting around in the Singapore airport, but is now cat-sitting at Skye and Chris’ place.  They have gone to Thailand for 11 days.
Yesterday I went with Ann Marie to Ortakoy and then went to [...]

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This flash file graphically shows the many empires that have dominated this part of the world.
The growth of the Ottoman Empire. (flash file)

Turkey, a brief history (flash file) 

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It’s Sunday and school starts tomorrow! We’ve had a great time.
Last night however was a low point in the hotel situation. We went low-budget and hired a room in Kayseri which turned out to be rather smokey. In addition it was across the road from a major mosque which started up at 5am [...]

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Cappadocia in the middle of Turkey is an amazing sight.
The ‘fairy chimneys’ in Goreme, formed from volcanic ash and topped with harder rock, were weathered to leave tall natural formations that were then used to create homes and churches over countless generations.

While being a Biblical name most of what we saw was post-Biblical with [...]

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Leaving from Kuşadarsı, not far from Ephesus, we ferried to Samos, which was 1.5 hours from Turkey. This was just a day trip.

One of the churches in town.

Streets are particularly narrow in Samos, so this tri-truck was very appropriate.

We spent the day walking up the hill to the older quarter.  Many houses could not be [...]

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