Istanbul Tour Report

By Lawrence Butler, Associate Professor

                During spring break 2006, I had the great pleasure of accompanying 25 students, colleagues, and friends to my favorite places in the world: Istanbul and the Aegean coast of Turkey.

                Istanbul is where I did my master’s and doctoral field work, and I return there frequently with tour groups. This time I had the privilege of privilege of traveling with my own students and friends. The group included Art History students Sarah Belkoski, Jessa Farquhar, Matthew Feldman, Heather Green, Anne Hardy, Sandra Kellerhals, and Corey Ochsman, and Art History faculty and staff members Laura McCloskey, Robert DeCaroli, and Louisa Woodville. We were joined by other Mason students and a wonderful group of senior travelers from the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

                Our tour offered a taste of not only Istanbul’s famous monuments, but also its back streets and rich multicultural heritage as well. Our guide, Namik Ilksoy, escorted us through the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Suleymaniye Mosque, the Topkapi Palace, and an assortment of museums we thought would be the most interesting to this group.

                Despite the chilly weather, we also poked around the hills and markets that line the city’s great harbor, visiting the Greek Patriarchate and the ancient commercial districts that anchor this end of the Silk Route. A boat ride up the Bosphorus brought us past the great castles north of the city to the villas of Turkey’s rich and famous.

                I love Turkish textiles, music, and food, and so we sampled a wide variety of all three. The ancient Ottoman carpets of the Islamic Arts Museum and the Sufi Dervishes’ prayer performance in Istanbul’s Galata district were probably my favorites. Although our planned folk dance performance somehow turned into a belly dance and not everyone seems to like eating whole fish as much as I did, I think the great ancient city worked its maritime magic on the group.

                We also spent two nights exploring the antiquities of the Aegean Coast, staying in a splendid hotel in the resort town of Kusadasi, near Ephesus, and enjoying a sunny break in the weather. The spectacular ruins of Ephesus were supplemented with trips to the Selcuk Museum, a weaving factory, and the ruins of the St. John Basilica. Because of the group’s evident interest in things Greco-Roman, we traded a bit of free time to explore the great temple of Didyma near Miletos, an extraordinary site that we had completely to ourselves. On our return to Istanbul, we worked in a special trip to the Archeological Museum to complete the classical theme.

                Throughout the trip, I was struck by the special energy and camaraderie of the group, which came in large part from the mix of ages, I think. In all my years of touring, I can honestly say that I enjoyed this group the most and would love to travel with them all again.

                And, yes, Professor DeCaroli and I are already plotting the next trip!