Randy and Alice Live in Turkey: Eskisehir and Environs

This past weekend had us visiting Eskisehir (Old City in Turkish) a city of some 400,000 about 2 1/2 hour drive west of Ankara. Haluk Yapicioglu, one of my graduated Ph.D. students, lives there and works at Anadolu University. He arranged for me to give a seminar there. His lovely wife Dilruba, also a professor at Anadolu, is expecting their first baby in mid-summer.

We had beautiful weather and the road is excellent and without much traffic. We arrived to their apartment in time for lunch. They cooked a feast of salads, cheese borek and fresh whole fish. These Haluk prepared by marinating them in olive oil and herbs then baking them in the oven. Everything was delicious. They served a bottle of Italian wine they got on a recent trip to Rome.

A special treat was that our friend Yunus Alp was also there. Yunus is a tennis partner from Auburn who moved back to Turkey and works as a civil engineer at Gemlik (near Bursa). We hadn't seen Yunus in several years and in the meantime he had work adventures in both Libya and India. We made plans with him to visit both Gemlik and Iznik in late March and his hometown area of Batman in mid April (along with Mount Nemrud and Urfa). These trips will be, no doubt, the subject of future blogs.


Yunus and Alice at Casa Yapicioglu

Haluk (yes, he is tall!), Alice and Yunus

Wonderful hostess Dilruba

Her amazing salads - carrot and celery root, potato, green and bean

The most delicious borek - stuffed with cheese

The fish (I forgot the name but they come from the Aegean) - we each got one

Haluk tries on the baby gift - an Auburn Tiger outfit for Baby Yapicioglu

Their sweet and pretty cat Tarcin

Dilruba and Haluk at home

After lunch we went to the town of Seyitgazi, the burial place of Seyyit Gazi (surprise, surprise). This hero lived in the 8th century and was reputed a giant. His coffin is 13 feet long! The mosque and tombs and assorted other buildings are on a scenic hilltop in the town and it was a lovely setting.

Buildings at the Seyyit Gazi burial place

The medrese (school) was closed for renovation

View from the site

Another view of the beautifully stark Anatolian countryside

Alice and Randy

The 13 foot tomb of the giant with the relatively tiny tomb of his girlfriend, a Byzantine princess

Turbesi is tomb in Turkish

The entrance where a ring on one of the arches was supposed the place he tied up his horse

We then traveled the half hour back to visit the old part of Eskisehir which is an interesting combination of run down bordering on seedy and completely renovated and gentrified. We saw a mosque from around 1250, the Kursunlu Kulliye, attributed to the master Ottoman architect Sinan. It is very unusual because it is a lead mosque, that is, its dome is lead. We also shopped at a nice artisan emporium where we bought a beautiful painting done in historic Ottoman miniaturist style. It is now in our bedroom and looks great. The price, although the most expensive of the artist's paintings for sale, was still favorable.

We then ate nearby at a small family place and had the specialty of cig boregi. This is famous in Eskisehir and was our first time trying it. It was delicious but pretty oily so you wouldn't want to eat it everyday. The evening was capped off with a visit to Sensus wine shop which carries a lot of wine, all from Turkish boutique wineries. I bought 12 assorted bottles of wine with the attendant's help and can't wait to sample them. We had drinks (wine or coffee) and Haluk and Dilruba arranged a second birthday party for me complete with chocolate cake (really good!) and candles and sparklers. It is worth growing older in Turkey with these nice celebrations.

Yunus and Dilruba in the old section of Eskisehir

The lead roof of the mosque - very unusual

The inside of the mosque was not special but the ceiling of the forecourt was

The Eskisehir specialty of cig boregi

Getting ready to blow the candles out on the second birthday cake

Mission accomplished

One of the large and intricate pipes from the Meerschaum museum. Eskisehir is the world center of meerschaum pipes

Wine and coffee at Sensus

The birthday cake (yes, these are slightly out of order - blame Blogspot)

The next was a working morning for Alice, meeting people at the university and giving a seminar. Randy left our comfortable room at the university hotel and wandered through the campus, which is excellent. It is one of the few true campuses in Turkey. The day was beautiful so we especially enjoyed the campus. At lunch we all met at their faculty club, housed in a renovated and very large historic barn. Former student Aykut Arapologlu from University of Pittsburgh works at the nearby university of Osman Gazi and he came to the seminar and lunch. Anadolu University presented me with a hand painted ceramic plate with Ottoman inspired but modernized motifs. This was really special because it highlights two expertise's of the area - ceramics and fine arts.

On the way back to Ankara, we stopped at the town of Sivrihisar with the intent of seeing two historic sights - Pessinus and the Ulu Mosque. For the first, it is an ancient town about 8 miles south of Sivrihisar. We had a hard time finding the road and ended up in a remote village full of chickens, turkeys and assorted barn animals. Eventually we found the road to the village of Ballihisar and the ruins are there. They were actually pretty well signposted but deserted. It was very interesting to be in this out of the way place and see layers of ancient (Cybele worshiping) culture followed by Greek, Roman and Byzantine. We found the Ulu Mosque in Sivrihisar easily but it was under massive renovation and closed. So disappointing as it is supposed to be one of the great sights in the region. Well, we know where it is so we can return. As a small consolation we saw a sign about the Anatolian Shepherd Dogs in town and found a breeding compound. The man there let us in and we viewed the dogs and puppies. They are beautiful animals and go for 600 lira each. We have seen them working all over Anatolia as they herd and guard sheep, cows and goats.