Ishak Pasa Palace

Only 2 more days to write about! I'm actually in Antalya now, a city on the Mediterranean Sea, with my boyfriend's family (minus the boyfriend - he's in Istanbul). It's nice and relaxing and sunny and hot. I actually felt sad when the tour came to an end and I had to say goodbye, not only to my travel companions, but to southeastern and eastern Turkey. It truly is an amazing and beautiful place!

Shelia and Art finished their tour in Van - this was planned - because having a new hotel every night, waking up early, being busy all day, sitting in the car - it certainly isn't easy, even for me, and they are over 70 years old! They are remarkable people. So the last two days it was just me, the tour guide, and the driver!

The main event of Day 1 alone was visiting the Ishak Pasa Palace, which was about 2 hours north of Van, in Dogubeyazit. This palace is surprisingly new for Turkey, it was just built in 1685 and finished in 1784. The architecture is an interesting mix of Selcuk, Ottoman, Armenian, and other styles. I believe it was only used for about 100 years. It's located near Russia and Iran which led to a lot of wars taking place in this area. The location is gorgeous, being located near Mt. Ararat and other beautiful mountains.





Impressive entrance



There was a fountain for water AND milk!!



Inside of one of the courtyards. The palace was like a small community, with different courtyards for merchants and the common people, and then for the government people, as well as a haram, library, mosque, dungeons, and things like that. There were over 300 rooms but some of them have collapsed and we can't enter them.



I think this was inside of the mosque. This was a hard place to capture.





This place actually had a central heating system. The holes are were the pipes were. Pretty amazing!



This is old Beyazit, dating from BC times. Look carefully and you can see a mosque and castle built into the rock.

Here are some pictures of the drive to the palace, the landscape here never ceases to amaze me:



Some really angry looking stones, as a result of a volcano eruption. This area was much different than other areas of Turkey that we had been through - much grayer, darker, and a more traditional feeling. We drove through places where I didn't see any women at all, and small little houses with mud for yards. I'm not going to say it was more depressing, but life is much more difficult and different out here than other places I have seen.





That's Mt. Ararat in the background, Turkey's highest mountain, 5137 meters high!