A taste of Turkey: Sweet delights and timeless wonders

I have never seen as much Turkish Delight as I did in Istanbul.

Shop after shop, row after row, there’s a kaleidoscope of the sweet treat. And, as a Turkish Delight lover, I am there for it.

With a population of more than 16 million people, Istanbul is the most populous city in Turkey, and Europe.

The city straddles Europe and Asia with the Bosphorus Strait being the boundary.

Some two million people cross between Asia and Europe every day via ferry or car or a two-minute subway ride.

Minarets (the tall towers of a mosque from where the calls to prayer come) dot the Istanbul skyline and all seem to be blue.

Never having before been to Turkey, I must confess that I expected much more of a developing world vibe.

What I found in Istanbul was a bustling, modern city where soaring skyscrapers sit alongside ancient buildings.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, known as the Blue Mosque.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque, built in the 17th century, holds about 10,000 worshippers. It is free to enter and wondrous to see.

Known for having six minarets (rather than the standard four) and for its many domes and semi-domes, the building became known as the Blue Mosque for the blue colour of its interior.

When the nearby Hagia Sofia was completed in 537, it was the largest church in the world for hundreds of years.

It has variously been a church, a mosque, a museum and, since 2020, a mosque again.

People who want to pray are allowed into the lower floor of Hagia Sofia for free, but tourists pay to access the first floor; It was definitely worth paying.

The Basilica Cisterns in Istanbul.

For mine, the surprise packet of the attractions I visited in Istanbul was the Basilica Cisterns; they were absolutely mind-blowingly beautiful.

No longer operational, the Cisterns now exist only for tourists and for film sets – you may recognise them from the 2016 movie Inferno, starring Tom Hanks.

When the Cisterns were part of the city’s water source, fish were kept there. If the fish lived, that was evidence that no enemy had poisoned the water.

Nowadays, there are modern art installations and an ever-changing light show reflecting off the water. 

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I had long wanted to visit Gallipoli, so we did a long day trip there.

I walked through some eroded trenches and through some of the rows and rows of headstones.

A common and terribly poignant epitaph on many gravestones read: “Their glory shall not be blotted out.”

I ached for the loss of the young Australians and Turks, and for their families.

The Australian War Memorial at Gallipoli.

From Istanbul, I took a short flight to Cappadocia to fly in a hot air balloon – something that I had never done.

The hot air balloon experience was beyond amazing – so smooth and serene.

I was in awe of the skill of the pilots, controlling the balloon so that the basket seemed to brush the tops of the ‘fairy chimneys’.

The next morning, I woke to a whooshing sound that was the propane gas being fired into the balloons. I had a front-row seat as the colourful balloons glided overhead.

I stayed in Göreme which is a tourist town layered with hotels, restaurants and shops. All are adorned with fairy lights, so it is very pretty at night.

A tip for the unwary though – the streets in Göreme are steep.

There are lots of tourist activities on offer, including hot air ballooning, camel rides, ATV rides, horse rides and cultural tours.

I chose to do two day-long guided tours, concentrating on an underground city, fairy chimneys and cave houses.

The underground cities were hiding places thousands of years ago in times of religious persecution.

The 'fairy chimney' formations at Kaymakli.

I went to Kaymakli, which used to accommodate 3,000 people. Some underground cities housed 20,000 people.

The fairy chimneys were like nothing I had ever seen.

Created by volcanic ash, they form in all different shapes, and all have mushroom-shaped tops. People lived in them for 2,000 years but now they are for viewing only.

Cappadocia is known for its cave houses. People are no longer allowed to live in cave houses, but you can tour inside them for a fascinating slice of a former way of life.

There is a whole lot more to see in Istanbul than what I had the time to do, plus many other parts of Turkey yet to visit.

What I saw was exotic, colourful, vibrant, incredibly sad (Gallipoli) and captivating.

Now, I’ve made myself hungry. Where is that last box of Turkish Delight?