Monthly Archives: May 2011

The Arab spring has spawned a Turkish chill. Outside of Istanbul, wherever we travel in Turkey, there’s an alarming lack of tourists. Restaurants and parking lots are empty, tour boats lined up like barges in a coal strike – why? … Continue reading →

When I was a student of archaeology and anthropology in the 1960s, the great new find was a place called Catal Hoyuk, in Turkey. It had been discovered by a British archaeologist in 1958 and it was old, really old, … Continue reading →

It’s difficult to know which is more fascinating, ancient Anatolia or modern Turkey.  Crossing the landscape over which Alexander the Great marched and discovering Gordion, the place where Alexander cut the famous Gordion knot, and in the same village the … Continue reading →

I could take a photograph from my table in the café of the scene in front of me, send it to you and leave it at that. In the close foreground, there would a man who is slowly, deliberately, small … Continue reading →

Grecian urns have their beauty and their odes, but I prefer public transit and their odes which I will endeavour to compose. Let me look upon a city that has streetcars and I will have found a city that is … Continue reading →

In Ottawa, I once attended an event at the Chateau Laurier to commemorate the life of Youssef Karsh and had the good fortune to sit beside the Turkish ambassador.  He and I struck up a conversation and I asked naively … Continue reading →