Across the Bosporus from Europe to Asia

It doesn't seem as if many tourists make the trip across the Bosporus to the Asian side of Istanbul: our fellow passengers on the Saturday morning trip to Üsküdar had shopping bags rather than cameras. But it was worth a visit, not just to escape the crowds on the European side, but also to get a glimpse of a very different part of the city.

Tiled Mosque

There are apparently more than 180 mosques in Üsküdar, but our target was the Tiled Mosque (Çinili Camii), a 20 minute uphill walk away from the town. It seemed to be shut when we arrived, but an elderly man standing by the door spotted us and beckoned us in. We stopped to take our shoes off and I realised I didn’t have a headscarf with me, so I hastily put on my jacket and pulled the hood up! We were the only visitors so we had the place to ourselves.

Tiled interior of Cinili Camii

The mosque was small but impressive. It was built in 1640 for the wife of Sultan Ahmet 1 and the walls are covered with traditional blue Iznik tiles. The custodian opened a side door for us and we climbed a treacherously steep and narrow spiral staircase to reach the upper floor, giving us a better view of the tiles. A slight moment of panic when we realised we had no change for the offertory plate on the way out, but a handful of small euro notes proved perfectly acceptable.

Iznik tiles of Cinili Camii

Close to the Mosque are the recently restored Çinili Hamami, traditional Turkish baths dating back to the 17^th century, although we didn’t have time to try them out.

Spices, fruit and lunch

The aroma of the small covered market greeted us before we went inside, a rich mixture of fresh fruit and vegetables. We saw piles of gleaming vine leaves, vegetables we couldn’t put a name to and, of course, stalls selling sticky Turkish cakes and pastries. Just outside the market were a couple of spice shops with long strings of herbs and chillies hanging outside. For anyone wanting to buy spices to take home this would have been a much better location than the overcrowded Spice Market in central Istanbul.

Typical spice shop of Uskudar

We stopped for lunch in a traditional lokanta, a basic café where I was pleased to note that we were the only tourists (although the dual language menu suggested this might not be the case in the high season). Although the staff spoke little or no English they were friendly and efficient. When I tentatively ordered something that was not available, the waiter gestured that I should follow him to the cooking counter so that I could see what was on offer and choose for myself. A very nice meal of lentil soup, chicken and vegetables, followed by tel kedayif (a sort of soft fat baklava) and thick strong Turkish coffee.

Back at the waterfront we resisted the offer of a guided tour from an enthusiastic shoe-shine man and stood for a while watching the lines of fishermen who seem to crowd into every available space on both sides of the Bosporus. 

Fishing by the side of the Bosporus

Getting Close to the Camels at Al Ain’s Livestock Market

Last time I tried to visit Al Ain’s Camel Market I couldn't explain to the Pakistani taxi driver where we wanted to go. He heard the word ‘market’ and interpreted it as ‘mall’. ‘What do you want to buy?’ he asked. On that occasion, we gave up and went to the Hili archaeological site instead. But this time, armed with a car and a map, we managed to find it quite easily, behind the Bawadi Mall, a little way out of town.

This is the only traditional camel souk remaining in the UAE and is well worth a visit. The livestock market houses goats, cows and sheep as well as camels and there is a lot of lively activity as animals are purchased and led out to trucks to be taken to desert farms.

But we were here for the camels. There were dozens of animals of all colours: black, brown, yellow and white. Unfortunately there were no buyers here today but the custodians of the camels were very keen for us to enter the pens and to photograph their animals. They answered all of our questions: the animals live here until they are sold (it doesn’t usually take very long before someone snaps them up), most of them are destined for meat but some are racing camels.

Tourists are encouraged to enter the pens and touch the animals (for a suitable tip of course!)

The Indian herder of the racing camels displayed his animals proudly. ‘Cheapest is 30,000 dirhams. But that one there is pregnant. Fine animal. 80,000 dirhams for her.’ A mother and baby were nestling contentedly on the floor and he insisted that we have our pictures taken next to them. As we moved to leave he indicated that he would like a tip. 100 dirhams, he suggested, but we haggled him down a bit.

Racing camels in peak condition

‘I’ll give you 10 camels for your wife’, he said to Lawrence as we left. ‘Or 3 camels for your husband,’ he said to me. I think he was joking.

Searching for the Breamore Mizmaze

In my quest to visit all the remaining English turf mazes, I set out on a cold and drizzly afternoon to the tiny village of Breamore (a few miles from Salisbury) to find the Mizmaze on Breamore Down.

Although the maze was clearly marked on my map, it was not easy to find. Having come this far, I did not want to give up and I wandered into the churchyard hoping to find a footpath. Here I came across an elderly man who pointed me in the right direction. “You should be able to find it all right,” he said, before adding ominously, “Although it’s many years before I went there myself.”

Fortunately, a combination of his instructions and Google Maps on my i-phone got me there in the end.

Finding the Mizmaze

The maze is not accessible by car, so you need to park by the church and walk for around a mile (be warned that it is uphill and can be muddy). Walking through the front gate of Breamore House (the house is open to the public one day a week but there is an unmarked footpath through the grounds at all times), to the left past the clock tower, the path goes into the woods. Walking upwards, and ignoring all the paths to the left and right, you eventually get to the top of the woods and bear left until you reach a big sign showing the location of the Mizmaze.

The maze is at the centre of a clump of yew trees. Unlike other English turf mazes, it is enclosed by a fence and cannot be walked upon. However, you will get a good view and, if my visit is typical, you are likely to have the place to yourself.

The Mizmaze is at the centre of a clump of trees

History and Design of Breamore Mizmaze

The first record of the maze is in 1783, but it is thought to be of mediaeval origin. Local tradition is that it was cut by monks from a nearby monastery for penitential purposes: transgressors would be made to crawl the lines of the maze upon their knees.

The maze is of a circular design, a labyrinth cut into quarters by a Christian cross. It is of a similar design to that found inside Chartres Cathedral in France.

There is reputedly an Iron Age long barrow close to the Mizmaze, which I did not find. However I did take time to go in the very fine Saxon church, which is well worth a visit (look out for the sundial above the door).

The Saxon church

The Alcazar in Springtime: Exploring Seville’s Royal Palace

It would be possible for a casual visitor to miss Seville’s Alcazar – the royal palace complex – hidden as it is behind a small gate near the Cathedral. The entrance gives no clue to the extent of the palaces and gardens within, or of their splendour. Yet there is much here that is reminiscent of the more famous Alhambra palace in nearby Granada.

The Alcazar features a mixture of Moorish and Renaissance design, the two styles often coexisting in layers of the same wall.  The palace offers room after room of intricately designed arches, tiles and decorative features. 

Typical Moorish arches

Moorish architecture topped with later Renaissance arches

Then there are the acres of formal gardens. We walked past trees just coming into blossom, and others groaning under the weight of last year's ripe oranges. There were lots of tour groups so we escaped into the cool seclusion of the English Garden, where it was just us and the birds. It was cool and shady here, with many trees and a trickling fountain. We sat for a while and listened to the sound of collared doves and a peacock in the distance, before going to investigate the maze. In contrast to the usual design, we had difficulty in finding the way in (walking all the way around before finding a tiny gap in the hedge), but managed to walk directly to the centre!

Formal gardens

The English Garden

There are lots of small buildings dotted around the gardens, including the Lion Bower.

Lion Bower

A covered arcade looks down over the gardens. I imagined Spanish queens sitting here on rainy days, looking over the gardens while sipping Amontillado!

The covered arcade overlooks the gardens

The pools are not the reflecting pools of traditional Moorish architecture. However, the Moorish baths provided still water for a reflective photograph.

The Moorish baths

We walked back through the inner courtyard before finally spotting the peacock that had disturbed our peace in the English Garden!

Inner courtyard

A rather proud looking peacock

Celebrating the Feast of the Annunciation in Florence

25 March is historically the start of the New Year in Florence. It is also the day on which the archangel Gabriel announced the incarnation to the Virgin Mary. The Festival of the Annunciation is one of the lesser known of Italy’s numerous festivals – hardly mentioned in the guidebooks – and when we visited a few years ago we were the only tourists around.

It was a wet Thursday morning and people were scuttling to work as normal, dodging the motorcycles and the raindrops in the narrow Florentine streets. Yet in the Piazza SS Annunziata the Festival of the Annunciation was already in full swing, the stalls set up and the visitors tucking into a second breakfast of sausages, panini or even freshly roasted pig.

The square was full of market stalls, selling toys and household items, bric-a-brac and rugs.  There was also a brisk trade in umbrellas!  But it was the sweet stalls which were the most plentiful, and the air was already heavy with the scent of croccante and brigidini.

Market stall laden with sweets

Brigidini are a Tuscan speciality, a sort of round yellow wafer made with eggs and sugar and flavoured with aniseed. According to tradition, they were first made by nuns of the Brigidine order. In the time of St Brigid they were made by hand, one at a time, but now special machines are used. We watched for a while as a stallholder fed the yellow paste into one end of the machine and the biscuits flew rapidly out of the other. He pressed a free sample on us: it was warm, sweet and fragrant. However, we chose to buy the croccante, a kind of sticky nut brittle which proved to be very tasty.

Producing the brigidini

The anteroom to the church was full of stalls, too, but of a different kind, reminding us that this is primarily a religious festival. Here they were selling rosaries, prayer books, and icons. By the door the ladies of the Servi di Maria had a stall piled high with homemade oven gloves and teatowels. 

The basilica itself was packed to overflowing for the ten o’clock mass, one of several services which would take place during the day. The interior was ablaze with the light of hundreds of candles and the air was thick with incense. The worshipping crowd murmured Ecco signore at regular intervals, but at the back of the church people were coming and going, joining in sporadically, talking in small groups or greeting friends.

A typically Italian footnote was the exhibition of sacred art in a side room. In these modern portrayals of the Annunciation Gabriel was variously brightly coloured, demonic, male or female. He (or she) was at times threatening, but elsewhere approached Mary in an attitude of female solidarity. Where they all differed from classical interpretations, however, was in the lack of Tuscan landscape backgrounds.

As we turned to go people were still arriving, swarming into the church or picking over the market stall wares. But this is strictly an occasion for the locals and there were still no other tourists in sight.

Peperpot Plantation: Surinam’s plantation turned ecopark

Production of coffee and cacao ceased many years ago on the Peperpot Plantation close to Paramaribo, Surinam’s capital city, allowing it to reinvent itself as a nature park, with plans for ecotourism in the future.

We were shown the houses where the colonial bosses lived during the plantation days (“the big boss got the biggest house, and his deputy the next biggest”), and the barns where the coffee was stored. For many in our party the most interesting feature of the barn was the numerous bats circling in the gloom (unfortunately too fast and not enough light for any hope of a photograph).

The bosses lived in big houses...

...while the workers had smaller ones

Part of the plantation has reverted to rain forest and we enjoyed walking around as birds flew between the trees and monkeys (both squirrel and capuchin) rattled the branches above our heads.

Three-toed sloth

It was here that we had our first sight of a three-toed sloth, prompting the memorable question, “What is the difference between a three-toed and a two-toed sloth?”. The answer is not quite as obvious as you might suppose, as they all have three toes on their back paws. However, the two-toed variety only have two toes on their front feet.

Learning to survive in the jungle

Just outside Manaus we went on a trip to learn some jungle survival skills. ‘Very useful to know’, the guide told us. ‘In case you are in a plane crash and land in the jungle.’ As if to emphasise his point, a large black vulture circled above his head as he was talking.

The first thing we needed to learn that day was how to cope with the rain or, in my case, how to wield a camera when covered by a functional but cumbersome rain cape. We walked along slippery paths into a jungle where all the animal life had sensibly taken shelter (or perhaps flight from a noisy group of British tourists!). In fact, all we saw that day was a tarantula and some giant red ants.

A tarantula searches for cover

However, we were shown some skills. Lighting a fire using steel wool, how to climb a very tall tree with a machete to gather the fruit at the top (the guide made it look easy, but I suspect it isn’t), which plants are poisonous and which can be used as a source of food and water. We also looked at trapping animals (in good Blue Peter fashion he showed us some traps he had made earlier), and how to climb into a hammock and sleep in it without falling out. 

Making a fire without matches

Climbing a tree armed with a machete - possibly easier said than done!

We got to try some drinks made from jungle plants. Then he passed around some grubs which he assured us were delicious (‘they taste of coconut’) and much prized by village children, but which I could not quite face trying.

It was quite a fun day out but I’m not sure how much I really learnt in the way of survival skills. Other than that if you are planning to be in a plane crash it is advisable to be armed with steel wool and a machete.