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| Breakfast by Lake Van |
The Lake Van region is known for its breakfast spreads of
ripe vegetables, aged cheeses, fresh breads, and sweet honeys and jams. The
hotel we stayed at the evening before was right on the water, so we spent the
morning of the seventh day sitting under the sun by Lake Van, sampling the
various breakfast options. The highlight of the breakfast, in my opinion, was a
honey, kaymak (similar to clotted cream, but better), and walnut spread that I
plastered onto every piece of bread I could lay my hands on.
After breakfast, we made our way to a set of Urartian ruins.
Urartu was an Armenian kingdom that lasted from 890 B.C. to 560 B.C. in the
eastern Anatolian region of present-day Turkey. The Urartians had a written
language that only a handful of people know. We were lucky enough to be led around
the ruins by one of those select few people. The ruins themselves were not
spectacular compared to many of the other things we had seen, but the history
of the Kingdom was quite interesting. If you're interested, I would check out the Wikipedia page about Urartu: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urartu
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| Urartian ruins |
We then drove along the shore of Lake Van to a restaurant
on the water that served some excellent lamb chops. From the restaurant, we
took a boat to one of the Lake’s islands to see yet another old Georgian
church. The church was similar to the others we had seen: beautiful on the
outside, and somewhat drab and bleak on the inside.
After touring the church, our guide allowed us some time to
wander around the island on our own. A friend and I stumbled upon a few
turtles, which we tried to play with for a little while (they weren’t having
it; they insisted on holing up inside their shells). The weather that afternoon
was splendid: we were graced with a hot, sunny day—something quite refreshing
after almost freezing to death a couple days before. The bushes on the island
were flowering and the first leaves were opening up, which added to the beauty
of the surrounding lake and distant mountains. There was nothing else I would
have rather done than sit in the sun and stare at the view—which is precisely
what I did, until I belatedly realized that I was developing quite a sunburn.
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| Mr. Turtle sporting some sunglasses |
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| View of the island from our boat |
On the way back to our hotel, some of us stopped off in town
to grab some supplies to write a thank you card to our guide. Alican (the
program assistant I keep referring to) went with us and when we passed a
business offering rides on various motorized vehicles, he convinced us to each ride
around on a four-wheeler. It was great fun, and a
wonderful end to a wonderful week.
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| Sorry for the blurry picture--turns out it's pretty hard to use a camera while driving a four-wheeler |
The following morning, we woke up early to catch our flight
back to Istanbul. The week greatly exceeded my expectations, and I feel so
lucky to have had the opportunity to see Eastern Turkey.
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