Turkey - 1 Oct 2021 - Finally traveling after COVID

 

Turkey and Flower Power of Tulips

On Thursday, 30 September, we flew from Chicago to Istanbul for three days before our Egyptian Trip.  This was supposed to be a little break between our two schedules tours – one from Berlin to Prague and the other our Egyptian tour – but unfortunately our Berlin tour was cancelled (again) because of Covid.  We had also planned to spend a fun day in Munich enjoying Octoberfest, but that was also cancelled.  The one thing I have learned over this past year is that you have to be very flexible and able to make changes “on the fly.”  But both Turkey and Egypt are willing to allow American visitors, so after a brief stop in Chicago to visit Doug and Duffy, we were finally off on our next exciting adventure.  Our flight aboard Turkish Airlines was very smooth and uneventful – I even managed about 6 hours of sleep. 

I wish I could say the same about Istanbul’s new airport – it is huge, crowded, and not very friendly.  We managed to get through customs okay – after all the angst over whether we had all the right documents, they only needed to see our passports.  Of course. we had to show our CDC vaccine records prior to boarding in Chicago and, mostly likely, our visas had already been linked to our passport.  However, trying to find our pick-up car was a huge problem.  Our directions were to go to the meeting lounge and they would call our driver.  But once we found the meeting lounge, no one there knew what we were talking about.  And when we called the telephone number of our driver to tell him we were there, we got no answer!  Finally, another traveler told us she thought we needed to go to Door 9 and we would most likely find our driver.  She was correct, our driver was there and we were finally on our way – hot, tired, and somewhat frustrated. 

Once in hour hotel, the JW Marriott Istanbul Bosphorus, we decided to just eat at the hotel, as it was getting late and we really needed sleep.  The hotel has a seafood restaurant on the 9^th floor with a great view of the Bosphorus Straits.  However, their food was extremely overpriced and under whelming.  At least the service was impeccable.  After dinner, it was time for some much needed rest as we have a 6 AM pick-up for our tour of the Gallipoli Pennisula.

As an escape from my previous blogs that talked about all the historical and places we have seen or will see, I thought you might enjoy a little non history story about Turkey and its love of the tulip.  Everyone usually associates tulips with Holland, but in Turkey the tulip is almost as iconic as the Hagia Sophia or Blue Mosque.  They have been a favorite flower and treasured symbol of Turkish culture for hundreds of years.

After the Ottoman ruler Mehmed the Conqueror defeated the Byzantine Empire in 1453, he began to rebuild Constantinople to his own likes.  He loved all flowers, but tulips were his favorite.  He had them planted in many of the 60 gardens that he had constructed.  Following their former leader, his descendants continued his love of tulips – his grandson planted 50,000 bulbs around the palace and his great grandson had the tulip embroidered on not only his robes but stitched into his underwear!  The general population added tulip designs into their textiles, ceramics, and even their mosques.

After a visiting Austrian ambassador witness this love of tulips, he began to spread the word.  It took some convincing, but the Ottomans finally sent a small number of bulbs to Europe each year.  As a result, tulip mania spread across Europe, but most notably in the Netherlands where the tulip became their symbol.  The Dutch began experimenting with different colors and variegated color patterns for their tulips, but the Ottomans liked the standard colors, especially red, giving them names like “Light of Paradise,” “Matchless Pearly,” and “Fountain of Life.”

In the early 18^th century, the sultans, especially Sultan Ahmed III, had had enough of tulip sharing and banned the sale of tulips outside the capital and the export of bulbs to other countries.  Disobeying this order resulted in permanent exile.  It seems the sultans thought tulips more valuable than their citizens.  Today the era of Sultan Ahmed III’s rule is known as the Tulip Period.

Today tulips are just as popular in Turkey as they were during the Ottoman Empire.  Each spring, 30 million tulips are planted for Istanbul’s Tulip Festival.  Even Turkish Airline has capitalized on the popularity of the tulip by painting a gray tulip on its planes’ fuselages.

Other interesting facts about Turkey and its fascination with the Tulip:

·         Tulips are associated with mysticism as the flowers were named “lale,” the letters of which have the same Arabic numerical value as both Allah and hilal (the crescent symbol that is the symbol of Islam).

·         The 13^th century poet Rumi wrote verses about the tulip, including this famous line “my heart is a field of tulips that can’t be touched by age.”

·         During battles fought in the late 15^th century, Ottoman warriors wore shirts with tulips on one side and verses from the Koran on the other to bring them good luck.

·         Tulips have appeared in ceramics, paintings of Ottoman rulers, and tiles covering walls of palaces.

                                                                              

·        A legend from the 18^th-19^th centuries associated the red tulip with romance, as it was believed that the flower sprang up from the drops of blood from a dejected man who killed himself over a love affair gone wrong.

·         In Turkey’s bid for the 2020 Olympics, the tulip was its logo.