Amasya. Now with Vitamin D.

The expected thunderstorms never showed up although it did drizzle all morning. Then around 4 in the afternoon the sun came out and it turned into quite a nice day. About time.



Tomorrow I'm heading to Safranbolu although I'm kind of tempted to stick around here for another day.

Enough with the #*%!& clouds already.

With the exception of my day in Sivas the miserable overcast weather has been stalking me around Turkey for the past week or so. This has probably not been obvious from my posts as I have been carefully selecting those few photos taken in the short gaps of patchy blue sky that have occasionally popped up. Ah well, I shouldn't complain too much after the 3 weeks of flawless weather I had prior to Trabzon.

In any case, the weather only bothered me a bit in Tokat as I was mostly there to try out their local type of Kebaps rather than for siteseeing (yes really). The Tokat kepabs are grilled lamb, eggplant, capsicum, and potato served with a big heap of roasted garlic on the side and taste even better than they sound. Between feasts I did manage to wander around the town and tried to take a few photos.



Today it was on to Amasya. This is a very pretty city and would be quite photogenic if it weren't for the above mentioned weather issues. Here are a few photos that I took during the 30 minutes when the sun was almost out.



I had originally planned on leaving Amasya tomorrow but I'm going to stay another day since it's a nice town and I'm not in too much of a hurry even though I am running a bit low on time. Hopefully I will be able to get a few photos between the thundershowers that are forecast. Otherwise I'm just going to sit in a bar all day as an alternative to my usual wandering around mumbling and shaking my fist at the sky routine.

Sivas & Divriği

I didn't actually come to Sivas for it's own sake (see below) but there are few sites that were worth visiting while I'm here.



My actual reason for coming to Sivas was as a convenient place for visiting the Ulu Cami & Derüşşifa (Great Mosque and Mental Hospital) in the not-so-nearbye town of Divriği. Unlike my last long side trip (Mardin) this was well worth the long day to get there and back.



Tomorrow I have a short bus ride to the nearbye town of Tokat where I plan to spend one night before heading on to Amasya on Thursday.

Mostly Minarets

I'm in Erzurum for the evening. I had just enough time to see most of the main sites here before it started drizzling.



Tomorrow I'm off to Sivas.

Cloudy Trabzon

I decided to stick around Trabzon for another day. The weather in Trabzon can be summed up as all clouds all the time but I still managed to take a few pictures from around town.



Tomorrow I am heading to Erzurum. This wasn't part of my original plan and is kind of a backtrack as Erzurum is slightly east of Trabzon. However, the site outside of Sivas that I wanted to visit next is closed on Sundays and Mondays so, rather than waste an extra day in Sivas, I decided to add another new town to my itinerary.

Sumela Monastery & The 'Little' Aya Sofya

Hope everyone is in the mood for more frescos as both sites I visited today were loaded with them. This morning I took a trip out to see the Sumela Monastery (Monastery of the Virgin Mary) in the mountains south of Trabzon. It was quite something, even though many of the frescos had been defaced with carved names and initials.



Then, after returing to Trabzon this afternoon I went over to see the Aya Sofya Museum in town.



Once again I am not quite certain what I am doing next. I had planned to leave tomorrow for Sivas but may stick around for another day as I haven't seen much of Trabzon itself yet.

Shooting the Çoruh

The trip down the Çoruh yesterday turned into rafting only as the only Kayak was way too small for someone my height. This was probably for the best anyway as the rapids were quite a bit beyond anything I've done before and this may not have been the best place to find out I wasn't up to it. I haven't been rafting in at least 15 years so I had fun anyway although the trip was a bit short.

Although I took my camera along I was only able to get a couple shots when we stopped on the way. I would have liked to take a few photos on the river however the weren't any stretches of calm water that were long enough for me to dig my camera out of the dry-bag. Anyway, here are the two I took - one from break spot and one from the end. Nothing all that great here but they do show some of the scenery on the river.



The scenery around town was very beautiful and I wish I'd taken far more pictures that I managed. I liked the place I stayed a lot too and would have stayed an extra day except that a large group was arriving today and had the entire place reserved. Rather than moving to a different place I just left for Trabzon this morning as originally planned.

Here are a couple photos I took around Yusufeli yesterday afternoon...



Today was a long day on the bus getting to Trabzon. Tomorrow I am going to take a day trip to see the Sumela monestary which is the main reason to come here.