Turkish Bath

Today I spent two delicious hours in the Cemberlitaş Turkish Bath (Hamam). This architecturally beautiful building houses a gender-segregated bath which dates from 1594. Some parts of the bath have been modernized, such as the soaking pools, but above the pools one sees the ancient stone ceilings from the original bath house.

The photo below is of this exact bath house but is from the internet; I did not bring a camera into the bath, only a towel!

First I was shown to a changing area and given a towel to wear. Then I was directed through several chambers in which women were relaxing or having a pedicure into the main room of the bath in the center of which is a huge warm marble slab. I laid on the warm slab for about twenty minutes relaxing into the warmth (it is very humid and feels like a not so hot steam room) After thoroughly warming one of the attendant women, poured basins of warm water all over me and used the exfoliating glove I brought for the purpose to scrub. Next this motherly scrub-woman brought a bowl in which she made an amazing mountain of silky, foaming, soap bubbles and proceeded to scrub me from head to toe, in a massaging fashion, twice, all this while I was soaking in the warmth from the marble stone. After all this soaping my guide brought me into a little side chamber (every area in the bath is through an archway and covered in grey marble) to have more basins of warm rinse water poured over me. Next I was led by the hand (the attendants are used to serving non-Turkish speaking bathers) to another side chamber with very low lighting and two large pools, one 92F and one is 100F. I soaked in these pools for about 30 minutes and then returned to relax on the warm marble for another half hour or so before a final cooling shower. Not only was I squeaky clean and deeply relaxed when I dressed and left to meet nearby with Mark (who had used this time to see the Turkish Archeological Museum) but the cold I picked up our last night in Rome was much eased by the warmth and humidity.

Mark and I walked down to the Bosphorus for a stroll along the waterfront and to marvel at all the ferries taking commuters to the Asian side of Istanbul and to the New District just across the Golden Horn. We ate in a 4th floor restaurant with a marvelous view of the ferry landing and watched the sun set over the European and Asian side of the city while enjoying another delicious dinner of lamb and roasted vegetables. We enjoyed the night lights as we ate a version of baklava for dessert (our table was just above the Galata Bridge you see in the photo).

Earlier today we took in the Grand Bazaar where I bought my Turkish bath exfoliating mitt after stopping by the restaurant where we ate last night. We wanted to see in the daylight the excavation of a 1st Century Byzantine Palace over which the restaurant, Palatium, is built. Parts of the restaurant floor are made of glass so that you can peer down into the lit rooms of the ancient palace below while you dine.

Jetzt Sprechen wir Deutsch!

Upon arrival in Paris I slipped and answered common pleasantries in Italian for a couple of days. Upon arrival in Germany I am still saying Bon Jour! and Merci! but I usually catch myself halfway into the words.

From Brussels we drove to Aachen, the Empirical Capital of the realm of Charlemagne.

God is Light

Daytrip to Chartres

Rebuilt after a fire in the last 1100's, Chartres Cathedral was built rapidly, completed between 1194-1250. Some in the town who as children  had watched the former church burn lived to see the consecration of the new cathedral in 1250. The cathedral stars some of, if not the, most beautiful stained-glass windows in the world. The vision for the cathedral included a focus on the power of God/God's light as experienced pouring through these vividly colored windows. Words and photos cannot capture the immense beauty of the cathedral windows.

Chartres Cathedral is also known for its prayer labyrinth, perhaps the oldest continuing prayer labyrinth in any Christian church. While we were there the chairs in the nave were covering the labyrinth but I was still able to photograph parts of it and pray on this amazing pilgrims' destination.

Our merry band of six Americans left on the 9 am fast train to Chartres from the Montparnass Station. Our friend Greg Meland is a train nut and was like a kid at Disney in the train stations and in the train. You see him below with Linda watching the big board at the Montparnass station waiting for the tiles to flip to indicate our departure platform.

Deb and Gregg Correll joined us in Paris on Monday morning after flying overnight on Sunday and were bravely charging forth on this junket despite some residual jet lag. It was very chilly in the town of Chartres and even chillier in the cathedral. Deb bought a lovely Irish wool sweater at a Celtic shop in town to ward of the bone-chill and Greg bought a hat at the urging of many (he had resisted because it is so similar to Mark's signature hat, but we prevailed upon him and the hat was clearly made for him.)

On our return train to Paris, after a splendid early dinner at a bistro just off the cathedral square, we watched the dusk settle over the greening French countryside. The Chartres  restaurant's lower level is also a jazz club on weekends and is comprised of three levels of 800 year old caves that were once related to the cathedral grounds.

Luther's Wittenberg ~ the end of our Sabbatical Journey tracing the history of Christianity in Western Civilizations

We've wandered a long and winding road from the roads Paul walked and the amphitheater in Ephesus where Paul preached, to the room at Wartburg Castle (Eisennach) where Luther translated the New Testament into German, and the house where Luther lived and worked in Wittenberg, Germany.

We've been in at least one mosque, cathedral, chapel, or church every day for the last 28 days. I've swum outside (in Asian Turkey) and walked through the snow (in northern Germany); tasted delicious cultures and cuisines, drunk excellent coffee in every country visited and sampled fine wines in the cellar of treasured friends in Belgium.

We've visited castles, palaces, museums, parks, battle sites, forts and abbeys; we've flown five different airlines, stayed in 11 overnight locations, tried to speak a bit of three different languages (not counting English and unable to get a word out in Turkish), and ridden in taxis, trains, trams, rental cars, Bosphorous cruise boats, buses, the Paris Metro, the Roman underground rail, transport vans, and one funicular. We've been blessed with safe travel, the company of dear friends, the incredible kindness of strangers, and innumerable moments of insight and unexpected joy.

Tomorrow we journey home to Minnesota so today is our last full day of this sabbatical journey and we are sad to feel the adventure winding down. Wittenberg is our last stop before turning around to travel home.

Today we saw the church in Wittenberg where Martin Luther preached many times, and another church famous for Luther's having nailed the 95 Theses on the door there, the house where he and his Katarina (a former nun married to this former monk) lived and raised their family. The latter building houses a very fine Luther museum where we spent a couple hours browsing the artifacts and seeing Luther's study.

Katarina is a woman I can admire. She was strong, independent-minded, industrious and capable by all accounts. You see me pictured with a cut-out figure of her below.

The first thing I learned in my college German class at Saint Olaf was how to sing "A Mighty Fortress is our God" (Ein Feste Burg ist unsere Gott) in the original words Luther authored. You see below a hymnal open to this hymn (not 500 years old, however) in the church where Martin Luther preached hundreds of sermons (the pictured church with the two spires).

The story of Luther's life, learning and thinking, and courage when accused of heresy is compelling. The Wittenberg Luther House museum thoroughly presents his life story and the artifacts of his life here in the former monastery that was gifted to him and Katarina.

Snow is falling lightly in Wittenberg as we pull the curtains in our hotel room for the evening, as we pull the curtains closed on this marvelous journey.

Fahren Fahren Fahren auf der Autobahn

I drove on the autobahn yesterday and found it both exhilarating and nerve-wracking.

If you are in the fast lane (no speed limit) you'd best get out of the way when a Mercedes Benz sedan hurtling along at 140 or 150 KPH comes up behind you and flashes lights.

I got up to 157 at one point, but did not like going that fast, kept to speeds around 120 to 130.
How can there be no speed limit? It boggles the mind.

Mark drove today and despite our speeds of 130-140 KPH cars were speeding past us in the left lane like a blur. They would whoosh past, shaking our not tiny SUV, must have been going 160 plus!

P.S. If you do not know the 1975 pre-techno classic by Kraftwerk called "Autobahn", check if out on youtube. At the time the group dubbed this new musical style "machine music".

A la recherche du temps perdu

Here are some remembrances of things past or 'time lost' (as in the Proustian title quoted above) of final highlights in Paris with Deb and Gregg.

Our last full day in Paris included a trip to Montmartre and tour of Sacre Couer, a street performer (a virtual aerialist) who climbed a light pole on Montmartre while balancing soccer ball on his back and kicking and head-butting it into the air (really) and a magnifique final dinner at my favorite Parisien restaurant, L'ilot Wache (the island of cows) on the Ille San Louis.

Because it was late we took the Metro back to the flat rather than walking from Notre Dame which was resplendent with lights on her flying buttresses as we said 'au revoir'.

Vielleicht habe ich zu viel films gesehen

Maybe I have seen too many movies.

Since we crossed into former East Germany (just before arriving at Eisenach) Germany has felt slightly different in a way I cannot quite describe. This atmosphere is enhanced by very low grey skies, cold temps, lightly falling snow.

The buildings are a mixture of very old structures here and they're surrounded by buildings that clearly date from mid 20th Century. The emergency vehicles' sirens make the same sound as those in Italy and France, yet they resonate differently in this context.

Our hotel in Eisenach was connected to a golf resort (Mark was eating his heart out) and flight school. The dining room was in a separate building (pictured below) which our server explained was built in 1936 as a flight training facility. I think it wise to speculate no further in writing about this building's original purpose.