The cure for cabin fever, I

January 5, 11:33 AMDC Ireland & UK Travel ExaminerLaura Harrison McBride

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Cappadoccia, Silk Road ruin also worth seeing on a Turkish trip

The biggest cure for cabin fever might happen January 20, 2009, depending on your political persuasion.

However, winter being what it is, you might well have some wanderlust brewing by February 1. You’ll need something to look forward to. As for me, a trip to Turkey would do it.

Having lived on a state line, in Bristol, TN/VA, and on a fault line (midtown Manhattan, and yes, there is one right through the Big Apple), the prospect of visiting a city that straddles two continents intrigues me. That city is Istanbul.

Among the things to see there is Topkapi Palace. There once was a Turkish restaurant in NYC of that name, and the food was pretty good. But the palace itself was the home of the Ottoman Sultans, a sultanate that disappeared as late as 1921. By 1924, the building had been declared an historic site and opened as a museum.

During its heyday as a royal roost on the Silk Road, it collected prime examples of porcelain and celadon from China, Japan and eastern Turkey. This collection is on display. For an inveterate china aficionado, for me, it is a “must see.”

If I can’t make it to Topkapi itself, perhaps I’ll rent the movie Topkapi.  A 1964 heist movie, it stars Melina Mercouri and Peter Ustinov (who won an Oscar for his role), Maximillian Schell and Robert Morley, and is a prime entry in 60s-era heist flicks. Even now, it earns an 83% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Turkey, although many equate the nation only with Muslim history, also figures prominently in both classical antiquity and early Christianity.

Roman ruins in Perge, founded between BC12-13, are reminiscent of the best of Roman. A well-preserved theater, stadium and agora—marketplace—are highlights. Nearby Aspendos also boasts Roman ruins, with the 30,000-person theater still in use for contemporary concerts.

Apparently it was once thought to be the birthplace of beer, although more recent research attributes that discovery to the Pharaohs in Egypt. Either way, if you can’t book a trip to Perge right now, you could easily break the cabin fever with some beer. If you can find it, Efes Beer is made in Turkey, and named after the next stop on this short tour, Ephesus. But if you can’t, Tuborg is the other most popular beer in Turkey, and is readily available in the U.S. Remember, too, what Ben Franklin said, “Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

The third stop on this short tour of Turkey is Ephesus, famous for its temple to Artemis, and located in a very fertile Ionian landscape, a sea-girt, western part of the Anatolian peninsula. The classical ruins are extraordinary, but more extraordinary still to many Christians is that Ephesus was the home of the Virgin Mary. Few remember that the mother of Jesus of Nazareth lived a long life after the death of her first-born son. She accompanied St. John to Ephesus, and lived hear a grove of olive trees there. There is, of course, debate about this, both about the exact location currently promoted as Mary’s house, and whether, in fact, she did live in Ephesus. Either way, certainly the area has deep connections with early Christianity, and a visit to the site is certainly a visit to places on which the apostles trod, bringing to believers a sense of spiritual connection, and bringing to everyone a sensation of great beauty and long history.

Possibly less debatable is that St. John wrote his gospel there.

If you can’t visit Ephesus, there are any number of churches locally dedicated to Mary and to St. John. My favorite among the latter is St. John’s in the Village in Baltimore. Not only does it offer great music and a very traditional form of Episcopalianism, it is built much like an English country church, right in the middle of the city; the building and grounds are of historic note. For believers, a stop at St. John’s in the Village might be just the thing to help cure cabin fever, and it’s a short day trip from DC. (Hint: It is also on the edge of the Hopkins campus area, and good restaurants are to be found for Sunday brunch. Among my favorites is Gertrude’s at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Good food, fantastic copper bar—which is where we usually eat—and a stunning jazz duo Sundays from about 11 a.m. through brunch time.)

There is one package tour that includes Istanbul, Perge and Ephesus and many other sites, Christian, Muslim and classical, and seems to be good value. Find a description by visiting the Gate1Travel website.

If you are interested only in Christian sites, Turkey Biblical Tours offers a wide variety, most customizable.

Or rent a movie, drink Efes or Tuborg beer, and, on Sunday, visit St. John's in the Vilage, Baltimore, or other Christian or Muslim house of worship of your choice. (Sorry, the US has no classical antiquities to soothe your soul...but then, perhaps a visit to a modern classical monument such as the Lincoln Memorial would do.)