Safranbolu and Amasra (Amasra)

Name: maikli

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Product:	Amasra
Date:	29/10/04 (564 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Picturesque old town, pansiyons in old houses, laid-back beach resort

Disadvantages: Maybe a bit quiet for some people, freezing cold sea

(Before I get lots of stick from those expecting a review of Amasra...Amasra comes later, so if that's what you're after, scroll down!)

On a wintry morning in County Durham, a little after nine, I stumbled out of bed and dragged myself, half-asleep and clutching a piece of burnt toast in my hand, over the road to a converted barn. From somewhere in the fog, a cow mooed at me. A bitterly cold wind hit me full in the face. It began to rain. Yawning, I knocked on the barn door.

“Buyurun! Late again. Now, repeat after me…geliyorum, geliyorsun, geliyor…”
four equally tired-looking faces looked up as I took my place, mouths moving unconvincingly through the present tense of the verb “to come”.
“…geliyoruz, geliyorsunuz, geliyorlar. Good! And again, geliyorum, geliyorsun, geli…”

While the teacher wrote rules of Turkish vowel harmony on the blackboard, we traded confused looks and raised eyebrows, our breath coming out as steam, as the heating had packed up again in this neglected little corner of Durham University.

“Now, if the last vowel is an a, an undotted i, an o or a u, your stem will be formed with…”

My mind drifted. It was too early to be as energetic as the teacher, too cold to concentrate. The walls of the tiny classroom were bare, save for a dirty old poster in the corner. Colour had long since deserted the poster for warmer climes, the edges tinged with brown and beginning to curl. It was an old advertisement for tourism in Turkey, showing an elderly man in a flat cap leading a donkey laden with hay past a couple of ancient timber houses on a cobbled street. I began to wonder if such a place still existed in modern Turkey, kept safe from over-enthusiastic property developers with penchants for concrete and high-risery. Probably not.

“…the final vowel is an e, the suffix will be what, Maikli?”
“Eh?”

Lesson over, I paused beside the photo before going home. It wasn’t just one street. In the background, where I expected to see drab apartment blocks, there were hills covered with similar rickety wooden houses. It was all very picturesque, quaint even. My teacher caught me looking.

“Safranbolu. Cok guzel. A very beautiful place.”
“I’d like to go there,” I said.
“Yes, you should. But first you must get to grips with these verb patterns. Now come on, out! I need to lock up.”

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While the intricacies of of Turkish verb endings managed to elude me for much of that year, especially around exam time, the name of that town must have somehow lodged itself in my mind. That summer, when I spotted a bus office in Istanbul selling tickets to Safranbolu, on a whim I booked two seats for myself and a friend who was traveling with me.

“What did you go and do that for?” my friend asked incredulously. “I thought we were going to the beach. You know, Kusadasi, Bodrum?”
“Well, no rush, we can go to the beach afterwards. It’s not far,” I lied. But it was only a half-lie…Safranbolu is near the coast. Just not the Aegean, where my friend had visions of partying until dawn in a big resort. He picked up his guidebook to the Turkish Coast, going quite pale when he located Safranbolu on the map, a million miles away from Aegean revelry, but very close to the albeit unfashionable Black Sea coast.
“What the…” he started
“Trust me, you’ll love it!” I only hoped I was right.

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Stepping off the bus the following day, my worst fears seemed likely to be confirmed. The town was a nothingness of half-finished concrete blocks and petrol stations, not a cobble or a flat-capped elderly man in sight. I bit my tongue and concentrated on getting the bags, sensing that my friend, who’d been remarkably quiet on the journey, was working himself up for a bit of an outburst. Just as tempers were bent on exploding, a middle-aged woman approached and asked if we were going to Safranbolu.

“Is this not Safranbolu?” I asked.
“No, this is Kirankoy. Safranbolu is down in the valley. Turn left at the end of this road and you’ll see it.”

I strode out of the bus station, my friend trailing reluctantly behind me. After passing the last of the concrete blocks, the road began to descend steeply into a green valley. Without warning, a picture-postcard view rose up out of nowhere. Red-tiled roofs, brown and white Ottoman houses, a turreted wall on a hilltop, donkey carts trundling over well-worn cobbles, an old woman draped in shawls, bent almost double carrying a load of firewood on her back. It was just like the poster on the classroom wall. Actually it was better.

Tantrums forgotten (a big grin had taken over where a surly grimace had left off), we set about finding a bed for the night. We didn’t have to look very far. No sooner had we entered the town, a sprightly octagenarian came running out from a side-alley.

“Oda ister misiniz?” Do you want a room?

We followed him through the narrow streets as they twisted along the contours of the valley, stopping outside a centuries-old, three-storey stone-and-wood house. The upper portions of the house overhung the street, almost dangerously as if they were about to collapse. But then every house was like this. Wooden shutters on the second floor burst open, and a headscarfed female face peered down at us.

“Fatima, we have guests!” the old man informed her.

Seconds later, we were ushered up the stairs by a diminutive old lady with a beaming face. Everything about the house was old…the low wooden beds, the heavy oak doors, the Ottoman-style furniture, the Persian rugs, the old-fashioned stove gurgling away in a corner. But the best bit was the bathroom. What I took to be a wardrobe turned out to be a hidden door. Ducking through an extremely low doorway led me to a cupboard-like room containing a simple hole-in-the-ground toilet and a minute sink. It felt like one of those houses you had always wanted to play hide-and-seek in as a child.

“Come! Eat!” our hosts called.

Plates of white cheese, olives, tomatoes, aubergines and dolma (stuffed vine leaves) vied for table space with two types of freshly-baked bread and a huge jug of vishne (cherry juice).

Spirits were high as we set off to explore after that delicious dinner. The sun was setting, which gave the town a sort of magical air. Following our noses, we came across a tiny sign for a café. In the backgarden of a restored mansion, we ordered tea and listened to some traditional Turkish music. Not exactly a wild party on the beach, but my friend seemed happy enough. When it came to leave, we realized to our horror that we hadn’t got a clue where our lodgings were. It was no use asking for directions, as we’d stupidly not taken the name of the family or a contact number! How on earth were we going to find our way back in the dark? We wandered around aimlessly for half an hour, going first this way, then that way, thinking “it must be up here” only to hit a dead end or awaken a dog in slumber.

Rescue came in the form of a small boy who just happened to be walking past. We must have looked lost, because he asked,
“You’re the ones staying in the Karaosmanoglu house, aren’t you?”
“Erm, well, we might be, why?”
“It’s this way”, and he skipped off up the hill. I suppose there can’t have been many foreigners in town, otherwise I just can’t explain this coincidence.

“Where’ve you been? We’ve been worried!” said a concerned Fatima looking at her watch, reminding me of my parents when I come home late.
“Sorry, we got lost,” was my lame excuse.

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Our bellies full of bread, cheese and local honey, we ambled into town the following morning to explore the place thoroughly. Our first stop was the most prominent building in town, the Cinci Hani. A Han is another name for a caravanserai (kervansaray in Turkish), a type of bank, hotel and storeroom all in one. Merchants used to sleep overnight here, resting their heads in the rooms upstairs, storing their good downstairs and their animals tethered in the courtyard. This particular Han dates from the 16th century, and UNESCO has donated considerable sums to restore it, which meant that we could only really admire the building from the outside.

Some workers saw us looking, and invited us to step in the doorway. Forget all ideas of metal scaffolding and loud tools spraying sparks in all directions. This restoration project was underway in the traditional fashion, using wooden planks as walkways, archaic-looking pulley systems and the most modern tool seemed to be a hammer. It didn’t in any way detract from the beauty of the building…in fact, it made it far more interesting than it probably would have been empty.

Peeking into a couple of mosques (the Koprulu Mehmet Pasa Camii and the Izzet Pasa Camii, for those who feel the need to ask), our next stop was the Yemeniciler Arastasi, which loosely translates as “scarf-makers’ alley”, a neat row of craftshops reached via the mosque courtyard. This is one place where tourism is really noticeable, as anything that is made in the workshops here is aimed at the tourist market. But don’t let that put you off. Safranbolu has yet to break onto the “beaten path”, and is only really popular with Turkish tourists. However, that does not mean there are no English speakers around, as we found out when we sat at a gozleme stall.

And what is a gozleme? “It is a sort of thin pancake with cheese and herbs inside,” said the waitress helpfully as we scanned the menu for something we recognized. While we munched on our tasty snack, she told us in fluent English a bit about the town’s history. There are two parts to old Safranbolu. First of all, there is Carsi (pronounced “char-shuh”) where the market was built. Carsi lies in the bowl of the valley, protected from winter winds, so people built their winter houses down there. In the summer, the lack of winds means oppressive heat, so the rich began to build summer mansions on the slopes of the valley, in an area now known as Baglar (pronounced “baa-alar”). We were sitting in the old artisans’ quarter, which has recently been revived by UNESCO.

After getting hopelessly lost in the winding alleys of Carsi, we found ourselves on a road heading uphill, and soon the aforementioned turreted wall could be seen in the distance. Hidirlik is a pleasant park in what looks to be the grounds of a former castle, but is actually not. Anyway, castle or not, the park makes for a great place to get your bearings over a cold drink, as the café has stunning views of the whole town. It is amazing that Safranbolu has escaped not only the intrusive concrete aprtment blocks which have sprouted up in almost every old city in the world, but also it has escaped the notice of all but a handful of tourists.

That evening, we returned to the house early, hoping not to upset the landlady again. Unwittingly we interrupted a family party, which we were invited to join. A glass of raki was thrust in my hand, and a relative began to play the lute. More bread and cheese was brought out, more raki poured, and I don’t remember how I got up the narrow stairs that night. The bruise on my forehead did suggest I wasn’t careful of the low doorway though!

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Bright and early, with not-quite-clear head, we boarded a minibus to the coastal town of Amasra, two hours away through some spectacular mountain scenery. Our first view of Amasra was from above, a narrow promontory jutting out into the sea, covered with red-tiled roofs, the sea around it, the bluest of blues. From that point, it took us nearly an hour to descend the twisting road down the hillside, not really ideal with a hangover.

Although not a big resort, Amasra does have a holiday atmosphere, especially in high summer. All the pansiyons were full, mainly with holidaying Turks, and it took us some time to find a place to stay. Our lodgings were at the far end of the promontory, in a family house overlooking Amasra’s pretty harbour. A walk around Amasra doesn’t take long; it is still, at heart, a fishing village, and the steep hillsides prevent any further expansion.

There are no real sights in Amasra, apart from the view of the town itself. If you look hard, you can probably find traces of an old castle, a few crumbling historic houses, maybe even a museum. But you don’t come to Amasra for that. You come for the beaches, and there is a long and popular sandy beach just next to the harbour. All afternoon we lazed on the beach, getting sand stuck on newly-applied suncream and washing it off in the Black Sea.

I should mention that the Black Sea certainly is no Mediterranean. Whereas I can happily swim for hours in the Med during summer, the Black Sea is decidedly chilly. Clean and clear it may be, but after ten minutes splashing around, we both needed to warm ourselves under the hot sun. Maybe this is why Amasra does not feature in the package holiday brochures?

For me, a beach should be long, wild and deserted, and I’m afraid Amasra’s town beach did not do it for me, despite the great location and wonderful views of the houses perched on the rocky peninsula across the bay. To solve this problem, we hopped on a dolmus (local minibus) to a place called Bozkoy Plaji, a strip of white sand backed by nothing but thickly forested hillsides. There was more animation in the sea too. In contrast with Amasra’s calm-as-a-millpond waters, Bozkoy had crashing waves which pounded the sands relentlessly. Swimming in a rough sea is always far more enjoyable, and it must also do something to keep out the cold, as I was happy to swim for a good half hour before admitting defeat. Bozkoy was almost deserted, except for a few groups of students and a tiny beach café. For anyone into camping, this must be a prime location, and indeed there were a few canvas palaces hidden in the trees.

Nightlife in Amasra is, like the town during the day, relaxed. There is one outdoor disco which blasts out Tarkan and Sertab (the two most popular Turkish singers of 2001) to a mainly local crowd. If dancing is not your thing, head to one of the many waterside cafes for a glass of tea and a game of nardi (backgammon). Fish restaurants not surprisingly abound in Amasra, and there are a number of kebap and pide places along the harbourfront too for those who can’t stomach fish, like me.

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Amazingly this little known corner of Turkey is just a few hours away from Istanbul! Six hours in a plush air-con coach seems like no time at all once you’ve had your complimentary tea and cake, and watched a film or two. Services to Safranbolu are not that frequent though, as I think only a couple of bus companies serve that route, leaving early morning from Istanbul. From Safranbolu to Amasra, you can catch the daily direct minibus early morning from Safranbolu’s main square, or for those later risers, you can take a bus to Bardin and connect to another bus for Amasra. If you are heading along the coast from Amasra, be warned that transport is difficult. Buses go as far as Cide, where you change for the next town, and so on all the way to Sinop. It doesn’t look far on the map, but the road is bad and with all the changes, it takes most of the day to get to Sinop.

Where to stay? Well, in Safranbolu, we stayed in the Karaosmanoglu Ev Pansiyonu, where a room with breakfast and evening meal goes for less than $10 a night. When you enter Safranbolu, turn left at the braying donkey, follow the chickens up to an alleyway by a mosque, straight on past the sleeping dog and up a cobbled street on your right, then…actually, I don’t have a clue how to find the place again! Either ask around, or let someone else take you in. There are plenty of old houses now operating as pensions, some of them quite upmarket too.

Amasra has one largeish hotel by the beach, and dozens of pensions. We stayed at the Kale Pansiyon on the promontory with possibly the best views in all Amasra. Our spotless and spacious twin room had a balcony and a very powerful hot shower, and we had access to the family kitchen and fridge. All that for just $7 a night.

Safranbolu has the potential to become one big tourist trap. Either that or it will become a soulless museum town, its inhabitants finding it too expensive to stay. I really hope this doesn’t happen, as Safranbolu is a very special place…architecturally stunning, yet at the same time, a lived-in town. A lot of restoration is taking place, but it still has that run-down appeal that I love about old cities. If you find yourself in Istanbul with time to spare, you’d do well to spend it in Safranbolu, with maybe a few days at the beach in Amasra. Both towns have a lot to offer, and yet remain fairly off the beaten track. My advice is to get there before the crowds do.

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