Understanding Turkey takes both time as well as effort, but what else do you expect from a country that spans two entire worlds?

By Ben Snook

Turkey is confused. It’s been confused for quite some time, in fact. Straddling the Bosporus, the country has its feet planted in both Europe and Asia (or Asia Minor, if you’re feeling classical). Politically, it has long been leaning towards Europe and is currently petitioning the European Union for admission; socially and religiously, though, Turkey is less certain about its future. Indeed, politics in Turkey is a sticky issue, best left well alone especially if you’re in the company of Turks. Despite holding regular elections and having a democratically chosen parliament, Turkey has clung firmly to laws that seem strangely out of place in the modern world. Criticizing the country publicly can lead to a prison sentence and exile; criticizing Atatürk — the modern nation’s founding father — attracts a similar penalty; mentioning the Armenian Holocaust, in which as many as 1.5 million Armenians were killed by the Ottoman regime between 1915 and 1917, is also strictly forbidden. The Turkish government, along with a majority of the Turks themselves still angrily deny that such an event ever took place and do not take kindly to being contradicted.

Despite Islam being the majority religion in the country, the divide between Mosque and State is sternly enforced: all state employees including teachers and civil servants are strictly forbidden from wearing religious symbols (most noticeably the headscarf); alcohol is not as freely available as it is elsewhere in Europe, but beer and raki (a popular anise-flavored apéritif in Turkey) are still served in many restaurants and cafés, especially in the western part of the country. Yet, this is a country of contradictions: despite the ostensible unimportance of Islam in Turkish society and its total exclusion from the business of government, every day at 5 p.m. the country reverberates to the haunting sound of the muezzin’s call as 40 million Turks make their way to prayers.

Geographically, the differences between Turkey’s developed, touristy provinces in the West and the wild, mountainous regions of the East which border Syria, Iraq and Iran, are every bit as stark as the paradoxes inherent in its society. Resorts like Bodrum, on the country’s western Mediterranean coast, sport all of the usual tourist hotels, English-speaking cafés and sight-seeing boat tours around the islands; yet the eastern provinces of Mardin and ?irnak are as remote as any part of the Middle East. The situation in these areas is complicated further by the insurgency being waged by the PKK (the Kurdistan Workers’ Party), a well-equipped, heavily-armed and well-funded Kurdish separatist group. Leave to visit such areas is rarely granted by the central Turkish government; officially this out of concern for the safety of any adventurous tourists but, more likely, it’s to keep nosy journalists from getting too close to the Turkish army’s operations in one of the region’s most fiercely disputed separatists conflicts.

However, despite the odd bomb attack (the last one occurred in Marmaris in 2006), the conflict rarely spills over into the western portion of the country, where the sweeping, scrubby mountains lead down to the sun-scorched shorelines interrupted only by a string of high-rise resorts. The scenery in this part of the country is breathtaking. Despite the heat, which can reach well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit at the height of summer, the interior is well-irrigated and is surprisingly green. The many ranges of high mountains have their slopes draped in a verdant blanket of cedars and Mediterranean pines. Unspoiled villages and ancient Greek and Lydian grave sites are, apparently, plentiful up in the mountains. Venturing off the beaten track can, apparently, transport you back two hundred years into a poor but healthy world of donkey carts, olive groves and citrus orchards.

Try as I might, though, I couldn’t quite find this rural idyll that my Turkish guidebook was so excited about. The closest I came was being ripped off to the tune of $9 by an elderly Turkish peasant for a watermelon she was selling by the side of the road. In the end, I decided I didn’t want the watermelon that badly. This experience set the tone. In the bazaars of the coastal towns almost nothing has a price on it: how much you pay depends on how gullible you look and whether or not you can speak enough Turkish to argue with the vendor. Inflated prices are a reality you have to get used to.

If you can get past the rip-off merchants on the waysides, though, Turkey has plenty more with which to repay your determination. Unlike much of the Mediterranean, Turkey’s western coast has yet to be colonized en masse by untold hoards of western tourists. Certainly places like Marmaris and Fethiye have their fair share of outsiders, but, on balance, Turkey has more of its traditional fishing villages, quiet quays and sheltered coves left untouched than almost any other Mediterranean coastline. Getting there demands a car — bus services are cheap but irregular — but it’s well worth it.

Turkish food is also a revelation. Kebabs have an undeserved reputation in much of the world for being greasy, fattening and generally unappetizing. A good Turkish kebab, though, is a world away from the stale pitas stuffed with slimy lettuce and unidentifiable processed meat served in a polystyrene containers from New York to Frankfurt. Being a Muslim country, there is no pork, of course, but the quality of the lamb and the chicken more than makes up for that. Much of the meat sold by the restaurants is sourced locally and reared in a fashion to which the tag “free range” takes on a whole new meaning: often, as you settle into your seat in almost any rural café, the owner’s chickens will be pecking around your feet and his goats will be fighting with each other in front of the bar. For some, this level of intimacy with one’s food can seem a little disconcerting, but at least you can take comfort in knowing exactly where the lamb in your kebab has come from.

Even though it sometimes does a good job of hiding it, Turkey offers a rich and very accessible range of experiences. It is edgier than almost any other European destination, offering plenty of facilities for tourists but not so many that you feel like you’re being coddled. Wherever you go, Turkey will force you out of your comfort zone. You could spend your whole time laying on the beach sipping outrageously overpriced Mojitos if you wanted, but you’d be missing the entire point. This truly is a country that needs to be explored to really be understood.

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Tucked far away in the South of France, Languedoc is one of the country’s most unique and charming provinces; sometimes causing a visitor to forget that they’re in France at all.

By Ben Snook

To this day, the people of Languedoc are proud of their heritage and many still regard northerners with a certain amount of suspicion. Until the thirteenth century Languedoc, the southern province in France between the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, was fiercely independent from the king in Paris and as a result of its forceful incorporation into the French state, a stubborn streak of nationalism still remains.  For example, having a Paris license plate this far south is guaranteed to get you cut off and shouted at on the road.

These days, Toulouse, the home of the European space program amongst other things, is still the industrial and financial center of the region, but the town of Carcassonne is the undoubted capital of tourism. An UNESCO world heritage site, this medieval town was saved from demolition and partially reconstructed, not altogether authentically, in the nineteenth century and much of the original medieval city remains. Surrounded by gently undulating olive groves and vineyards, the city is a magnificent sight to say the least: its soaring walls and formidable towers loom above the gentle landscape for miles around, creating one of southern Europe’s most spectacular landmarks.

For some, though, the city itself can be something of a let down. When I first visited in early summer the tourist season was just getting going and the crowds were starting to descend on the south of France in ever increasing numbers. As I walked through the magnificent, towering gatehouse to enter the old city I overheard an American boy shout to his mother, “Wow, it’s just like Disneyland!” Quietly horrified, I ignored him and pressed snobbishly on up the main street.

Twenty minutes later I could see his point. The narrow, cobbled alleys winding steeply up through the city towards the citadel very nearly felt like they had hardly changed since the thirteenth century. Hardly, that is, apart from the endless rows of medieval-themed gift shops, medieval-themed restaurants and medieval-themed bars which dominated their lower levels. Of course, there are parts around the walls — near the cathedral, in the citadel and in the main square — where you can still appreciate how the city might have felt some 800 years ago. It’s here where you’ll fine the charming, shady squares and beautiful, small bars built into the old walls which are quite unique (if you
can find them).

The defining gastronomic experience of the Languedoc is Cassoulet. Much like the area’s leading tourist attractions, this can be somewhat hit and miss. On my first visit to Carcasonne, still dazzled by the astonishing surroundings, I simply wandered into the first restaurant I could find and ordered a steaming pot of it. Based around a duck confit, cassoulet is a fatty casserole with beans, pork, sausages, chicken and whatever else the chef has lying around the kitchen. This first experience of the dish was certainly memorable. From where I sat I could watch the sun as it sank behind the rapidly silhouetted city walls while sipping excellent local red wine and listening to distant accordion music; the place could barely have been any more perfect. Then the cassoulet arrived. A steaming pot of molten grease with unidentified chunks of meat floating amongst a scattering of browned butter beans, it reminded me immediately of a sewage outlet pipe. Nevertheless, I was hungry so I dug in. Immediately I regretted it and continued to do so for the next 24 hours. Having resolved never to try this abomination again, I was finally convinced by a French friend that it really wasn’t all like that. “Every one is different,” he told me. Taking his advice (and safe in the knowledge that my travel insurance was fully comprehensive), I tried again. In a different restaurant this time, I bravely ordered up the house speciality cassoulet and set about dulling my senses with as much vin de pays as I could get down my throat before the meal arrived. I needn’t have worried: far from the pock-marked oil slick I had eaten before, this second example was rich and tasty, the meat perfectly cooked and resting on a fragrant bed of herb-scented beans. It was absolutely delicious.

There is a lot more to the Languedoc than just Carcasonne and cassoulet, though. Driving out in almost any direction takes you through endless acres of gently rolling vineyards, most of them happy for you to taste their wine (of which they are fiercely proud) if you ask. To the north of Carcasonne, the black mountains loom out of the surrounding plains. A steep climb over them takes you through dramatically changing scenery: in no time, the sun-drenched vineyards have given way to cool but humid mountain tracks and densely forested peaks. The small town of Castres is a classical French provincial town: a magnificent waterside, an imposing Baroque cathedral and a myriad of pleasant, shady squares. Beyond Castres, to the north, is Albi which boasts one of the most spectacular cathedrals in all of southern Europe. Heavily fortified, this building is an uncompromisingly brutal statement of the orthodoxy imposed on the region in the aftermath of the crusades. Less spectacular than Carcasonne, Albi also feels less like a theme park and, for that alone, is well worth a visit.

In the opposite direction, southeast of Carcasonne, is a quite different side of the Languedoc. Narbonne, which is adjacent to a series of tidal lagoons stretching seven miles inland from the coast, has a completely different feel to the interior of the region. A provincial seaside town, it’s full of brightly colored buildings and boasts a stunning market. French markets are something to behold wherever you are in the country. Invariably, they’ll be full of local vegetables, meat and fruit. Buying something is an experience in itself: if you don’t barter, they look at you as though there’s something wrong with you; if you do dare to, they look so offended that you slink off with your tail between your legs embarrassed that you even asked in the first place.

In Narbonne, fish is the speciality. Countless stalls full of every kind of seafood offered up by the Mediterranean dominate the place. The produce is so fresh that all you can smell is the salt of the sea. The vendors will tell you at great length from behind a five-foot-high mountain of assorted shellfish how fishing is dying, how there’s not as much as there used to be, and how you’re lucky you came when you did, because if you’d come tomorrow, there might not be any fish left. Somehow, though, there always is.

The Languedoc is the kind of place you can very happily get lost in and not realize. It is one of the few places in Europe that has absolutely everything: the rich, tasty food; the delicious local wine; the unspoiled beaches; the medieval, hilltop citadels. Tourism has affected the place, certainly. The coast is not without its resorts and the interior certainly not without its gift shops. Nevertheless, the French are fiercely protective of their region. The Languedoc, unlike so much of many other parts of Europe, has a real sense that French people still live in it. The culture there is genuine, not put on for the benefit of affluent tourists. For all this, when you’ve been once, I guarantee you’ll go back. I did.

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From The North To The South, A Look At Three Cities Of Spain As Unique As The Country Itself

By Ben Snook

Getting off the plane at Santiago airport felt like cheating. Ever since the bones of St James turned up at Santiago de Compostela more than a thousand years ago, pilgrims have trekked through Europe to visit what rapidly became Europe’s second most holy site, after only Rome itself. Some of Europe’s oldest highways were first laid out in order to facilitate the journey: they lead from as far away as Scandinavia and Poland and took pilgrims through France, over the Pyrenees and across the Spanish coastline. I walked out of the plane into a torrential spring downpour. I had left bright, crisp sunshine behind in England. Things were not going well so far.

Santiago itself, though, more than made up for that. Like most Spanish cities, it is hard to distinguish the “modern” suburbs of Santiago from its spectacular medieval centre. In northern Europe, the 1960’s and 1970’s saw a profusion of Soviet-style tower-blocks spring up in a vulgar halo around many ancient city centers. Santiago has its modern architecture, of course, but set against the lush green of the surrounding hills and in the context of some of the most striking buildings in the whole of Spain, the majority of the city has managed to retain its historic charm.

Rounding a corner and coming upon the massive Santiago cathedral is anexperience not to be forgotten in a hurry. The cathedral (the city’s first) was built in 829 and, ever since, it has been rebuilt, expanded and augmented by successive monarchs and dukes wishing to cement their place in history by some new and magnificent contribution to Santiago’s already overcrowded architectural heritage. The only leader to buck the trend was Mohammed ibn-Abi Amir, an agent of the Caliph of Cordoba, who, when he sacked Santiago in 997, razed the great church to its foundations.

In the millennium since then, however, it has had plenty of time to recover. The sublime carvings on the cathedral’s famous western façade were completed in 1750 and constitute some of the most magnificent examples of western sculpture still in existence. It’s possible to stand for hours in the grand square opposite the cathedral and gaze at every detail of this beautifully precise and implausibly intricate masterpiece. If one did, though, one would probably get rather wet. Along with magnificent scenery and imposing churches, rain is a major feature of Santiago, but experiencing a good Santiago storm is well worth it; no other city I have ever visited glistens and sparkles in the wet quite like Santiago.

Moreover, the weather is a good excuse to visit a bar. Gallicia is famous for its tapas — tasty bar snacks designed to make you order more beer (which, to me, seems like a very satisfactory arrangement). Every bar has its own speciality which will invariably be served free along with a drink. Seafood is popular — octopus being a particular favorite — but there are plenty of cured meats and cheeses as well. Such is the quantity of the tapas that it’s possible to consume a complete lunch just by going from bar to bar ordering nothing but drinks, being pleasantly surprised by whatever comes out accompanying them.

The food in Spain generally is something special; Santiago is no exception. There is little extravagant cooking here. There are few famous restaurants and little opportunity for formal, tucked-in-shirt style dining. Yet the many small bars and restaurants serve cheap, delicious food in astonishing quantities. It’s all too easy to spend a whole afternoon grazing from bar to bar sampling their specialities.

I was only in Santiago for three days. Had we stayed any longer we would have found ourselves in something of a quandary: we should have moved on and seen somewhere else (the cities of Vigo and La Coruña are close enough to warrant a visit), but dragging oneself away from one’s table, with an endless supply of beer and tapas, overlooking the handsome, glittering city is not an easy thing
to do.

The Costa Blanca is an altogether very different experience. Ever since the late 1960s, Northern Europeans have been making an annual pilgrimage to Spain’s warm, sandy coasts to fry themselves to a striking shade of scarlet. The Spanish, though, know when they’re on to a good thing: by sacrificing the odd fishing village here and unspoiled stretch of virgin sand there, they have constructed a crescent of huge resorts stretching from Benidorm on the Costa Blanca round to Marbella. Old-fashioned, whitewashed fishermen’s shacks and the colorful markets that they once supplied have been swept away in favor of the towering spires of convoluted hotels all proudly boasting “we speak the English” on sandwich boards outside their doorways.

At first glance, the Costa Blanca (the name given to the coastline of the province of Alicante) does not seem to represent the most appealing prospect for a holiday given its tendency fill up with tourists during the summer. Unless you wish to spend a week cooking yourself on a beach, though, a car is an essential. Renting a car in Spain is relatively cheap and the new lease of life it gives is priceless. Though most of the coastal towns on the Costa Blanca are overrun with tourists during the high-season, there are one or two, like Denia (about forty-five minutes north of Calpe by car), that repay a visit with a vibrant fish market and an impressive Moorish castle.

Getting away from the sea, though, takes you somewhere else entirely. The Jalon valley (30 minutes from the coast) is famed for its wine which is rustic, fruity and unsophisticatedly delicious. The many “bodegas” which can be found in every town and village in this area each have a local speciality, decanted directly from barrels into empty water bottles. This is also the territory of the “typico” restaurant. You can easily spot these places. Often slightly run down or with a hint of 70’s chic, you hear them before you see them; this is where the locals go to shout at each other over generous plates of the day’s speciality.

Still, there is no sense of you as an outsider: like everywhere else in Spain, you’re one of the crowd regardless of who you are or where you come from. You are seated and then given a choice of chicken, rabbit, beef or fish. Choose wisely, because throughout the afternoon plate after plate of food will be brought to your table, accompanied by more wine (the wine list gives you the choice of red, white or beer) than you believed could possibly exist in one place. The food itself is like everything else in this part of the world: unpretentious and vivacious. The real joy of it all is that the gas you used to get there and back will probably have cost you more than the meal.

The final leg of my Spanish trip took me to Granada in the south of the country. Famous for the Alhambra palace and the magnificent architecture that sprang up to mirror it, Granada is only a few miles away from the port city of Malaga and just north of Spain’s most popular summer destination, the Costa del Sol. Given it’s location, during the height of summer it’s inundated by daytrippers. Set against the background of the Sierra Nevada national park, this place is set in some of the most dramatic country in Europe; the town itself, not to be outdone by its surroundings, boasts the Alhambra — Granada’s undeniable centrepiece — which is without question one of the most glorious building in all of Europe. A Moorish stronghold until the fifteenth century, there is a peculiar collision of styles here: Moorish domes and mosque-like structures mingle with gothic and baroque turrets giving Granada an almost theme-park-like quality.

The many gift shops that can be found around the city do nothing to detract from the sublime quality of Granada; if Santiago was the pinnacle of Christian achievement in Spain, then Granada represented the height of the Muslim power which once ruled much of this country. There is hardly a row of buildings, line of pavement or sweeping vista that is not graceful and striking. Even the
municipal buildings are subtly beautiful; even the way in which the different architectural styles vie with each other for superiority is something special.

As with everywhere else, the food is memorable. Plates of tapas are unavoidable wherever you go. Even in the oppressive heat of southern Spain (Granada is barely two hundred miles from north Africa), eating and drinking is an essential pastime. Thankfully, though, chips are off the menu here.

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