After an eleven hour flight from Toronto to Istanbul, 7 of the 21 participants on the Turkey Tour arrived at the Istanbul airport. We met together near the luggage area just to find everyone coming in at this time and to meet our guide, Tulu, a precious, gracious woman who showed us to our brand […]
Paul and Barnabas twice visited Perge during their first missionary journey. In 46 AD, according to the Acts of the Apostles, Paul journeyed to Perge from Paphos (in Cyprus) and from there continued on to Antioch (in Psidia), and then finally returned to Perge where he preached the word of God (Acts 14:25). They ‘preached […]
Antioch of Pisidia – Antioch is a city in the lake district of southwest Asia Minor, in the province of Pisidia. It becomes a Roman province in 6 B.C.E. Paul and Barnabas visit the city on their first journey (Acts 13:13-14) and preach here on many sabbaths (Acts 13:15-44). One of the results of Paul’s […]
The area that we traveled today was a huge river valley with large mountains on one side and rolling hills on the other. The ancient city of Hierapolis is high on the hillside and Colossae is eleven miles away near the high mountains. Laodicea is at the base of the mountains in the distance. Early […]
Today we drove through the fertile countryside looking at fields of cotton and vineyards of sultanas grapes and orchards of pomegranates. This is a fertile land of many natural rivers that are used for irrigation, and the small farms dotting the land have been owned privately by farmers’s families for centuries. We drove through a […]
Pergamum was one of the grandest excavated sites that we have seen. High up on a large plateau, it was the seat of one (Lysimichus ) of the four general-kings of Alexander the Great who inherited the land when Alexander died. After a slow decline, the city was favored by several imperial initiatives under Hadrian […]
In the ancient world, Ephesus was a center of travel and commerce. This fabulous complex metropolis was one of the greatest seaports of the ancient world, although it’s hard to imagine that today. During the past 2,000 years, silt has built up until now the sea is about 5 miles away and the valley of […]
Today, we toured St. Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome and the Archeological Museum of Istanbul. The day was just gorgeous! A real “Colorado summer day” with cool winds, brilliant sunshine, glorious skies, and mild temperatures. The traffic was minimal because of “Ramadan” and school holiday. The first place the bus dropped us off was […]
This morning we drove through the rush hour traffic from the European side of Istanbul to the Asian side, crossing one of the two bridges that span the Bosporus. We headed out of Istanbul to drive to the town called Nicaea. As we drove through the city I was just amazed at the new construction […]
Today we started out going to the Grand Bazaar, one of the largest shopping malls in the world. In its past it was the center for trade for the entire Ottoman Empire. It has as many as 4,000 shops and was such fun for us to shop in. It was started in the Middle Ages […]