following the spice route into Anatolia - Tokat

We are following the ancient spice route from Asia to Europe, and some vestiges of that time are still visible.  Our route takes us to Tokat and then on to Sivas.  Our early morning (but nt that early = 8am) meant a very quiet bus as everyone slept off whatever they had to sleep off.  Eric introduced Walter to the functions of an ipad, and I watched my own privatge movie or Turkey's ladnscape as it changed, subtly but definitively.  We rose in elevation and the air got drier. 

I saw patches of wild flowers litter the side of road.  Red and orange poppies, purple salvia and pea, yellow camomile and rape (canola), white cow parley and daisy.  Magpies flashed by and I saw storks and a hawk.  Poplar, locust and sumac trees line the road, many of them pruned to look like spindy lollipops (not the poplars, they just look like lollipop sticks) that rock and bend in the breeze.  It's not easy being green.

Tokat was an interesting stop for three reasons:
1) it is known for its hand-blocked cottons, which we have seen in every market, or at least many mass produced copies, but here is the real thing.  In the Gök Medressa, which was built in 1270, there were many women who do this work, and are proud to show you their handiwork.

what good is a ruined castle on the
top of a hill unless you climb it?

2) It has quite a few interesting architecutral buildings in a small space.  Of course there is a requisite citadel (or the remains of one) at the top of the hill, a Mosque dating to the 12th century, and the "new" one (16th century).  It also has an excellent little archaeology museum where we sketched. As we walked between this and that, Pinar bought a huge round of bread from a tiny bakery and some local cheese. We each grabbed hunks of still warm bread and nothing tasted so good.

I like the delicacy of this stork-handled spoon

Ottoman bronze door handles

green glazed pottery from the area

3) Tokat is a good illustration of what is happening throughout Turkey. Old Ottoman houses and country homes are now the homes of the poor, and as they decay and fall to ruin, they are replaced with modern boxes of 2 or 3 storeys, filled with the chain stores found everywhere. One can hardly complain- isn't that what all of Europe has done?  And let's not even go there with us in North America! Turkey's current prosperity means citizens can have the washing machines and big screen TVs they see in the movies and elsewhere.  Keeping up with the Joneses is bred into every capitalist society in one form or another.