Today's Turkey

Here are some pictures of today's Turkey, towns, traffic, transportation systems, and agriculture.

One interesting part of old agriculture that I saw in Cappadocia were the pigeon holes in the cliffs of Cappadocia. Before artificial fertilizers, pigeon guano was an important and valuable fertilizer. The people in Cappadocia built pigeon holes in lots of their cliffs. These cliffs are inaccessible from the ground, so the pigeons are pretty safe. Since the guano was so valuable, the pigeons were too. A lot of effort was put into their care. That included nicely painting the entrances to some of the pigeon colonies.

At the end are some pictures of the balloon ride that I took over Cappadocia.

All pictures are © Dr. Günther Eichhorn, unless otherwise noted.

Towns and Villages

A typical mountain village. (1224k)

A typical coastal town. Most houses had red roofs in that area. (706k)

Often the mosque stands out. (779k)

A small village in the interior east. (703k)

Most houses have these water heaters on their roofs. (426k)

In the east you could still see wells like this. (498k)

A small town with the election campaign painting the town. (671k)

Storefront in a local resort town. (1015k)

A local resort town north coast of the Dardanelles Straits. These were evidently Turkish tourists rather than foreign ones. (757k)

Traffic

İstanbul Boğazı (The Bosporus) with one of the two bridges that cross it. (461k)

Çanakkale Boğazı (Dardanelles Straits), with lots of ship traffic. (618k)

The further east I drove, the more I saw these old Renaults. (1035k)

A lot of public transportation is done with these mini buses. (993k)

Loaded farm truck. (476k)

Some of the trucks were really loaded. (457k)

The further east I drove, the more of these I saw. (654k)

The election campaign was in full swing. I saw a lot of these campaign vehicles with blaring loudspeakers. (677k)

In one area in Turkey, there were a lot of these self-serve car washes. You just drove under the water and ran the wipers. No attendant, no cost, just shower and go. (887k)

Lots of roads were widened from two to four lanes. This one was under construction for the second set of lanes. (904k)

An excavator digging up the road (see description on main page). (890k)

One of the short no-passing zones that are really only as long as the area where you can't see around the turn. (808k)

Agriculture

Olive groves were everywhere. (1094k)

On the Mediterranean side were a lot of sunflower fields. I heard that the sunflowers turn to always face the sun. This was evidently not true for Turkish sunflowers. (1064k)

Olive tree with a herd of sheep seeking shade underneath. (1315k)

Donkeys on the road. They were alone, finding their own way. (722k)

I saw many of these structures on the Sea of Marmara. I assume they have something to do with fishing. (828k)

Bee keeping was fairly frequent in some parts of turkey. (1445k)

Pigeon holes in the cliffs in Cappadocia. (884k)

Pigeon holes in the cliffs in Cappadocia. (802k)

Some of them were lavishly painted. (656k)

Another of the painted pigeon colonies. (767k)

People and Business

The main bazaar in İstanbul. (728k)

Another local market. (714k)

At least he wasn't hiding anything. (578k)

Locals on a motorcycle with sidecar. (731k)

Local face. (411k)

This was in a poorer area in an Arabic speaking part in southern Turkey. There don't seem to be many tourists there, all the kids in the village collected and watched me walk around the ruins. (985k)