First Visit to Bulgaria (Part One): The Botanical Garden of Balchik

Bulgaria has long been on my list of 'must-see' destinations, but I did not manage to visit this country until 2011 (!), when I saw this irresistable last-minute offer for flight+hotel from a certain Swiss airport to Burgas for less than the price of a Furla handbag (!), so I decided the time is right and off I go ...

Once you are in Burgas or nearby Nesebar, it is fairly easy to find a tour agency that can book you on a day-trip from your hotel to Varna and Balchik. The Botanical Garden of Balchik, with its extensive cactus collection and beautiful landscaped garden, is the top attraction of this pretty little seaside town.

Mozart at Aspendos: Die Entführung aus dem Serail in Turkey

I have always wanted to attend an opera performance at the Aspendos International Festival, which takes place every year in the ancient Roman ampitheatre of Aspendos near Antalya in the summer. For two weeks from mid-June to early July, the Turkish State Opera and Ballet organizes a series of opera, ballet and other music performances in the beautiful Aspendos ampitheatre, sometimes even featuring world-renown philharmonic orchestras such as the Wiener Philharmoniker. Programmes change from year to year, and further information can be obtained from Turkish State Opera and Ballets' (Devlet Opera ve Balesi) official website www.dobgm.gov.tr

The New High Speed Train in Turkey: From Ankara to Konya in One and a Half Hour

To travel by train in Turkey was sometimes a pain in the ass. Because of the winding route and the outdated railtracks, the speed of the train often could not exceed 60km/h, which means it would take more than twice the time required by bus to travel from Sivas to Ankara. A few years ago, a series of fatal rail accidents tarnished the already shaky reputation of Turkey's state-owned railways even further. A while ago, when I decided to take an overnight sleeper train when travelling from Ankara to Adana, all friends who heard about that shook their head in disbelief, as most Turks consider travelling by train far too slow and inefficient than going by bus or by car. To make it more complicated, in the last few years many sections of the Turkish rail systems were closed due to rail upgrading works, which makes rail travel even more inconvenient and unappealing to the general public. Granted, train fares in Turkey are much cheaper than bus fares, but given the amount of time required and the frequent delay, unless one has a lot of free time on hand and does not need to be in a particular place at a particular time, it is better to go by bus or air.

Well aware of the fact that the Turkish rail system is seriously out of date and under-invested, the Turkish government approved an ambitious scheme to connect virtually all important cities in Turkey with modern high-speed rail networks. The first high-speed line to be built is the Istanbul-Eskisehir-Ankara line, but for whatever reasons, the construction of the line takes ages and is still going on at the time of writing (January 2012). Hence only the high-speed section between Ankara and Eskisehir has entered into full-time service, operated by real high speed trains. Istanbul-bound passengers have to get off the high speed train in Eskisehir and change onto conventional trains in order to continue their journey to Istanbul.

Churches of Diyarbakir:Surp Giragos Armenian Orthodox Church

The Surp Giragos Armenian Orthodox Church in Diyarbakir is a remarkable building with a turbulent past.  Built in the late 14th century, the church was the only Armenian church in the world to have seven altars. The building was used by the Germans as their military headquarters in Diyarbakir during the First World War. In the aftermath of the deportation of most of Diyarbakir's Armenian residents, the church property was seized by the state and became a storage warehouse of various state enterprise.

Churches of Diyarbakir: Mar Petyun Chalean Catholic Church

Nowadays when people talk about Southeast Anatolia and the city of Diyarbakir, the first thing that comes to their mind is the very well-publicised ongoing political and armed struggles between Turkey's Kurdish minorities and the Turkish government. The 'Kurdish Question' has been such a dominant issue in the last 50 years that when it comes to Diyarbakir, it seems people simply cannot come to think of the city in any other way apart from its association with Kurdish miitants and its reputation as the hotbed of Kurdish nationalism. 

The fact that most people would equate Diyarbakir right away with Kurds and Kurdish conflicts reflects just how successful the Turkish state's efforts to erase the past from the present have been. How many of us still remember that Diyarbakir was once home to a sizeable Christian popuation prior to the genocide in the late 19th and early 20th century, and that a quarter of all civil populations in today's eastern Anatolian provinces of Erzurum, Elazig (formerly Harput), Erzincan, Diyarbakir, Bingol, Bitlis, Sivas, Tunceli etc. was Christians of various ethnic groups and denominations?