The Land of Safron

On the way to Safranbolu on a sleepy Saturday morning in December, coming from the Duzce highway through Karabuk, we drove through plains full of African safari trees- the kind from the Lion King- where we passed through a huge canyon surrounded by cliffs looming up and up, high above our heads, gigantically high. We passed through Karabuk, famous for its god-ugly steel mills. We we passed it, we mused about a deja-vu...it looked like something you'd see in an old western movie- a wooden building with down-sloping wooden walkways. It is huge, and god, so ugly. The city of Karabuk emits an aura of old world; its highlights being crumbling buildings and thick smoke stacks rising in the distance. It's ugliness is even greater defined by about four brand new buildings rising above, and in stark contrast to, the oldness of the this sleep old world city.

Though when you reach Safranbolu, your curiosity at such a place as Karabuk turns into wonderment as you drive through the windy roads of old Safranbolu. Once upon a time, it was a place where the residents of the nearby neighborhoods overflowing with vineyards came to be sheltered for the winter season. Now, it is famous for its well preserved Ottoman houses dating to the 1800's and a popular weekend getaway for Turks. These old dark brown houses supported with horizontal and diagonal wooden beams and plastered with a white paste, giving the houses the look of ancient gingerbread houses settled within the protection of the surrounding mountains. This weekend I spent time traveling through such a picturesque city filled with historical visits to ancient houses, buckets of saffron flavored lokum (Turkish delight!) and shopping through the seemingly endless districts of antiques and chochky souvenirs. It was quite a weekend of marathon shopping. We bought too much, including but not limited to kilos of Turkish delight, handmade lace dresses, postcards, rose-saffron jelly, saffron spices, wooden toys...the list goes on. But wandering around the city so much, we saw a great deal of its back alleyways and its surrounding hills highlighting the panoramic views of the region. We were outside from just about dawn till sunset, making the most of our short winter days. Around sunset on Saturday, we headed to the hamam. The hamam ladies looked rather un-enthused to see us when we walked in, which is quite unusual. We ordered "the works" with the long massage. The argued, telling us the long massage was "cok para" = a lot of money. Everything, with a short massage was 35TL. So we asked, how much money for the long massage. She looked at me and said 40TL. We were a bit confused, but we went to our stall to prepare for the hamam when our lady opened our changing room door and pulling down her pants halfway showed us that we needed to wear undies with a little smack of her bottom. Giggling, we followed her through the three different doors into to the heart of the hamam. (to keep the steam and heat in) We sat on the the low benches surrounding the circular room and filled our basins with water, enjoying the luxury of pouring water of our heads for a good hour. (If only this was possible in America!) Then the scrub-down began. My masseur literally scrubbed my skin raw. I almost cried. My skin was red for a good twelve hours afterwards. But, does my skin feel like a babies bottom? You betcha it does! Two hours of pure relaxation, a few tears and an amazing sauna experience later.

Sunday, we woke up late, dug into our traditional Turkish breakfast provided by the lovely owners of the Efe Guest Pensiyon. The best part was the fresh strawberry jelly and the rose petal jelly. Mmm mm good. We finished up the rest of our sight seeing and headed home. The only disappointment. The tourist map we were given indicates the presence of a castle- so we hiked all the way up to see it, where we were sad to find military headquarters and an old barn- aka- castle, where they store the guns now. Overall, it was a lusciously relaxing girl weekend. Two days of meandering, shopping, bathing and eating. Like I said, lush.