Later on the Corniche......

Straddlers and laners coexisting peacefully, working together to transform a three lane highway into a five lane highway.  Wish you could hear the relentless symphony of horns that sometimes spontaneously breaks into harmony.

The Desert Highway, Cairo to Alexandria

I have got to skip ahead and leave posts on Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, carpet/suzani buying and the like for a later date.  Patty (my sister-in-law) and I are now in Egypt.  Yesterday we flew from Istanbul to Cairo where we were met by a hired driver for a transfer to Alexandria (we could have flown but the connections were inconvenient and this three, but closer to five, hour drive seemed like a good way to be introduced to Egypt).

And it was!  I can now report that the entire nation between Cairo to Alexandria appears to be under construction---literally thousands of buildings going up everywhere and new highway spurs breaking off in every direction.  Cairo, with a population of around seventeen million, is one of the fastest growing, and most densely populated cities in the world. 

Based on five hours on the highways, encompassing both inner and outer suburbs of two cities and long desert/agricultural stretches in between, I can also report that two schools of philosophy exist about highway driving in Egypt---there are the “straddlers” and there are the “laners”.  Straddlers generally straddle the painted lane markers, keeping a set of tires in each lane.  This has the advantage of increasing the car’s "personal space" as well as turning a two lane highway into a three lane highway when a group of straddlers are together (cars/trucks centered over center and side lines).  Laners obviously are more conventional, staying within marked lanes.  Problems are greatest when a group of laners meet straddlers and much honking ensues at high speeds as the laners squeeze the straddler first to one side then to the other.  Our driver was a straddler (generally about 1/3^rd of drivers by my reckoning) and he was hampered, as an official tourist vehicle, by a government-mandated governor on his speedometer that prevented him from traveling faster than 100 km/hr (a state-sponsored program aimed at minimizing the number of tourists who die in car accidents).

 yes! a cow tied in the back of a small pick-up who looked desperately like he didn't want to be there.

Finally, I only wish I could have taken better pictures out the van window of all the craziness on the highway, a road shared by trucks, cars, donkey carts, hitchhikers, buses packed with passengers, scooters, bicycles, and, incredibly, pedestrians who thought nothing of crossing an 8 lane highway packed with vehicles at speeds easily exceeding 60 mph (they used a variant of Italian street crossing technique without the stare-down!).  

The Monastic Churches of Göreme

Cappadocia became a monastic center of Christianity between 300—1200 AD when numerous churches were carved into the soft volcanic rock of the region.  Just a kilometer outside of the town of Göreme is the Göreme Open Air Museum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that is the most visited of these monastic communities.  Within this small area more than 30 churches and chapels can be found hidden within the rock spires.  Many are simply painted but others are richly decorated with vividly colored frescoes which date to the 9th to 11th centuries.  If you look carefully at the frescoes you notice that many have the faces scratched out, especially those at ground level.  This was done by later Muslims as the Koran forbids human images of holy people.  A pretty spectacular place.

A collapsed section of a church.....the next few photos are from the deeper recesses of this church.

a nice banquet table....

Goreme and the Kismet Cave House Hotel

Goreme caravanserai filled with carpets

 The Kismet Cave House Hotel

 The breakfast terrace at Kismet Cave Hotel

a door that used to be green.

(Are you lusting after carpets yet?)

Cappadocia Morning, Turkey

More tales from the crypts...

The second major pilgrimage site in Assissi, the red and white striped 13th century church of Santa Chiara, is dedicated to Saint Clare.  St. Clare was one of St. Francis's most fervent followers (after running away from home to avoid an arranged marriage).  She founded an order of nuns based on the same principles as the Franciscans -- the order was eventually renamed "The Order of Poor Clares".

Under the church, in the crypt (these pics) her body lies, essentially in state, as streams of pilgrims go by....so I'm looking at her and thinking she doesn't look quite real although the body is clearly life-sized and fully dressed in her nun's habit.  I later discover on wikipedia that her remains were moved to this newly constructed crypt in 1872 but that the Catholic church no longer considers her body to be incorrupt --- I'm thinking, huh? then read "incorruptibility is a Roman Catholic belief that supernatural intervention allows some human bodies to avoid the normal process of decomposition after death."  Interesting wiki page, some creepy pics (check out St. Virginia).....however, poor Clare was apparently not incorruptible enough and her lifelike appearance is due to wax face and hands.  (I think this also explains a bizarre looking dead pope in a glass coffin I was perplexed by at the Vatican a few years ago.)

And one last fun fact about Clare--- in 1958 the Vatican designated her the patron saint of television, on the basis that when she was too ill to attend Mass, she had reportedly been able to see and hear it on the wall of her room. 

also found nearby....

the gelato crypt...

and the candy crypt...

And not far away in Perugia, more cool modern use of old space...

 Museum security room

 the museum gift shop

and a red backlit curtain funking up a gothic window.

(the magical mystery tour continues in Turkey tomorrow.....)

Acorn inspiration?

A fifteenth century fabric in the Basilica museum....the inspiration for Acorn (1879)?  Did Morris ever visit Assissi on his travels through Italy?  Tony?