A Second Hittite Palace!

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Bogazkale to Corum

Hello!

While yesterday we were desperately looking for hot water, today we find ourselves checked into the finest hotel in nearby Corum!  I had seen the Hotel Anitta on our last trip here two years ago, but was having a very difficult time getting a reservation.  And, while I know that I plan trips WAY far in advance, I found it hard to believe that they would be booked full for our dates two years hence!  I sent them two emails through their website – but as I was filling out a form in Turkish, wasn’t too sure that it would get through!   

At any rate, I started trying Booking.com, and about 8 or 9 months ago, voila! A vacancy!  I made the reservation quickly, just to have it – for a corner suite for two nights.  However, when I printed out the confirmation, it indicated that the reservation was for their “annex” – so, not having any idea what that meant, we drove in today from Bogazkale…

But first – out to breakfast at Baskent Hotel (the one without the hot water…) about 8 a.m.  Lowering sky, and very, very blustery!  Forecast is for sunshine…oh well!  Breakfast very similar to yesterday’s, except that instead of soft-boiled eggs, we got a large plate with either the flattest scrambled eggs on record, or an unfolded omelet!  Didn’t matter much which, it was really delicious!  Also had a repeat of my Turkish Nutella…UM!  Then packed up and checked out.  Really sorry to leave in a way (will definitely miss the wonderful meals!) but hot water does have a place in our lives…

Our plan was to stop first at a second Hittite major city – Sapinuva, which occasionally doubled as the Hittite capital, depending on how things were going on the home front.  (Attacks by the Kaska people of the north were something to be feared, resulting in the occasional transferring of power from Hattusha to here.)  Emmy (our GPS) was having some difficulties navigating – I think there were some new highways constructed since her last update, and she had us literally going off into vacant fields!  Finally saw signage to Sapinuva, so decided that must be a little clue, and followed them along.  As Robert sometimes says, in Italy, you will have lots of signage until you’re feeling very comfortable – at which point the sign painters will pull the rug out from under you and leave you sign-less with no idea where you are!  Well, this seemed to be the idea here.  Turned down a road that was posted, but R kept saying that the map we had indicated we were going astray.  Finally stopped in the middle of nowhere, but there was a parking lot!  I got out and went inside – and voila, we were there!  Who needs maps anyway??

Sapinuva was “discovered” in the late 1980’s when a farmer went in to the local museum with two cuneiform clay tablets that he had turned up while plowing his field!  As it turns out, Sapinuva is a huge city, encompassing more than 9 km of land!  And all that time buried!  It is still under excavation, but the really good thing is that many portions of the site are already under cover – metal roofed buildings all over the place, once you start looking!  We walked around the large temple A – amazing the way they had cut the huge boulders to form secure edges on the walls!  We were just crossing the road to get to the next site – a huge warehouse, when the security guard came out to help us!  While he spoke no English, and obviously we only know a few words in Turkish, those international hand gestures worked wonders!  The warehouse was filled with pithos, those huge containers like at Hattusha.  It really looked a little like a department store setting out all its wares!  Very interesting!  We were not able to ascertain the use of a third building, but right in front is an original carving of Teshub, the Hittite storm god!  So hard to wrap my mind around the fact that we’re really here and seeing all these things that I’ve read so much about!  

We had a good look around the site, before thanking our guardian and heading off again.  (Note:  There were several buildings a km or so away that appeared to be closed…keep in mind for the future!!)

Now we were on to Corum, our stopping place for the next two nights.  Drove right into town, and voila, our hotel is the largest thing in sight!   Something like 10 stories high, and we’re on floor 8!  As I said earlier, I wasn’t sure what the “annex” was all about, but walked into this ultra modern, very posh huge hotel lobby!  Wow!  Very centrally located – right next door to the otogar (bus station) and across the street from a HUGE market!  Saw lots and lots of umbrellas covering fruits and vegetables and lots of other things.  Our room is actually a corner suite – huge king-size bed with TV in one quadrant, comfy couch and coffee table as well as work desk (and second TV!) in the other quadrant, table and chairs in the middle.  HUGE bathroom – and yes, Robert even got hot water to come out of the tap!  Yipee!!

Settled in to our new space, and then headed downstairs to see about lunch.  It was already almost 2 p.m.  They have a lovely first floor restaurant, and by the time we finished dinner, we were the only folks there!  Robert had a garden salad – tomatoes, lettuce, croutons, walnuts, feta cheese and pomegranate dressing.  With that we shared some cheese-stuffed mushrooms.  I had their tagliatelle with pesto dressing – excellent!!  Comfort food, all excellent!

We originally started out this trip with two small adapter plugs (to plug American-style plugs into a European-style outlet), but R says he left one in the hotel in Istanbul.  So, we were down to one, which made him nervous.  Taking the one remaining plug, we decided to walk around town and see if we could find another or two!  Very interesting experience!  Very nice, friendly people, but very little English.  We are, I’m thinking, fairly off the tourist route.  At any rate, after stopping at several electrical stores with no luck, R decided to try a phone store.  And voila!  We now have two new plugs!  (Which means we can charge a telephone AND use the computer at the same time!  How good is that?!)  Also found the Corum Museum, where we’re heading tomorrow morning.  We were here two years ago, but now we have a much better idea of what we’re looking at!

Back to the hotel then; R for some Caltech business, and me to rest!  That’s about all the news from this end until dinner tonight!  Stay tuned!

m

xxx

NOTE:  There seems to be some problems with photos, that we’re not understanding.  We will see what we can do about sorting things out!  Sorry about that!

Dinner we had upstairs on their “terrace” – 12^th floor restaurant, overlooking the Archeology Museum, where we head tomorrow.  We both had various forms of salad along with chicken shish-kabob.  Problem with the camera – not sure what happened, but unfortunately no food pictures of dinner!  We’ll try again tomorrow night!

m

xxx