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Deyrulzafaran Monastery is located about three and half miles from downtown Mardin. Every travel agent in town offers a stop at the monastery on one their tours of the local sites, but there does not seem to be any public transportation. A taxi costs 25 lira ($11.77), which seemed rather exorbitant. I tried to bargain the price down to 20 lira with several different taxi drivers but to no avail. The last one got a bit huffy and unleashed a barrage of Turkish at me that didn’t seem all that friendly. So I decided to walk. If I can’t walk three and a half miles in an hour it is time to hang up my walking cane. At ten on the morning it was still fairly cool and the walk out of town went quickly. I soon arrived at the turnoff to the monastery at the village of Eskikale. From here it about a mile to the monastery through sparsely vegetated hills inhabited by flocks of sheep and the occasional horse and frolicking colt.   Outside of the monastery were half a dozen big tour buses, dozen o...

My first morning in Mardin I wandered out of my “butik” hotel—almost every hotel in Mardin claims to be a “butik” (boutique) hotel—at six o’clock, just as the sun was coming up.  Gazi Konagi “Butik Otel”—Boutique Hotel (click on photos for enlargements).  Three hundred feet above to the right the sun was just illuminating the cliffs and walls of the Mardin Citadel.  Mardin Citadel looming above the town Another view of the Citadel A few hundred feet down the road I noticed a tea house called Camli Kösk Kiraat Hanesi , apparently the only place open on the street open at this hour. Although there was some very up-scale hotels—“butik” of course—nearby, this place was rustic: wobbly old tables and rickety wooden chairs, with faded black and white photos of local notables in what looked like nineteenth century suits on the walls. Around two tables laden with tea glasses codgers and graybeards played cards. Whether they had been there all night or were just early risers was u...

Wandered out to Mardin, in southeast Turkey, 673 miles east-southeast of Istanbul , on the very border between Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The Syrian border is about 14 miles to the south, but there are few visible signs of the war in Syria in this part of Turkey. Mardin is famously located on the side of a 3700-foot high hill overlooking the great plain of Mesopotamia. The southern edge of the town is at about 3000 feet, but at the Syrian border the elevation has already dropped to 1600 feet, almost 2000 feet lower than the town.   The hillside city of Mardin (click on photos for enlargements).  The great plain of Mesopotamia viewed from Mardin—home of Suberians, Hurrians, Elamites, Babylonians, Hittites, Assyrians, Romans, and Byzantines—and that’s just up the fourteenth century!—and beloved by current day Neo-Mesopotamians .  The town of Mardin  Most of the lanes running up and down the town are staircases.   The narrow streets of Mardin.  The 17...