Join Anna Baignoche, an accomplished Canadian musician and song leader, on a musical adventure, singing your way through history and making a musical connection with the Turkish people and the ancient land of Turkey.

It is a natural human impulse to sing, and much to some peoples’ disbelief, everyone can do it!  It is how we express ourselves as individuals and as a community. Singing is enlivening, liberating, and connecting. Allowing ourselves to sing freely in our environment is the basis for this musical collective.  On this unique tour, you will travel experientially, singing through the landscape of Turkey; from the desert moonscape of Cappadocia, to the ancient ruins of Ephesus, to the bustling streets of Istanbul. Singing songs from around the world as well as connecting with local musicians and learning Turkish songs, you will experience Turkey through song.

Anna B. leads Local Vocals, a 90 member singing group in Vancouver. She is also a performer, teacher, and a graduate student in the Ethnomusicology Department at the University of British Columbia.


Tour A: 
May 16 – May 23 2011 – Musical Tour  from $1890 CAD per person, sharing

Tour B: (option)
May 23 – June 1 2011 – Yachting Experience from $1161 CAD per person, sharing

For more information, please contact Brenda at brendafarrell.com

Itinerary:

DAY 1/MONDAY, MAY 16 ISTANBUL
Meet and greet at Istanbul Airport and transfer to Sultanahmet, the ancient quarter of the city, site of old Byzantium. Check in to the AVICENNA HOTEL.


DAY 2 /TUESDAY, MAY 17 ISTANBUL
Breakfast at the hotel.

With our private guide, our full day walking tour starts at Hippodrome, which was the scene of chariot races and great public occasions throughout the immensely long history of the Byzantine Empire. At one end of a large park stands the Blue Mosque, so called because of its exquisite tile decoration. Its courtyard is exceptionally beautiful, and it is the only mosque in Istanbul to have six minarets.

We next visit Hagia Sophia, which was built by the Emperor Justinian and inaugurated in 537 AD. For over nine centuries it was the center of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and it remains the world’s 4th largest church. It contains some of the finest mosaics to have urvived from the Byzantine period, including a truly remarkable mosaic of the Virgin and Child. A short walk away is the Basilica Cistern, which is also the work of Justinian: This is the most impressive of Istanbul’s ancient cisterns with a roof supported by more than 300 columns.

Next, we will visit to the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum, which contains a priceless collection of Ottoman calligraphy in gold, intricate miniatures, ceramics, and magnificent carpets, some of them dating back to the 13th century. What makes the museum unique is the fact that it is housed in the former palace of Ibrahim Pasha, one of Suleyman the Magnificent’s grand vezirs.


DAY 3/WEDNESDAY, MAY 18 ISTANBUL
Breakfast at the hotel.

A fifteen minute walk takes us to Rustem Pasha which is not the largest or the best known mosque in Istanbul, but this often overlooked treasure is certainly the most exquisitely decorated. Every inch of the interior is covered with brilliantly colored Iznik tiles. Close by is the 17th century Spice Bazaar, where you can find a vast diversity of spices, sacks of henna, many varieties of oils and herbs, and of course the world’s very best Turkish Delight.

Embark on a local boat for a cruise on the Bosphorus. Crossing back and forth between Europe and Asia, we will sail past opulent palaces, fine mosques, imposing fortresses and traditional, wooden Ottoman mansions. Drive back to the old city for a visit to the Topkapi Palace Museum, lavish home to the Ottoman sultans. For centuries, this was the place from which the sultans ruled over an empire that stretched from Western Iran to the Atlantic Ocean.

Arranged around a series of spacious courtyards, it contains a priceless collection of jewellery, porcelain and costumes. Legend claims that the ancient rod on display in the Pavilion of Holy Relics is the one used by Moses to part the Red Sea. Its pavilions and fountains evoke a secluded, hedonistic world.

After this we move on to Istanbul’s world-renowned Grand Bazaar. The Bazaar’s first phase of construction began in 1455 under Mehmet the Conqueror, but it was added to many times over the centuries. The end result is an enormous labyrinth of covered streets lined with housands of shops. While we are in the Bazaar, we will have the opportunity to attend lectures on Ottoman and Central Asian carpets and embroidered fabrics, Iznik and Kutahya ceramics, and the history of jewellery in Turkey.

**Possible musical activities in Istanbul:  Sing with a local choir/attend local performances


DAY 4 /THURSDAY, MAY 19 ISTANBUL-KAYSERI-CAPPADOCIA
Breakfast at the hotel.

Transfer to Istanbul Airport for your flight departing Istanbul at 10:05 a.m. arriving Nevsehir at 11:20 a.m.

Our private guide and a vehicle will meet us at the airport. rive to the land of wonders that is Cappadocia. In the Neolithic period Cappadocia was caught between two active volcanoes, Mounts Hasan and Erciyes, which buried it under a thick layer of ash. This formed the soft malleable stone known as tufa, and over the centuries erosion and human effort combined to create the fantastic landscape we see today, with its many thousands of varicolored pinnacles and surreal rock formations.

Our full day sight-seeing will start with a visit to Uchisar, an extraordinary rock formation towering above the landscape and visible for miles around. This rock, riddled with windows and tunnels, was once used as a fortification and offers a magnificent panoramic view of Cappadocia and Mt. Erciyes in the distance. Further stops include Ayvali and Taskinpasa, a 900 years old village that shows its Seljuk oots in its Medrese (theological school) and a mosque.

Finally we visit the astonishing Underground City at Kaymakli. Signs of an early troglodytic life style are evident in communal kitchens blackened by smoke, stables, churches wine presses and storage spaces carved into the rock as the need arose. Check in to CAPPADOCIA URGUP EVI CAVE HOTEL.


DAY 5/FRIDAY, MAY 20 CAPPADOCIA PTIONAL:
* optional - Early departure from the hotel for a spectacular sunrise balloon ride through the winding valleys of Cappadocia.  Flight time is one hour, and includes both low contour and high altitude flying, giving you a bird’s eye-view of this unique and intricate landscape.

Breakfast at the hotel.

Our tour today  will start with the rock formations beyond belief in Dervent Valley; then visit Pasabag, also known as Monk’s Valley, has amazing examples of hermitages hollowed out of volcanic rock formations. Visit Avanos, center of terracotta work of art since 3000BC. Through the magical valley of Goreme, now an open-air museum, we will see fairy chimneys and early Byzantine Churches like the Karanlik Kilise (the Dark Church). Goreme Valley is where thousands of people once lived in homes cut into the soft rock walls of caves and “fairy chimneys”. Many of the churches in Goreme are from the 11th century and we will visit the Karanlik Kilise to see its frescoes. It is also a good example of how the architects gave the exteriors of the buildings a familiar church design with an artificial facade.


DAY 6 /SATURDAY, MAY 21 CAPPADOCIA-KAYSERI-IZMIR-SELCUK
Breakfast at the hotel.

Transfer to Kayseri Airport for your flight to Kayseri at 9:40a.m. arriving Istanbul at 11:10a.m. Then connect with with your flight departing Istanbul at 1:00p.m. arriving Izmir at 2:05p.m. Meet and greet at Izmir Airport and transfer to Selcuk. Check in to the KALEHAN HOTEL

The rest of the day we will be officially a “leisure” day.  However, you will have an opportunity to visit Sirince, a charming hilltop village close to Selcuk and if we’re lucky, we may witness an engagement or wedding celebration with villagers  in the main square.  

Don’t forget to try the local fruit wines and olive oil, both specialties of this area.


DAY 7/SUNDAY, MAY 22 SELCUK
Breakfast at the hotel.

If you’ve ever heard the words ¨an epistle to the Ephesians¨, now is your chance to sit in the theatre where St. Paul preached. Try to see it through the eyes of a Roman, who would probably have been regarded as a barbarian in sophisticated and cultured Ephesus. Walk along its colonnaded streets and imagine them crowded with people visiting the shops and taverns or simply strolling in the shade.

Ephesus was one of the greatest cities of antiquity, a bustling port city, with a population approaching 250,000. It encompassed everything that was necessary for education, politics, entertainment, sport, and the good life in general, for example the world-famous Celsus Library, bathhouses, gymnasium and luxurious mansions, decorated with mosaics and frescoes rivaling those of Pompeii.

Ephesus is among the best preserved classical cities of the Mediterranean, and perhaps the best place to the world to get a feeling for what life was like in Roman times. Its Temple of Artemis was considered one of the even Wonders of the Ancient World.  

Drive to the vast, cruciform Basilica of Saint John, which was built by the Emperor Justinian in the early 6th century, and provided the model for the cathedral of San Marco in Venice.

The next stop is the magical sight known as The House of The Virgin Mary. This it almost certainly was not. The house is thought to date from the 6th or 7th century, but this does not deter the devout, and, to be fair, it rests on much older foundation, so it’s just possible that Mary spent her last years here. It would be pleasant to think so since the wooded setting commanding views of the Aegean and the Greek island of Samos is spectacularly beautiful.


DAY 8 /MONDAY, MAY 23 DEPARTURE
Breakfast at the hotel.

Transfer to Izmir Airport for a flight to Istanbul connecting with your homebound flight. Or transfer to Bodrum for a seven-day gulet yacht cruise extension or connect with a flight to Istanbul and your home-bound flight from there.