Postcards for my Father
A chronological string of postcards that I sent back to the family home, mainly in 1988.
Covering all places visited and commentary.
Based mainly around Archaic Archaeological sites starting in the West of the country and ultimately ending up in Istanbul.
Postcards for my father.
Existing in a page of it's own.
I spent a sizeable chunk of my time whilst in Turkey renting an apartment in Sultan Ahmet, Istanbul. In a local, fairly conservative Street which held a Wednesday market.
It is very different now, full of identical tourist restaurants, it is after all close to the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia.
Which is why this blog is based around Istanbul.
Everywhere was like spokes on a wheel pointing out from Cankurtaran – the actual area where we lived.
It started with a travel grant for Anne to study ancient Archaic Greek sites – this gave us the chance to have a reason to go visiting out of the way places. A reason to actually be on a lane in the middle of nowhere and also the need to communicate with (very) local people. A very good way of getting the feel of a different culture.
Unfortunately,
At the time, my father was dying of cancer.
Apart from phoning as often as I could, I sent postcards home from every place we stayed. Which started to branch out more and more as we covered all the out of the way sites which had to be dealt with.
This is a chance to lay them out (as it were) chronologically with some of the observations printed out as were written on the back.
They are covered on a separate page, along with some photos from the sites. I've put them in a cage, so as not to interfere / confuse /muddy the waters.
