From the (other) Aya Sofia to Uzungöl

From the (other) Aya Sofia to Uzungöl

About three km west of the town center in Trabzon, the local Aya Sofia perches on the edge of the hills that overlook the city and give it its distinctive defensibility. Today, that means it looms over a strip of highway, a local intersection and some under-construction wharfs of stone. The cathedral and narthex of the Aya Sofia have even more preserved frescoes than the Sumela Monastery. My favorite is one of Jesus walking on water while an apostle rows between him and the shore. It depicts cliffs and whitewater, through the surf of which Christ is walking, with part of his legs actually covered. The angels and the Virgin Mary are very evocatively painted as well- be sure to check out the pictures on Mike's facebook page as soon as he puts them up, to make it worth the several weeks worth of degradation to the artwork we caused with the flash.

Another advantage of the Aya Sofia is the relative absence of crowds. When Mike and I decided to read the explanatory sign in funny voices, we only got strange looks from one family, plus a random little girl who offered us unripe sour plums (which were about as pleasant as they sound). Even on a cool, spring Sunday afternoon you might only see a couple dozen Turks taking pictures, enjoying the sea-view, resting in the tea garden or laughing at the yabancılar.

Even though mini-busses run frequently out in the direction of the Aya Sofia through the suburbs, when time and the weather are relative non-issues it can be quite a nice walk back to the city center. For example, you will pass the Trabzonspor football stadium on your left. And even though the Superlig football season will be over by mid-May, you might be fortunate enough to amble by as the third-league championship match is about to begin. And, if you manage to combine an ability to communicate with the gate-keeper in Turkish and that look of fascinated mystification that comes so naturally to enthusiastic young travellers, you might get invited into the luxury box for tea, chocolate, and a good view of the match.

That is how Mike and I found ourselves toasting our good fortune amongst a small group of late middle-aged Turkish men at around 6pm, just after kick-off of the match that would determine who got promoted to the second league. The luxury box was about as full as the stadium, that is to say about 5-10%, but outside there was, incredibly, almost a hundred very hard-core fans present to support one of the sides, chanting for all the world like it was the UEFA semi-finals, bless their rabid green-and-white hearts. The overall quality of play was a little difficult to judge from such a small and charged sampling, but let's just say I never thought I'd see a man making a living playing soccer who reminded me more of the friar from the animated Robin Hood than the fox. The match was decided by a goal in the 78th minute, and whatever differences there may have been in the quality of play, the winning celebrations afterwards were reminiscent of Manchester United's a few days later.

If there's any downside to getting a free invite to a soccer match in Trabzon, it is that you might actually have a hard time finding a restaurant open afterwards. By the time we made it back towards the city center, the hour was nearing nine. On a Sunday evening in a conservative Turkish city, that limits ones options. Fortunately, a couple of university students running a small köfte restaurant had only packed away their meat spit, not the frialator when we happened past. So, while the Turkish version of "24" was on the TV, we had a big salad and the best meat balls I've had so far here. Not that I've gone out of my way to try very many, but as someone who subsists almost entirely on plant matter, I was impressed by the nuance of flavor and evenness of texture that our host produced. The meatballs were like a cross between a really good breakfast sausage and a delicious, well-done hamburger.

And as you savor that thought, I'll sign off, to return later this week with tales of the güzel Uzungöl, as well as Hakan, the curious seat-mate.