Sanliurfa: A Family Visit to the Prophet's City

This past weekend we took a quick weekend family trip down to the Southeastern part of Turkey not far from the Syrian border.  For the past few years I had been hearing so much about this exotic place and it was on our list of cities to visit while we are in Turkey. We were not disappointed.

As described on the Internet: Şanlıurfa is also called "The Prophets' City".   Abraham, who is known well by Jews, Christians, and Muslims, was born in the city. The cave in which he was born, the hill from where he was thrown down into the fire, and Lake Aynzeliha and Lake Halil-ürrahman which are believed to be the spot where Abraham fell when he was castled into the fire, are visited by believers of the three religions.  This also reported to be the place where the Prophet Job was healed.

From the moment we landed at the airport we knew we were in a part of Turkey that was not like anything we had never seen before.  We were in the land of what in history is known as the Fertile Crescent.
The hotel we stayed at El Ruha was really nice and overlooked the castle and "Balikigol" fish lake.  What was really cool about it was that they had a swimming pool that was in a cave and a hamam (turkish bath).  The people at the hamam were very nice and since we were the only ones there they let us have a hamam family style. I call it a hamam lite experience. At first he boys were scared but then they started to really like the bubbles :-)

For me one of the best parts of Urfa was the hospitality and the people.  Practically no one spoke English which meant I had to speak Turkish.  Within five minutes of arriving at the hotel I threw away all of my fears about being grammatically correct. The Turks loved it. In fact most people thought I was a Turk and that Tom and the boys were yabancis (foreigners).  Of course I stood out amongst all the other women in the city. I was the only one with short hair, wearing pants and not headscarved.  I actually thought the way i dressed would help me blend in but not in this part of Turkey.

We had a lot of fun walking through the ancient streets and especially the bazaar. As we were walking we were attracted to one of the spice stalls. The owners invited us in for cay (tea) and of course it would have been rude to say no so we sat down for a few moments and chatted. I figured that since they were so nice to us we better at least buy something small.  Slowly they were convincing us to buy almost one kilo's worth of hot spices.  I asked them how much (holding my breath expecting them to say some really high amount) but they said it was free and a thank you or taking the ime to chat with them.  We love the spice guys! If anyone needs hot pepper spice I have a ton of it!
 Pictured here: Cay, bottle and iced tea with the spice guys.

As we walked through the historic area I was really suprised by the amount of street children that seemed to be loitering around the park. Most were harmless. We witnessed one or two being chased away by shopkeepers for stealing..but most of all they were harmless. If anything we were the novelty and they all loved coming up to us and saying "hello.how you?"

For Brandon and Tyler their favorite part of the trip was feeding the fish in the lake.

That night we went to a "Sira night" where they played local Turkish music. It was a warm night with a beautiful breeze and we enjoyed lounging "low" and listening to the music.

On Sunday we took a day trip approximately 50km outside of Urfa to Harran.  Harran is said to be home to the oldest and first university in the world. Here is a picture of it.
As we approached the excavation site a group of local children approached us.  They spoke a little bit of English and one little boy said to us that for one lira he would explain the site to us.  I was skeptical and shooed him away. Feeling guilty, I told Tom to call him back and give him one lira to explain the site to us.  Tom gave him a lira and guess what? He said "bye" and ran off with the money.  Ok lesson learned.. don't give in to street kids. 

To complete our morning in Harran along with visiting their own castle,  we went to their very unique and historic homes in the shape of beehives. The houses were absolutely amazing. Being in Harran you really felt lost in time. We were convinced that these people were living the real simple life and had no idea about the social media world we live in. Maybe that is actually a good thing?

As you can see we had a little too much fun getting into the local dress.

Our trip to Sanliurfa and Harran was so much fun. We highly recommend you take the time and visit it!