Fulfilling the Prophecy

I’m a big fan of saving locations in Google Maps. When I hear about a cool museum or restaurant anywhere in the world, I’ll pop open Google Maps and save it. That way, if we ever visit somewhere, I’ve got a ready made list of spots to check out.

So, when we started planning this trip, I opened up Google Maps. What I found was a lone “heart”, in the city of Adana. And what was hearted? An amazing museum or historical site? Nope, a seemingly nondescript kebab shop. Why was it hearted? No idea. I’m good about saving locations, less good about taking note of when, why, or who.

For our trip, we knew we wanted to visit Cappadocia, and we knew we wanted to visit Sanliurfa. When I popped those into Google Maps to look at the driving route, it turned out to go right past Adana. A minor detour was in order.

We left Urgup around 10:30 and had a very uneventful drive to Adana. It’s a city of about 2.5 million people, so traffic was a bit of a slog getting into the city, but generally driving here is pretty easy. We found a parking spot and made our way to Tepebağ Kebap Evi. We ordered the local specialty – the “Adana kebab”. They were excellent! Sadly, eating there did not spur any recollection of why I’d marked it in the first place, but at least I can tick it off the list.

Rather than going all the way to Sanliurfa, we decided to stop in Gaziantep for the night. We did this in part to break up the drive, and in part because it has some of the best museums in the region. Our drive from Adana to Gaziantep took quite a bit longer than expected – big storms moved through, with high winds that overturned a number of semi trucks. There wasn’t much we could do besides listen to Time Crisis and wait, so that’s what we did.

Arriving in Gaziantep in the dark, in the rain, we had one last challenge – find our hotel and park. This turned out to be the biggest challenge of all, because I didn’t see that they’d WhatsApp’d me a location pin. Instead, we drove through some incredibly tight back streets and alleys – the kind of turns where you do a 13 point turn and just wait for the crunch of a mirror or bumper. We made it, without any damage!

Our hotel is in a converted Armenian elementary school, which was eventually turned into a factory and then a hotel. Best not to ask what happened to the Armenians.

The hotel gave us a nice list of recommendations for food and other nearby activities – we had dinner at a very popular and classic restaurant called İmam Çağdaş, then got baklava and menengiç coffee at Tahmis Kahvesi. Menengiç “coffee” is a noncaffeinated beverage made from a relative of the pistachio. It’s delicious!