Turkish reflections - Mary Lee Settle

From the wine-dark Homeric Sea through the black virgin forests to the earthquake-scarred high saddleback of Anatolia, Mary Lee Settle takes the reader into an unfamiliar and unexpected world where every path evokes the past and every day the lively, intense present. The book travels through the mosques, museums and markets of imperial Istanbul, snorkel among the 4000-year-old shipwrecks, volcanic pinnacles and underwater gardens, and share in the honesty, friendship and fierce pride of a people whose instinct for revival and survival has overcome centuries of cruelty and violence.;The author explores a Turkey rarely seen - a land where the cutting of a tree is a crime, where goats are sacrificed to launch state-of-the-art ships, and where whole towns emerge at dusk to stroll in the streets. She finds ancient monastries converted into discos, underground cities carved out of rock, and sleek jet-set yachts alongside camels piled high with copper pots.