Just some two kilometers off the main road surviving pieces of an ancient aqueduct may have fed into the lost Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The muddy road is only for off-road vehicles. The aqueduct is part of the larger Atrush Canal built by the Assyrian king Sennacherib between 703 and...
Just outside the small Assyrian town of Alqosh sits Rabban Hormizd Monastery, one of the holiest sites for the Chaldean Catholic Church. Some friendly locals brought us there a day before, but it was closed (every Friday). So today, we hired another local man with his Toyota (20000 IQD)...
In the afternoon, we drove to the Alqosh, a small Assyrian town in the Nineveh Plains just 45 km north of Mosul. You will not find here a single mosque because the locals are Assyrians who mainly adhere to the Chaldean Catholic Church. We walked the old town around the tomb of the Prophet...
Our next stop was supposed to be Halamata Cave – an archaeological site near Duhok. The caves contain the Assyrian relief carvings known as the Maltai reliefs. The reliefs all show a procession of nine figures (the Assyrian king worshipping the main divinities in the Mesopotamian...
We drove from Zakho to the symbol of ancient Zoroastrianism – the Charsteen Cave. It is located just next to the Duhok Dam (🎫 1000 IQD). Fire, water, soil, and air were four sacred elements in Zoroastrianism. A short rocky tunnel leads to the sacred place – an open fire temple...
If you read our post about the horrible experience at the Turkish border crossing, then here you will find the second part from the Kurdish side, where we spent another 6 hours. Maybe this little guide will help you to cross it more smoothly than us. After crossing the bridge, you will...
From our parking location behind Eruh, it took us two hours to get to Cizre. We did good shopping in Migros, and after that, we decided to take the cake with coffee and leave the town around 10 pm towards the Ibrahim Khalil border. It was supposed to be the easiest crossing between Iraqi...
After a late rich breakfast, we took a curvy road from Lake Van through Southeastern Anatolia to Eruh, with a predominantly Kurdish population that welcomes visitors. Sadly, renewed hostilities from 2015 between the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) and Turkish government forces, along with...
We drove from Kars to Lake Van through several mountain passes (2100 – 2400 m) for the whole afternoon. Lake Van is the largest lake in Turkey in the Armenian highlands at 1,640 m above sea level. It is a saline soda lake (pH 9.8), receiving water from many small streams that...
We drove 45km east of Kars to Ani ruins (🎫 50 TRY). We arrived there around 7 PM at large parking near the entrance. To our surprise, nobody was around that time, but to our luck, they left the toilets open. Ani lies east of Kars and along the Arpaçay River, which forms the border with...