Revelation Road

With more biblical sites than anywhere outside of Israel, Turkey's spiritual tourism leads travelers and pilgrims to ruins

From 3,000 loudspeakers affixed to the city's 3,000 minarets, the canned wailing of muezzins rings out the call to prayer five times a day. Istanbul has been a Muslim city for more than 500 years, and yet there still seems to be no coordination when it comes to scheduling this most basic of Islamic customs. With each chorus of "allahu akbar" beginning imprecisely at sunrise, it's pretty much every mosque for itself. Some start 10 seconds early, some 10 seconds late; at least one seems to wait until the coast is clear so that its adhan will have the air all to itself.

I don't hear a thing once inside the immaculate, Muzak-filled confines of the Point Hotel. The Point is one of a new generation of high-end Istanbul lodgings -- most within a few blocks of trendy Taksim Square -- that seem to cater to travelers who do not want to know they are in Turkey. To enter the lobby from the predawn din is to suddenly inhabit another universe, one equipped with a Japanese restaurant, a "wellness spa" and molded plastic furniture apparently borrowed from the lounge deck of the Starship Enterprise.

In the suites above, a group of Christian tourists is hoping to glimpse another vision of the future. They have come to Turkey with a Seattle-based touring company called Ultimate Journeys for the "Seven Churches Experience," which allows Scripture-toting adventurers to visit the seven cities addressed in the closing pages of the New Testament, the Revelation of Saint John the Divine, also known as the Apocalypse. Featured prominently in a text that some believe foretells the end of the world, the ancient Turkish cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea were home to first-century churches that now lie in ruins. Now they all welcome postcard-buying visitors in hopes of reaping a few lira from their place in the earliest history of Christendom.

Turkey is sometimes called the Second Holy Land in the world of spiritual tourism -- travel to places known for either their religious significance or ethereal emanations. With more biblical sites than anywhere outside Israel, the western region of Anatolia has for centuries attracted pilgrims in search of contact with the origins of their faith.

Of the many faith-based tours of the region available -- ranging from retracing the travels of Saint Paul to pilgrimages to Antioch, where followers of Jesus first called themselves Christians -- I am most interested in following the Revelation route because, wherever I go in the world, small-"r" revelation is part of my reason for traveling. I'm too cynical to expect life-changing experiences every time I hop on a plane. I hope instead for feelings of connection, inklings of what it might have meant to live in another place or time. As soon as I heard that groups of tourists were looking for big-"R" Revelation explicitly -- in the land of Revelation no less -- I knew I had to go.

I am scanning the lobby for wild-eyed zealots when Russ Goodman appears at my side. Together with his wife, Sue, he's the force behind Ultimate Journeys, their family business. A barrel-chested fellow with a graying crew cut and matching mustache, he wears navy blue shorts and bright white sneakers that seem right for a day of walking in the Aegean heat, but not quite appropriate for the religious sites on today's itinerary.

"I am fired up for this tour," he says, with a football coach's pep. He is a dictionary illustration of a practical man at leisure: polo shirt tucked in, two cellphones on his belt. He is the past president of Seattle's Space Needle and seems very much a man who can keep the elevators running on time. Russ's plan is to spend a few hours showing the sites of Istanbul before leading the group off for the main event: a weeklong bus trek between the seven cities of Revelation, all about a day's travel to the south.

Russ checks his watch, scrolls his BlackBerry, then looks up in the direction of the balcony above the lobby. "Here come the troops."

Twenty-nine women and men ranging in age from early 20s to mid-60s descend the Point's floating staircase to the polished floor below. They do not look like people eagerly anticipating the end of the world. Pale legs and fanny packs, cameras and wallet-holders and water bottle slings around their necks, they look like people eagerly anticipating a day at the beach.

In the beginning, Revelation was essentially a book of comfort. Most think of the Apocalypse as a text that tells how the world will eventually come to a frightening end; yet the intention of its author, John, was more immediate than that. He mainly wanted to cheer up his fellow Christians as they suffered religious persecution.

According to tradition, he had made frequent visits to small communities throughout Asia Minor before being exiled to Patmos, an island in the Aegean Sea during the reign of the Roman Emperor Domitian at the end of the first century. Domitian was a champion of traditional Roman religion, with a particular affinity for the god Jupiter, and he had little patience for the minority religions within his domain. In letters addressed to the "seven churches of Asia," and then in an often inscrutable prophecy depicting a battle between Jesus Christ and a beast that believers regard as the devil incarnate and some scholars say symbolizes the Roman Empire, John offers assurance that hard times will soon come to an end.

On the Ultimate Journeys chartered bus, comfort comes without the wait. We ride through a hot morning in near-cryogenic air conditioning, listening to a local guide the tour organizers hire when they're in town.