Living in a 300 year old Ottoman house, an unexpected friendship with a local blacksmith and more adventures, in Safranbolu Turkey. In the wee hours of the morning, we manoeuvre my way through the cobbled streets and ancient stonewalls of Safranbolu, a small town in the western Karadeniz region of Turkey. I had been reluctant to leave Istanbul, probably the first big city I’ve fallen so in love with. But as we step back in time into a 300-year-old Ottoman house perched on a slope, I’m glad we came! Genghis, my host, greets me with a warm smile and bits of English, and shows me to my quaint room in the part of the house now converted into a pansiyon (pension aka guest house). Genghis inherited this house from his great grandfather, and it is one of the many wooden houses with large windows, well-preserved wooden interiors, and a slate roof. These houses are the town’s claim to being a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hundreds of years ago, the Ottoman people, one of the greatest …