Our Welcome To Istanbul

---

November 26-28, 2006

Sunday, November 26

Istanbul is a big city. Arriving at the Sirkeci train station bleary-eyed in the mid-morning after our long rail journey the size of the city was immediately evident. At first blush it seemed remarkably familiar. A tram ran by the McDonald’s across the street, bakery-cafes were visible in every direction, traffic was hectic, and the sidewalks jammed with seemingly half of the city’s 16 million people. It felt very European and we have to admit it was oddly pleasant to see people in suits again.

As we fumbled our way to the nearby tram stop for our ride to the tourist-friendly and convenient lodgings of the Sultanahmet district a call to prayer went out that signaled, western though it may look, we were not in Europe anymore. There is a heavily western presence in much of the city and her people, to be sure, but our first impression of Istanbul would be born out as we explored the vast Republic of Turkey; a country at once otherworldly, familiar, and heartily unique.

We felt a magical presence in Istanbul almost immediately. From virtually every point in Istanbul you can see one or more mosques and the minarets of the city draw your eyes constantly upward as the prayers echo through the streets. For a sprawling city of its size it is stunningly beautiful along the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, the bodies of water that break up the city into its variety of districts and define the separation between Europe and Asia. The complex and regal history of the region is visible in the numerous ancient monuments and the warm and spirited Turkish people. The following entries, encompassing nearly a month covering the western half of Turkey, are likely to sound a lot like a love letter, but even dulled by the passage of time it is hard for us to be objective about Turkey.

We found our hostel with relative ease and arrived awestruck by the views from the short walk from the tram stop. Between the tram stop and the hostel we crossed through Sultanhamet Park which lies between two immense mosques, the pink marbled Aya Sofya (originally built as a church and converted into a mosque, now a museum) and the massive Blue Mosque, built across from Aya Sofia originally to demonstrate to the Christians that a mosque could stand just as gloriously as a church. Both buildings remain inspiring in dimension and aesthetics.

Weary from our week of Bosnian food (which although delicious can get a bit monotonous) and unable to check in until after 12:30 we returned to the train station area for Burger King. A short time after our not-so-inspiring value meals we realized that viewing this as a potential “throw away” meal before immersing in Turkish cuisine was probably a wasted opportunity as Istanbul would shortly demonstrate to us the variety and quality of Turkish food to be unparalleled in our experiences. How long must one travel to purge the cultural gene that drives you toward the bewitching sameness of fast food?

We walked our Whoppers off along the water’s edge near the Galata Bridge. The sights, sounds, and smells of what appeared to be a regular Sunday afternoon were thrilling to us. Fish stands manned by singing cooks, food stalls selling traditional dishes (including buns filed with French fries), fashionable families, touts hustling for Bosphorous cruises, and literally hundreds of fisherman lining the water’s edge greeted us as we strolled. On the far side of the water we could see the Galata Tower and the bustling Beyoglu area on the north side of the Golden Horn. Behind us stood the massive mosque, Yeni Camii, and several market areas that beckoned.

We stopped for coffee and some delicious baklava before returning to our hotel to attempt to plan out our time in Turkey and our forthcoming departure from Istanbul prior to the arrival of Pope Benedict. That night we ate at a recommended neighborhood restaurant (and there were very few recommended in our area), Yeni Yildiz, where the food and service were good. We are always buoyed by our dining experiences when we see a lack of other tourists on the premises and were pleased when the other patrons appeared to be locals (one way of telling was that they were all passionately immersed in games of dominos or some other tile-style game).

Monday, November 27

As spry as ever we got a late start and missed breakfast which turned out to be fortuitous as we ended up at a sleek chain coffee shop (ozsut.com.tr) featuring tons of different desserts. It being our breakfast we skipped the sweet treats for coffee and a delicious sultan’s pudding that combined more than twenty grains, nuts, and fruits. Our resolve to avoid dessert lasted until the locals behind us ordered some and it looked great. We spent the early afternoon walking around observing all of the preparations for the Pope’s arrival, including a minute-by-minute increase in uniformed police, barricades ready to be laid out, and media encampments. We watched a large group of police, consisting of several different uniformed bunches and presumably brought in from other areas of the city or region, practicing forming lines and marching.

We ventured a little further out our second day in Istanbul, exploring the Grand Bazaar. “Grand” does not quite cover the size and scope of this market. The Grand Bazaar features more than 4000 shops crammed into every possible corner and the whole experience is overwhelming. The beautiful colors of the stalls and their many items, the dense crowds, the artwork, the smells of food wafting around the restaurants, and the constant chatter of the vendors provided plenty of stimulation and temptation (our guidebook cautioned visitors to be wary of the baggage allowance on the flight home and it was right to do so - before the end of our first visit we were planning to return in the future with empty suitcases).

We ate a late lunch at Havuzlu inside the market. The service was great and the food simply blew us away. We went with the recommended dish: Iskender Kabap (doner kabap on bread with tomato sauce and yogurt). The guy that helped us also had a store in the market and was a charming and insistent salesman but we really liked him. He told us he was from Texas, though we did not recognize his accent as one native to the Lone Star
State….

Our day hit something of a freefall after the market as we tried to secure information and bookings out of Istanbul. We were determined to get to Cappoccia by a means other than the 11 hour bus ride. Our frustrations were compounded when out hostel sold us a phone card, which we expressly requested for local calls, that was far more costly to use inside of Turkey than between Turkey and the USA (or Peru, or Iceland, or Venus). The guy was a complete asshole when Amy complained and acted like she was an idiot. Just wait until they see their TripAdvisor review…. Thankfully some time at an internet café and a few calls resulted in bookings for a hotel and plane tickets.

For dinner we headed to Beyoglu in an attempt to find a recommended mezze restaurant. We found out too late that the information in our guidebook saying that trams didn’t connect across the bridge was dated, so we took the tram to the bridge and then walked across as trams went by. Even well after dark there were still many people fishing off the Galata Bridge. After crossing the bridge we hurled ourselves into the narrow, winding streets of the neighborhood hoping that we would just pop right out into the popular walking streets lined with restaurants, shops, and bars. After a good hour of walking, often down dark and seemingly unpopulated lanes, we popped out on a busy street that offered at least a hope that we were on the map. A few minutes of studying our surroundings led us to conclude that we had walked in as opposite a direction as would be possible without going back over the Galata Bridge so we hailed a taxi. Because a lot of the area around Istiklal Cad, Beyoglu’s major walking street, is pedestrian the cab driver was able to only take us so close (and, oddly, not far from where we had been an hour earlier).

The Beyoglu area is really cool and features a lot of nice restaurants, bars, shops, internet cafes, markets, theaters and a smattering of official buildings. We gorged on a delicious meal of fried anchovies, a magnificent eggplant dip, vine leaves, and lamb kebab, before stopping into the same coffee chain for dessert (cherry cheesecake for Roger and baked rice pudding for Amy). All in all a delicious night in Beyoglu (that is also the subtitle of our forthcoming book, “How We Gained 80 Pounds in Turkey").

Getting back to Sultanhamet was difficult because the buses had quit running from Taksim Square, the transit hub at the head of Istiklal Cad. We caught the last funicular downhill to the tram line, and the exact spot where we had caught our cab, to the tram that took us right to our neighborhood.

Tuesday, November 28

As we had stayed as late as we could in Beyoglu the night before we slept in before our 11:30 checkout time. After checking out we went for a sismit, a very cheap sort of roll with olive paste inside, that very tasty but definitely not a long lasting lunch. Afterwards we went to the Spice Bazaar near Yeni Camii. About half of the bazaar’s offerings are spice and Turkish delight, while the other half has now been consumed by souvenir vendors. We stopped among a curious crowd of Turkish people watching live coverage of the Pope’s arrival in Ankara on a TV hanging above an aisle in the market (one guy kept clapping, but we think it was a joke) before making our first score of fresh Turkish delight. We were at first frustrated that our request for a couple of pieces of each kind turned into 6-10 of each, but the tastes and textures of the treats soon overwhelmed any sense of our lost frugality (Roger particularly enjoyed the treats). The streets behind the alleys offered a wider variety of goods and services and were every bit as packed as the bazaar. Among the many shops we saw a lot of stores featuring or dedicated entirely to Christmas decorations (this struck us as odd in a country more than 99% Muslim). Had Amy not remembered reading that they use Santa Claus (locally known as Baba Noel) as a celebratory image for New Year’s we may have purchased stockings and lights.

With Roger a bit lightheaded from gobbling up Turkish delights we sought more savory fare at Hamdi Et Lokantasi. We ordered the two dishes listed in our guidebook review and a pistachio kebab (which was delicious). Before the pistachio kebab arrived our server came out with another dish, an iskender kebab, that we accepted because we thought ours wasn’t available. While we don’t know if they were trying to get us to buy more or didn’t think we had enough to eat we will never know, but we ended up with two entrees and ate them entirely. The restaurant was very popular with a nice view over the city and the harbor. We had a good amount of fun with one of our busboys (he said “see you later gator” when we left, one of the most endearing unexpected expressions to come in broken English). The young man also taught us a really good way to remember how to say thank you - “tea & sugar,” for “tay shikur,” and then “edereme” - and you are half way to speaking fluent Turkish.

After lunch, we checked our email and had tea at a touristy restaurant near the hotel before collecting our bags and making the ninety minute journey to the airport (much cheaper by tram and underground than a shuttle). To get to the airport we rode the entire length of the line with a large crowd, most of whom got out 2 stops before the airport.

Our late night flight would take us to the center of the country, landing in Kayseri before taking a bus to Goreme. Istanbul had fed us well and tantalized us with many things that we would return to eagerly once the Pope’s visit had passed.

---

Photos

The Blue Mosque
Constructed between 1606 and 1616 by Sultan Ahmet I.

Fishermen On The Golden Horn, Galata Tower Is In The Background
The tower was constructed in 1348 as part of a larger fortification.

Galata Bridge At Night
Restaurants line the underside of the bridge.

Comments

[Jenn C.]

And where are you NOW?
I haven't been commenting much (OK, at all) but have truly enjoyed following your adventures around the world. I can't believe it's been almost a year and a half. SO now I know where you were in November, but where are you NOW? Drop me a line and let me know.