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We arrived in Istanbul the way everybody should arrive. On a train. At a station that had a welcome lounge for the Orient Express. And there was a guy with a fez! (although that was the one and only fez-wearing guy we saw in Turkey).
You can't help being impressed by Istanbul. Just that name conjures up images of grandeur and mystery, monarchs and assassins, east and west. Its a place of contrasts - a modern bustling city punctuated by massive ancient structures, a highly westernized culture that is still incredibly traditional. Even geographically its a paradox - a city split by the bosphorous river, where the east bank is in Asia and the west bank is in Europe. Istanbul is just plain hard to define, and as a visitor, its hard to figure out just what to make of it all.
Our stint in Istanbul was to be a short hurried 2-day stint - merely a last stop-over before heading back home. The train pulled in 1 hour late at 9am, and so we were already eating into valuable time on our short itinerary. So rather than bother fighting with taxi men and finding the right and safe
Possibly disrespectful
Not sure what the arabic words that Melenie is eating - apologies if we have insulted anybody. way to get to our hotel, I decided we should walk. According to the map, if we cut across town, it was a mere 15 minute walk.
Stupid map unfortnately didn't show hills, and Sultanahmet, the part of Istanbul we were in, sits on a really steep steep hill. And the route I had chosen took us right across the peak. This while pulling two really overloaded bags, a bursting backpack, a baby and a pram. Oh yes, and it was scorching hot. Wife was not happy 😞 Air-conditioning at the hotel made that quickly all better and soon our spirits were high again, particularly since we had seen lots and lots and lots of yummy 'salivitable' food enroute to the hotel.
Sultanmet is the tourist zone of Istanbul, where every second shop sells Baklava, kebabs and set meals, where everybody calls you "friend", and way too many carpet shops exist. Alas, this over-touristed place is a compulsory stop for any Istanbul visitor because it houses some of its best attractions, including the spectacular Aya Sofia.
We put off visiting those spectacular sights though to attend to something much more important - eating. Baklava. That stuff is
Sesame's fan clubs
One of the many groups of cooing locals that attacked our daughter. amazing. Forget the single flavour varieties you get back home - here Baklava has as many varieties as South American revolutions. And they just explode in all their sugary goodness in your mouth. Alas, that euphoria is quickly replaced with a sugar stupor - particularly if you are greedy like me and eat half a kilogram of them in one sitting. Melenie had to actually lead me by the hand for a bit - I was drunk on Baklava sugar.
Alas, the Doner Kebabs were the complete opposite - sad little things that looked like the mangry stray brother of malnourished mutt cousin of a low bred kebab. We had been spoiled my the french-fry laden Bulgarian kebabs and Greek gyros (Greek kebabs equivalents) from the past few weeks.
Meanwhile, Sesame was a hit with the locals. It seems men here are more enamoured with babies than women. We literally couldn't walk 10 meters without some guy walking past and squeezing her cheeks. Its was a little confusing to see well built chubby turkish guys cupping their hands together and cooing over babies. At one point, she was mobbed my a gaggle of giggly teenage girls - about
fifteen of them swarmed and started taking photos and squeezing cheeks.
Okay - so onto the cultural part of the day. First stop was Aya Sofia - the world's biggest cathedral (I think). Sadly it was converted into a mosque when the Romans were defeated. It is an interesting juxtopostion of the two relgions. From the outside its really very bland. But inside - this place is impressive thanks to some gorgeous restoration work. We've seen our share of cathedrals, more than enough to make us shudder at the thought of yet-another-cathedral. But this place is just darn jaw-dropping. I will let the photos talk for themselves, although my paltry photos do little justice to this place.
We then headed over to the Blue Mosque - nice from the outside, jaw-dropping on the inside. The place is lined with blue stones inside that just look amazing. Its actually an active mosque, so we did feel rather rude joining the hoardes of gawking tourists congregating at the back and snapping photos of the devout going through their sessions of praying and kneeling. But heck - anything for a photo.
We then took a nice long walk along the
Just gorgeous
Not just beautiful architecturally, the Aya Sofia internal lighting team did a great job of setting a gorgeous setting. Bosphorous river - the river that splits Asia and Europe, stopping for a snack of fish kebabs (very yummy), and pickle in gross red water (not so yummy). Crossing the river took us into Europe, and ironically, the start of a very very long shopping street (Taksim), dripping with consumerism and 'the west'. Yet, a quick jaunt down a side street and suddenly we were in small little alleys with markets and eateries, hookahs and big hunks of bread.
We decided to eat on fish street - lined with restaurants all famed for fish. Food was so so - what was more interesting though was the people. Big crowds of boisterous large families where mother is covered conservatively but daughter sports a short skirt and halter neck.
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