Istanbul Day 3

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Istanbul June 29, 2014

Today we caught up on work after breakfast and didn't leave the room until 11:30, but my feet were glad for the extra rest. Today is our day to go to Asia! That sounds more adventurous than it actually is. Asia is a ten-minute ferry ride ($2.50) across the Bosphorus (Kabatas to Uskudar). Another 70-degree day with a nice breeze made it very enjoyable to walk the half-mile or so along the water to the view of Maiden's Tower which is on a rocky island just off the shore. You can eat in a restaurant in the tower if you have reservations and don't mind the expense.

We opted for the very attractive Filizler Restaurant with outdoor seating overlooking the tower and waterfront. New dishes we tried were lentil soup, a staple here in Istanbul, and white bean salad. Both were excellent, and the soup reminded me more of a Canadian pea soup than what I think of as lentil.

From here we took the ferry back to the European side, but this time we landed at Eminonu, close to the Old City. Time for another mosque visit, this time the Sulaymaniyah Mosque, the largest in the city, although it is hard to tell relative sizes when they are all so enormous. For some reason the thing that strikes me in these mosques is the size of the carpet. No wonder you have to take your shoes off. Who would want to replace that thing? Maybe we should require shoes off in our churches, too.

Since we were navigating on our own, we chose the most direct path to our destinations, so we ended up taking some routes that were probably ill-advised, including a city-bus parking lot and a squatters' section, but no one bothered us there. I think they were too shocked by our appearance. The troublemakers are all out where the sensible tourists go.

Our last walking destination was the Bozdogan Aqueduct, which we knew only from a little icon on our map, but recalling fond memories of Latin class, we had to see a real aqueduct, and it was well worth the walk, as I hope you can see from the photo. It dates back to 330 AD and is no longer used for water, but it straddles a major thoroughfare, so it has been kept up quite well, at least in the Ataturk Street section.

Back at our hotel we explored the "spa" on the roof level, and had a very pleasant surprise. There are a nice gym, outdoor jacuzzis, sauna, steam room, and Roman Bath that are free to guests! In keeping with our aqueduct adventure, we had to try the Roman Bath, a tiled room with a fountain, a large jacuzzi-like tub, and several basins. Unfortunately it didn't come with instructions, so we weren't quite sure of the Roman procedure. Also, I believe the ancient Romans had these things at lots of varied temperatures (frigidarium, tepidarium, etc.), and this one was just uniformly frigid/tepid. It was definitely cool, though, in all senses of the word. Glad we didn't discover this when it was too late to give it a try.

In the evening, it was back to the ferries. We had read that one of the highlights of visiting Istanbul is seeing it from the water at night, and you can get a special dinner cruise or you can be cheap and take the ferry! The view is the same - beautiful.

A note about Ramadan, which began on June 28: Our tour guide yesterday said maybe half of the people observe it, meaning they cannot eat anything all day until about a half-hour after sunset. At that time, a loud call is broadcast through loudspeakers all over the city, the same speakers that call to prayer five times a day. When people do eat, they tend to get together in huge gatherings, one of which is held in Taksim Square, which we keep passing through. We have seen hundreds of people waiting to be seated at outdoor folding tables, starting about 8 pm. When they are allowed into the area, they are given a large cardboard box, something like a bento box, that contains their whole meal, and they sit there waiting about half an hour for the call that says they can start eating. We noticed, though, that some people dug into theirs right away without waiting for the call, presumably figuring that waiting until 8 pm for their first bite of food was sacrifice enough(?). Our guide also said that many people deal with the problem of hunger by basically switching their schedule to stay up (eating) all night and sleep until afternoon the next day, although he acknowledged that is not really in the spirit of the fasting holiday.

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