Istanbul:

Ah, Istanbul…definitely a favorite.

Sultanhamed

We arrived by plane around 11am and took the metro to Sultanhamed, a neighborhood in the old town. The metro was packed…like really packed. We tried to smash ourselves against the sides, but it was impossible. Our backpacks were too huge, and took up too much space. At one point, there was an argument between several men. It made for an uncomfortable ride. About 30 minutes into our ride, we were able to escape into an isle leading to the back of the metro. At least we were no longer blocking the doors, or path to the doors. A very nice man stood up and motioned me to take his seat. I was reluctant to accept, yet glad for the relief. At this point, my pack felt like 100 pounds, I was sweating, and a little anxious. Javier eventually was able to take the seat next to me, although at this point, we only had about 5 min left of our trip. Finding our hotel was very tricky. The streets are not well marked, curvy, and slightly hilly. Everyone was so helpful. We were offered help several times, and when we had to ask for it, people went above and beyond to aid us.

Lahmacun. Turkish pizza. good stuff.

When we arrived at our hotel, we were so pleased. It was very small, run by a family, nicely tucked away= quiet, yet a short walk to the Blue Mosque and other major attractions. When we arrived the men were in the small reception area, which looked more like someone’s living room, drinking tea and watching TV. We asked them for a dinner recommendation. They recommended a great little place only 5 minutes up the road. On the way there, we heard our first call to prayer. We looked at each other with huge smiles…we’re

Yummy Orange Pomegranate.

really here! It was like a movie! I realized that I’ve heard the call to prayer many times before, but hearing it live, was surreal. We had seen this Anthony Bordain episode on Turkey, and he was eating this pizza thing. Javier really wanted to try it, so we gave it a go. I’m glad we tried it, but it was not my favorite. Huge highlight of Istanbul…fresh orange and pomegranate juice! After dinner, we were exhausted and decided to relax and get up early the next day to explore the city! 

Sultan Ahmed Mosque
…the Blue Mosque.

Well, we sure woke up early, thanks to the call to prayer at sunrise! Our hotel was close enough to the Blue Mosque to where we woke up even with ear plugs. After breakfast provided by the hotel, we walked over to the Blue Mosque, which was closed to the public for prayers. We walked around the grounds, took pictures, and decided to book tours for the next few days. We opted for a city tour and Bosphorus tour. We booked the city tour for the following day, however, the Grand Bazaar would be closed, so we decided to go and check it out. That place is overwhelming! The building itself is great. Very old, very colorful, very noisy, and very Turkish.

Grand Bazar.

The vendors were out trying to reel in the customers, and young men walked from shop to shop with little trays of tea for the older men. We were told not to buy anything at all in the Grand Bazaar, but that there was a really great area outside that sold real fakes, which of course we had to check out. We exited the back of the Grand Bazaar, and found ourselves walking narrow streets with lots of locals and very few tourists. I had been wanting a scarf for both the cold weather, as well as to cover my head in the mosques. We found this truly local building with many shops inside, where I found a scarf (for only 10 lira= $4!) We found the real fakes, and while we are not connoisseurs of either real or fake name brand clothes, bags, jewelry, etc, we were impressed by both the apparent quality and super low price. 

What? is that a a water cannon? yes… no protesting.

As an appetizer, we bought roasted corn from a street vendor, and walked around the university for a bit. We then hopped on the metro and made our way to Taksim square to try a durum that Javier had heard about, again, on Anthony Bourdain. Now, I had read on the US.gov page that Americans were warned to stay away from protest areas, one of them being Taksim square, but at that moment…it slipped my mind. Once we arrived at the stop on the metro, we had to take the funicular up to the square. When we walked out, all we saw was red. There were thousands of Turkish flags EVERYWHERE! They were around the square, as well as lining the streets leaving the square. We also noted a strong police presence all dressed in riot gear, and one of those big water tanks. As Javier took a few pictures, we noticed that even more police were arriving at the square, so we took that as our cue to leave. Side-note: we had asked the guy who booked our tours if he knew of this durum place. When Javier showed him on the map, the guy very adamantly said we shouldn’t go there. He claimed that people there “sniffed glue” and were crazy. His words were, “They will kill their own mothers, and have no idea.” So, instead we tried a durum he recommended for lunch…it was not good. Javier was convinced that the guy was confused. He claimed that he had done his own research and knew about the bad area this guy was talking about, and it wasn’t where the durum place was located.

got Durum?

When it comes to safety, Javier is much more conservative than I am- this I know. So, if he feels it is safe, I know I would too, so we went for it. Other than the strong police presence everywhere (all moving in the direction of Taksim square) we felt perfectly safe, and we were rewarded with delicious durum, and went super local by drinking yogurt for our beverage. So much fun. In all honesty, the location was not dangerous at all. It was amid tons of restaurants with loads of tourists eating outside, laughing, drinking and enjoying the day. No glue sniffers in sight.

let’s catch dinner.

We opted to walk back to our area of town because we wanted to cross the bridge on foot, and because we wanted to avoid Taksim square. Along the way we stopped for fresh orange/pomegranate juice from a little old man selling it on the street. We took pictures along the way, stopped to watch the fishermen, and enjoyed the view from the bridge while the sun set and the city came to life with twinkling lights. The bridge and waterfront was bustling with people. The bridge is actually a doubledecker with the bottom filled with restaurants.

learning how to fish.

While Javier was busy taking pictures, I saw this family walking. It was a man, his wife and his daughter. What caught my eye was the daughter. The woman was wearing a burka, which I admit, I’m not used to seeing, but what really grabbed my attention was the baby. By the size of her, she must have been 2 or 3 years old, and she was sitting in her stroller wearing a burka. All you could see were her little eyes. It took me by surprise. It’s rare for me to see little girls wearing the hijab, but I’ve never seen a baby wearing the headscarf let alone a full burka. It was striking.

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Sultan Ahmed Mosque. The Blue Mosque.

As we walked back, we took night pictures of both the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, and called it a night. The next day, we met for our tour. This tour was all day. It started in the hippodrome, where they used to race the horses as well as hold other festivities, and walked into the Blue Mosque. We took the visitors entrance into this little anteroom, where they provide plastic bags for your shoes. Needless to say, it smelled like feet, and I couldn’t take my shoes off fast enough. The inside was lovely.

Hagia Sophia.

I didn’t know this, but was told that the mosques are not decorated with pictures like churches. Instead, they prefer flowers and geometric designs with the name of God and holy people written in Arabic. As per the name, most of the inside was decorated in blue, but there was lots of red, green, gold…really beautiful. When we exited the mosque, we walked the 2 minutes over to the Hagia Sophia. Originally, the Hagia Sophia was built as a Christian church during the times of Constantine. The inside was decorated with mosaics depicting Jesus, Mary, and the apostles. When the Byzantines took over, and Turkey went from a Christian country to a Muslim one, the Hagia Sophia was one of many churches that was converted into a mosque.

Hagia Sophia.

The interesting thing is that instead of destroying the mosaic, they simply covered it with geometric shapes and floral designs. Once Turkey became a republic under Ataturk, there was controversy over Hagia Sophia. The Christians wanted to revert it back into a church, but the Muslim majority wanted it to stay a mosque. So it goes, Ataturk wanted Turkey to move towards the European side of the scale and away from the Arab. They say he always wore European suits instead of traditional Arab clothing, changed the national writing from Arabic to Roman. According to our guide, he would have returned it back into a church, but to keep the peace, he decided that the safest thing to do was to turn the Hagia Sophia into a museum, which is what it is to this day. Inside, they have removed some of the muslim coverings, and you can see the original christian decoration.

Carpet expo.

In lieu of the Grand Bazaar portion of the show, they took us to a Turkish rug demonstration, where we were educated on the differences between machine made rugs versus handmade, as well as given the chance to purchase…of course. Either way, it was a nice opportunity to sit back and relax with some tea. Our next stop was little Sophia, another beautiful working mosque that is much smaller and quieter. When I walked out to join our tour they had just started a discussion of the future of Turkey. Our tour guide let loose and was sharing his feelings and fears about the future of Turkey. I won’t replay the conversation, but it was very interesting and eye-opening to hear his perspective. Once he realized that virtually the entire group was listening to him, he caught himself and quickly ended the topic and moved on with the tour.

Topkapi Palace.

Our final stop on the tour was the Topkapi Palace. Here we were able to see jewels from former sultans, as well as clothing, furniture, and if we wanted, Muhammad’s sword and a lock of his hair. Due to long wait times and tired legs, we passed on the latter. We had heard of a restaurant that provides a whirling dervish show every hour while you eat, and decided to try it out instead of paying a lot more money to watch a whirling dervish show. During our tour we met Tim. He’s an American who at the last minute decided to travel to Turkey, so he was solo. The three of us walked over to the restaurant and made a reservation with one of the servers, planned to meet back for dinner, and went our separate ways. Time for my little rant…while we were talking with the server about making a reservation, we had some questions. I noticed that when I would ask him a question, he would look at me, but answer my question to Javier. I would ask another question, he would turn away from me and answer to Javier. At one point, I was asking questions just to see what would happen and sure enough, he wouldn’t look at me, but turned to Javier every time. I wanted to punch him in the face!! If he were older, maybe I would have excused his lack of respect for me as a human being, but he was like 20 years old! I was fuming, and my Javier was completely oblivious. Because this was Turkey, I felt I had no choice but to put up with it, but oh lawd, it took everything I had to keep my mouth shut. Up until this point, and from that point on, every male I spoke to was very courteous and respectful to me, and this was definitely an isolated experience, but it reminded me that I was in fact, in a different world.

The whirling dervish. Turkey

We met Tim for dinner, watched the whirling dervish spin and spin, and had a chance to get to know one another a little bit. We really like Tim. He’s our age, well traveled, and very knowledgable about the world. It turned out to be a truly lovely night even in spite of the wait staff 🙂

On our last day in Istanbul, we visited the Cistern Basilica and took a Bosphorus tour. On the way to the cistern we passed by a man who was asking for money. He was old, wearing an old, dirty suit, carrying a passport, and kept saying, “Syrian.” We passed by another family sitting on the street with a sign saying they were Syrian. Javier saw the man later, looked at his passport, and gave him some money. Maybe it was a grand scheme, maybe not. But it definitely reminded us that Turkey is a neighbor of Syria, and just because we didn’t see them, we still know they’re out there just trying to survive. That man broke our hearts a little, and humbled us a lot.

The Basilica Cistern.

When we finally made it to the cistern, it was really cool, it still has a little water inside and you walk through it via connecting walkways. They have lamp posts that illuminate that area just enough. In the back, they even have a Medusa head as the base for two of the columns. Historically, this place was built because the water supply was the first to get cut off, forcing the Turks to surrender. Sultanhamet built the cistern to store enough water to last the city for around 3 months, while they were able to fight. As for the Bosphorus tour, it’s a great idea in theory. It practical application, it was looooooong, and an overload of information.

Sunset at the Bosphorus.

From the water, we saw the expensive area of Istanbul, the international bridge that connects the european side of Istanbul to the asian side, and docked on the asian side just before the entrance into the Black sea. There we disembarked and wandered around this tiny town and went for a little walk along the water. On the way back, we enjoyed the sunset, and nearly fell asleep while the tour guide continued to talk at us. Once off the boat, we decided to visit the spice market. What a cool place!

Got spice?

Unlike the Grand Bazaar, the spice market is outdoors, but like the Grand Bazaar, it was full of noise, colors, people, and all kinds of smells. We stopped and looked at the different spices, fruits and vegetables, teas, and souvenirs. We didn’t spend much time there, but it was great to walk around and just watch the people.

We headed home early since we had a long day of travel ahead of us. We thoroughly enjoyed Turkey. I told Javier that if we weren’t traveling, and were there on vacation, I would have definitely purchased a lamp or two, and possibly a rug. Aye-yai-yai!

To see more pictures of Istanbul, click HERE.