Last day in Istanbul. I’m going to get my Bosphorus cruise in, damnit! I wake up early and head down to finally do this thing. Oh, you mean it lasts six hours… I must have missed that. Alright, I guess that’s not happening but I still need to accomplish my goal of getting over to Asia. After attempting to figure out how to use the ferry, get tickets, pay… whatever. The folks manning the queue take pity on me and just let me on the ferry. So, ferry to Asia, pretty cool.
There isn’t really much to do or see on the Asian side of Istanbul so I just go to lunch at a local chain called Bereket Doner. The staff doesn’t speak English and after my first attempt at Turkish my waitress takes pity on me. She rejects my initial order and just brings me whatever she thinks I’ll like. No clue what it was but it was good.
Back at the ferry crossing an English speaking attendant informs me the reason I had such trouble figuring out how to pay earlier is because the ferry is free. Great. I sail back across to the European side and head back to the Spice Bazaar to secure some souvenirs. The girl at the post office is extremely patient with me and even packages all my things for me and fills out the forms to send them back home. Fingers crossed that they make it. Hope, this isn’t ruining the surprise but luckily I don’t think anyone reads my blog…
Istanbul – Roman Walls
A frantic cab ride back to the airport follows. I should have mentioned this earlier but around old town there are still roman walls so in places the highway breaks up into multiple single lanes to take you through them. Sorry for the poor photo quality but this was spur of the moment as we are flying down the highway.
My flight ends up being delayed an hour and by the time I get home I’m completely wiped out.
After yesterday’s fifteen mile death march to every tourist location in Istanbul it seemed like an activity that involved sitting would be a good choice. So, I got a cab and set out to do a cruise of the Bosphorus. I made it down there only to learn… the cruise had been cancelled because there were sailing races going on today. No problem, I had planned on heading back to the Spice Bazaar to collect some souvenirs anyway and that’s right near by. Oh wait, you mean that’s closed on Sunday!? Well never mind then. It was also oppressively hot today so having been twice defeated now I returned to the hotel for some air conditioning and to regroup.
Having hit things so hard yesterday I was having a hard time coming up with other options so I decided to try another local place by me and walked to Nese Manti Waffle for lunch. It was good, the way the Turks do ravioli is interesting and delicious.
Now being full of pasta, hot and still tired from yesterday I decided to just head back to the hotel to recoup for the afternoon. Given my bad luck so far today I had prepared a couple of back up plans for dinner. I was hoping to do another rooftop so I could get some Istanbul sunset pictures. As I’m leaving I get another email from the State Department. Don’t go near Taksim Square today, there’s a huge rally taking place. Great, that was one of my options. The first one is right across the street from my hotel so I head there. …and naturally it’s booked out for a wedding that evening. Ok, I know I’m not supposed to go near Taksim but let’s see what the excitement is about.
It’s total insanity. People are peaceful but the sheer number of folks who have turned out is mind boggling. I wouldn’t venture into a crowd like this even at home. So, dinner plans are totally dashed.
While I hate to just eat at the hotel it looks like that’s how it’s going to go so I head to the Brasserie downstairs for dinner. I’m glad a did, though. The food was great and the service was superlative. But I guess that’s to be expected from the St. Regis. Hit it off with my waiter because it turned out that he lived in Aspen for a time. After an initial, “what are the odds!?” we conclude they are pretty good since he works for the St. Regis and was working at the hotel there…
Today was all about Istanbul tourist attractions. I began the day with an email from the State Department stating that they had blocked nonessential travel for government employees in Turkey because of the heightened risk of terror attacks at major tourist destinations in the wake of the coup. …and with that I headed out to hit them all.
The first stop was Taksim Square. On its own, not very interesting. I found it interesting, however, because this is where all of the major political rallies are and in the wake of last weekends coup attempt there has been one just about every evening.
Istanbul – Taksim SquareIstanbul – Taksim Square
You probably cant read it in these photos but the banner says something that roughly translates to “Nationality is Supreme” or “The Nation is Supreme.” My vague understanding is that this is kind of a Turkish “slogan” and means that the people are their own rulers… more benign than it sounds. These signs have sprung up everywhere since the coup. Like… suspiciously fast.
From here I walked down Istiklal Cadessi which is a major street/pedestrian mall/tourist trap. Not that interesting, just a lot of shops and cafes. What you’d expect.
Istanbul – Galata Tower
Off of this street is Galata Tower which is such a tourist trap that it could almost be a caricature of a tourist trap. That being said, the view of the city from the top is gorgeous (although you’ll pay to go up there) and the tower itself is beautiful as well.
Istanbul – Spice Bazaar
From here I walked over to the more historic part of town which was insanely packed. For some perspective, Istanbul proper is about twice the size of New York City which makes it something like 30x the size of Denver. This is not including suburbs. I walked over to the Spice Bazaar (which I had originally planned on skipping altogether) and was totally blown away by the place. It was a total sensory overload; the variety of aromas, colors and languages being spoken was awesome. The whole thing was basically exactly like you might picture it.
Istanbul – Grand Bazaar
Having been sufficiently impressed by the Spice Bazaar I decided to walk over to the Grand Bazaar and see how that stacked up. The history behind the place and the sheer size… something like 65 streets with 4,000 vendors and about 500 (?) years old was amazing. While it was very cool, I didn’t think it was as neat as the Spice Bazaar.
Intellectualy, I knew that vendors in both these places had a reputation for being aggressive but I had no idea what that really meant. It turns out everyone here has an uncle, or a cousin or a brother who lives in Denver… I mean, what are the freakin’ odds!? By the time I recaptured my bearings enough to know what was going on I was sitting in the back of a Turkish rug store with some guys having tea and negotiating the price of some rugs that I had no intention of buying. After I got over the novelty of it all, I finally recovered enough to make my escape which I also learned is literally impossible short of just standing up and walking off while you’re talking.
Istanbul – Basilica Cistern
From here I managed to get back on my planned schedule and head over to the Basilica Cistern. At this point I had walked about ten miles so simply being in a cool, dark environment was a huge relief. This was probably the coolest thing that I saw in Istanbul, though. The space is something like 100 x 140 meters and is supported by over 100 columns. It’s dark and they play music very softly around the space. The whole thing is extremely relaxing. Or at least it would be if they scrapped the guys in the corner trying to sell pictures. It’s so dark that my pictures didn’t really come out but take my word for it – awesome stop.
Istanbul – Hagia Sophia
After this I headed over to the biggest attractions and hit the Hagia Sophia. The evolution of this place is interesting, starting out as a Christian basilica it was converted to a mosque and is now a museum. While it was an impressive space I was a little underwhelmed having just come from the Cistern. It’s also undergoing renovations so some of the grandeur is lost. …although the scope of the scaffolding they have up is impressive in its own right.
Now completely exhausted, hot and tired I was too tired to look for lunch so I just defaulted to the closest, safest option I could find. The Four Seasons. I had a great four course lunch that probably would have run me $150 in Denver and (as recent experience taught me) $500 in Geneva. In Istanbul, though, $60. After some time to rejuvenate and re-hydrate in their quiet courtyard it was back out into the crowds and heat to finish the last two major tourist stops.
Istanbul – The Blue Mosque
Across from Hagia Sophia is the Blue Mosque. Believe it or not, I had never been in a Mosque before so that in itself was a very interesting experience. Cooler than either the Hagia Sofia or the Blue Mosque, though, was the afternoon call to prayer. This happened right as I was crossing the square between the two and the call and response between the two places over the loudspeakers was pretty impressive.
Istanbul – Topkapi Palace
Seriously flagging at this point, I managed to walk over to the last major tourist attraction – the Topkapi Palace. The palace itself is very pretty but the best part of it was the views of the rest of the city.
Now exhausted, I took a cab back to the hotel to rest. Later in the evening I managed to venture out to a local restaurant, Mahir Lokantasi, for dinner. The staff didn’t speak English nor could I read the menu so they just brought me some lamb, cheese pita thing that was excellent. And that put a cap in an all around exhausting day.
August is going to be spent in London, but that was originally supposed to be Istanbul. I’ve always wanted to see Istanbul and despite the deteriorating situation there I decided to pull the trigger. So today I took the 90 minute flight down there. Despite the fact that there was nearly a coup the weekend prior everything seemed to be business as usual. Since it was Friday I still had work to do so I went and had lunch across from my hotel at the Beymen Braserie. After that I just walked around and checked out the particular neighborhood that I was staying in. In the evening I went to a rooftop bar, Gaja Roof, to watch the sun go down and have a drink before calling it a night.
