A Visit to Istanbul, Not Constantinople
2023
DEPARTURE FRI JUNE 2. The wait at SeaTac to board is an unusually long line that sits still as the flight is delayed. A young woman is keeps running after a blond toddler who bolts away at a full run every 90 seconds. When I tell my sister Lee, I share my theory that this young woman couldn’t have been the mother because she’s so patient. Lee sighs and says no, when you’re a parent you learn that in the end, you can’t control your kids.
Tourist class on Turkish Air was not intolerable but not fun. There’s that state of semi-hibernation you fall into a long flight, turning off your mind and floating downstream.
SATURDAY JUNE 3
We arrive late afternoon. The airport transfer was minorly screwed up (driver changed 3 times and it’s not the promised Mercedes – not that I need that but I’ve never ridden in one). 40-minute comfortable drive through rolling green hills scarred by mines into city. No farms or suburbs just smack, City!
BIG city, on a scale with New York, Paris, London, or Tokyo sprawling over multiple hilly neighborhoods, a European side divided by water, north-south by the Golden Horn, and from the Asia side east-west by the Bosporus Strait.
Mosques every ten blocks. The call to prayers is a clock all day and night (the 4:30 am one is jarring). The solo male voice emotively modulates up and down. It seems about 1 in four women wear Hijabs in styles that range from dowdy to elegant, but the personal appearance is not that different from any big city, fancy suits, shorts, baseball caps, t-shirts, and dresses.
The Istanbul Marriot Sisli (pron. Sish-lee) is impressive. Our 18th-floor room is on a corner with a huge bathroom on the apex with views south and west. I keep heading to the door for the bathroom since that’s where most hotel bathrooms are.
But this bathroom in the corner is huge with two sinks, a large bath with a shower AND a glass-enclosed shower with two heads. The room is large with lots of outlets and perfectly quiet except for an occasional rattle when the AC kicks in or the call to prayer.
That first jet-lagged evening we found a sprawling airy modern mall nearby at the Sisli Metro station where got fruit smoothies and wandered among the common Western brands of clothing and food interspersed with their Turkish variations. There’s a Metro Station so we go in to buy a card. After fumbling at the machine for a few minutes, we let a guy in front of us, and following his lead I buy a three-ride IstanbulKart transit pass.
Google Maps is very weak on nearby restaurants so after wandering we end up a few blocks from the hotel at LUIZA PUB BIANCA YANARD on a side street torn up by construction. There’s music coming from a back courtyard so naturally, we want to be there. A singer with a three-stringed instrument is leading sing-alongs. Harriet picks out a mezze of cheese, olives, and yogurt and I over order grilled meatballs with rice. And so the first night we really feel like we’re in a new country. When the musician finishes playing he comes around and shakes hands with everyone, including tourists.
SUNDAY JUNE 4 We wander and look for the famous Turkish breakfast we’ve heard so much about and find a little restaurant around the corner. It did not disappoint! Olives, cheeses, yogurt with vegetable, hummus, egg, bread, and a honey-cheese spread. Harriet is off to the International Air Transport Association (IATA conference) and I begin a mad rush to cram all I can into my 3 days of IstanbulEPass.
Mastering transit is the first rule of travel. Istanbul is fairly easy. The buses are frequent and have tv screens telling you the stops. Google Maps works fairly well (see exception below) with our T-Mobile foreign service spelling out routes with stops, bus numbers, and destination names. Plus you can track your route on the map.
Having said that, google maps FAIL on Sunday schedule (see more below). My bus doesn’t come but as I walk South from Sisli I find the Osmanbey Metro Station. That gets me within walking distance of Sultanahmet, the World Heritage site with most of Istanbul’s biggest attractions. I stroll through a market neighborhood but most places are closed.
My first stop that morning turns out to be the most impressive of the entire visit, although you wouldn’t expect that of an underground reservoir. The Basilica Cistern was built in the 6th century when Constantinople was the capital of the Christian Byzantine Empire.
It’s held up by huge columns, eerie lighting reflecting off the several inches of water. For centuries, it supplied the imperial center of Istanbul with water. After it was replaced, someone realized that drained of water, it was pretty darn impressive. Some columns are plain, others ornate. Some Bauhaus styled columns look like replacements.
A few works of modern sculpture have been added which gives it an art gallery vibe.
Our guide is Can Halil Kalip, the leader for my two other IstanbulEpass tours to Hagia Sophia and the Grand Bazaar.
From there I got Topkapi Palace Harem (which just means family quarters – yes there are multiple wives and concubines but it’s not as sexy as you might assume) moving between endless medieval reception rooms, baths, toilets (hey, that’s the hole in the floor the Sultan pooped in !), courtyards, and oddball royal Ottoman rooms like the ‘dormitory of the black eunuchs’ ‘Hammam (bath) of the Eunuchs’ ‘Court of the Head Slave of the Door’.
Amazing tiles are everywhere. A downpour makes me glad I’m inside the courtyards.
It was an old school palace, stone and simple, a big contrast to the 19th century Dolmabahce Palace on Bosporus strait. They both had harems and extensive meeting room but Dolmabache had more wood, carpets, windows, soaring architecture.
Both were ostentatious displays of wealth, with rooms for hordes of retainers and administrators. These spaces were physical manifestations of absolute power. You see that in the great palaces of Western Europe, the mosques and cathedrals. You are made to feel very small, awed into submission. I follow google maps instructions on how to return to the Hyatt on the Tram.
It’s long walk down a cobblestone street (I’m glad I wore hiking shoes instead of Vessi’s) Soğuk Çeşme Sk. behind the Hagia Sofia. Right on the street are Sheraton Hotel rooms. The mobbed Tram Line 1 takes take me across the Golden Horn on the Galata Bridge where I get off to catch a bus that according to Google maps will take me back over the Galata Bridge then north again to Sisli.
Instead the bus stops at the end of the line at Eminonu and the driver kicks us all off. Now I’ve used up my three ride Istanbulkart. It’s a 90 minute walk to the hotel and I’ve already been hoofing it all day but whaddya gonna do.
As I trudge north across the nearby pedestrian bridge over the Golden Horn I see the Metro runs there. Wait a minute! I went by here on the way down. This line goes right back to the Sisli stop by the Marriot.
All I need is to add the fare to my card. But it costs 50 lira and I don’t have exact change. So, I trudge over the bridge to a convenience store, break a 200 lira note, buy snack nuts, trudge back, buy a Istanbulkart at the machine and I’m home again on gossamer wings.
Back at the hotel the discount three-day transit card I got through my IstanbulEPass has arrived in the room. I’m pretty tired so for dinner I just go back to the mall and get a disappointing Turkish pizza.
MONDAY
Harriet has an early call so I return to breakfast place from the previous day and again it’s delightful again! I metro to Veznecilir/Istanbul University. It’s a very deep station that requires an elevator to get the surface. As I get on last, the elevator beeps and won’t move. Another passenger strongly urges me to get off. I take the next one to the surface.
Now I’ve got my all access Istanbulkart so I can ride all day. Whoopee! So I get to the Lateli-Universite’s tram stop and tap to enter. But realize headed in the wrong director. I walk across the track and try to tap at the right entrance, the card doesn’t work. I figure out after a couple texts with the IstanbulEpass people that once used, my card doesn’t work for 20 minutes – probably to keep people from getting rides for two people. It’s not that far a walk.
I’ve got plenty of time before my 11:45 Hagia Sophia Guided Tour. As I wander along near the Blue Mosque, a guy approaches me to begin a chat in English He directs me to the entrance of the Blue Mosque. I take off my shoes and enter.
Blue Mosque Beyond belief! Grandiose color, arches, carpets, art. By the exit is a booklet comparing the Quran to the bible. When I leave my guy approaches me again, asks me to go see his shop and fine carpets. I finally shake him but within 3 minutes, another carpet pitch. I end up at a café hard by Hagia Sofia and relax with a coffee. Then I spring for a 5 lira pee and stroll over the waiting spot for the next tour by the Hop On, Hop Off bus
Again my guide is Can Halil Kalip for Hagia Sophia or Aya Sofia. It was a Christian Church built by Byzantines in 537. When the Ottomans conquered Constantinople in 1453 there was a blood bath.
“The worst massacre was at the Hagia Sophia, where services were underway when the Turks began attempting to raze the church. The Christians shut the great bronze doors, but the Turks smashed their way in. The congregation was all either massacred on the spot or carted away to a Turkish prison camp. The priests tried to continue with mass until they were killed at the altar.” Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire by Charles River Editors
The Ottomans converted the Hagia Sofia to a mosque, but curiously they left Christian iconography - wall paintings of the Virgin Mary and crosses - but they’re covered in cloth. In the early 20th century after the fall of the Ottoman empire Istanbul swung secular and in 1935 Hagia Sophia was converted to a museum. Then over the past few decades as the country swing back to its religious heritage President Erdogan converted it back to a Mosque – not doubt to clinch his bona fides with Muslim population. Truly massive awe-inspiring interior.
I tram and hoof it back across Galata bridge to the Galata Tower for awesome views across the Bosporus. After failing to find a good place for lunch I tram back to Sultanahmet
While perusing a menu, a guy guides me back up an alley to a restaurant with a much-welcomed couch, a beer, a piece of puff bread as big as my head with fixins and a lamb skewers (tough). Mellowed out the beer, food and two cups of tea I wandered back to the park by Sultanahmet and enjoy people watching for a good hour. I stop in an English language bookstore and peruse the Istanbul Eyewitness Guide for other places to check out. The clerk gets all huffy when I won’t buy the book so I wander on. Sheesh! Never heard of browsing
There is just a family of three and me on the Grand Bazaar tour at 4:30 (yet again guide is Can Halil Kalip). Fancy and kind of exotic with Turkish candy, spices, rugs, gold and jewelry but basically an old (really old) school mall.
I hoof it back through the Istanbul University campus to the Vezneciler Metro stop and train home.
That evening Harriet and I check out Goop coffee by the Sisli Metro stop and tour the giant Cevahir Mall. Many familiar brands, a few Turkish brands, a huge food court.
TUESDAY
Yesterday was a little exhausting so I vow to take it easier today. Wielding my all access Istanbulkart I hop a bus to the Dolmabache Castle. I ignore google maps advice and get off at a stop called Dolmabache by huge sports stadium. Mistake, but minor. After a few minutes walk down a hill in the direction the bus went I spot the castle on the shore of the Bosporous Strait.
I’m hella early so I decided to go for a walk along the waterfront – past a Mosque with a guy sleeping on blankets and another just waking up in a huge 4’ by 4’ by 4’ rectangular plastic bag. The first visible homeless. It continues by a ferry dock for island excursions and cross-strait rides and finally to a fenced in modern looking outdoor mall. Like the mall near the other hotel and almost every other public site there’s a metal detector. You can usually place your phone in a curved wooden container by machine, walk through and pick your phone back up on the other side.
This mall looks quite prosperous with U.S. chain restaurants (Popeye’s, Burger King) near Turkish brands. It extends along the waterfront with lovely unobstructed views of the water. I find the Istanbul Modern and turn around to walk back to the Dolmabache Castle.
As I arrive I see a group gathered around the clock tower just near the castle entrance and check in with the IstanbulEPass guide (not Can Halil Kalip, for once). We pass through security, the women don head scarves. One attractive young woman in short shorts is turned back by the guard at a second entrance. She has to put on a long rain poncho to cover her legs. At the entrance I trade in my driver’s license for audio tour. Our guide gives us background on Dolmabache Palace which dates from the last century of the Ottoman Empire. The cost was 1.9 billion dollars in today’s currency and it bankrupted the caliphate. It’s an eclectic design with elements from the Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassical styles,
The Sultans and sons were a bloodthirsty lot. Fratricide was practiced regularly to clear the path to become the Sultan. One Sultan was so paranoid he kept a mirror on his desk so he could see behind himself. In the mid-19th century Emperor Nicholas I of the Russian Empire called the Ottoman Empire the "Sick Man" of Europe because of the multiple mis-teps of the Sultans: unnecessary wars, poor alliances (with Germans in the Great War) that led to the decline and fall after WWI.
The Palace’s grandiosity (the ceilings feature 14 tons of gold) mocks the miserable record of the Sultan’s leadership. The tour begins in the Harem (‘natch). The tour guide sends us off for 45 minutes with our audio guides. Like Topkapi Palace the day before there’s a seemingly endless series of grand hallways, seating rooms, the Sultan’s bedroom, his wives bedrooms, the concubines bedrooms along with their baths. Unlike Topkapi Palace, which seemed laid our randomly with twists and turns, Dolmabache is one long building with inner hallways and room on each side. It was built to provide a more modern home for the staggering Ottoman Empire.
I grab a refreshing bottle of juice and sit under a canopy by a coffee shop while the others finish with the Harem, then it’s off the castle proper. That tour is more crowded. After the fall of the Ottomans Turkey became a Republic. The first president in 1923 was Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, or Mustafa Kemal Pasha. He lived in Dolmabache Castle and we could see the room where he died in 1938.
The highlight is the staggering Ceremonial Hall. It feels like walking into a cathedral. It features the world's largest Bohemian crystal chandelier. It has 750 lamps and weighs 4.5 tonnes. The chandelier was originally assumed to have been a gift from Queen Victoria; in 2006, however, a receipt was discovered showing it had been paid for in full by the Sultan.
It’s a perfect sunny day but since I’ve got the all-access Istanbulkart, I take the tram back to the Istanbul Museum of Modern Art. I lunch at a cafeteria style restaurant next door and head the museum. It features a show by and about women.
From there I google map my way back to the Metro to return to the Marriot Sisli. I decide to take advantage of the beautiful exercise room, pool and hot tub, but as I get off the elevator I realize I grabbed by transit card by mistake and I don’t have my room key. I go up the staircase back to the 18th floor where Harriet is hopefully still home but naturally the entrance is locked. I walk back down finding all locked doors until I find an open door. I’m probably a sight in my bathrobe and slippers trying myself to two nervous hotel workers. Luckily a front desk staff person walks by, gets me to the first floor where the main desk provides me a fresh room key.
I start my relaxing spa afternoon all over again, but the pool is to cold and the hot tub is too hot so I just return to the room. We’re both pretty well-fed so we dine simply off the nuts, cookies, conference baklava and fruit in the room for dinner.
WEDNESDAY
The last full day and we’ve booked a Taste of Two Continents food tour for a maximum of 8 people starting at Brew Coffee Works. Our delightful tour guide, Beyza Cubukcu Maral can answer all my questions about living under 80% inflation. She says ok because she’s paid in tourist dollars. But looking down the street at the shops she says she has no idea how they make it. Turns out she was a foreign worker in the Seattle area!
We begin with an olive tasting (some are red and blue) in market. On to a Turkish bagel stand, where one of number, a large young S.E. Asian looking man gets shat on by an overflying bird. A 50-60-ish grey haired very fit guy starts wiping off this shirt while the young man just stands there helplessly. It gets much better for him as the day goes on. Turns out they’re father and adopted son. Dad is (was?) in advertising. Son is in community college and interested in gaming.
Onward to a full Turkish breakfast at a nearby open-air restaurant with all the favorites – cheeses, pickled vegetable, breads, a yogurt honey combination. Then a quick march through the Spice Market. I see tiny oriental rug replicas but we’re going too fast to stop. Next board a ferry to sail out of the Golden Horn and across the Bosporus to the Asian side of Istanbul. It’s sunny and gorgeous! There’s a refreshing breeze and cruise across shining water criss-crossed by a mishegas of other vessels.
On the other side it’s a brisk march through a market district including a full lunch, a grilled intestine snack (Beyza tells us it’s a popular anti-hangover snack and very clean!) that doesn’t taste like intestine at all, and ice cream to finish. The vanilla ice cream is a block that you have cut with a knife. It’s very thick and slow to melt.
Very full and a little worn by walking we head back to the Ferry to go back to the European side. Beyza buys out tickets. Half our number get a ferry back to where we started, a few us take a different ferry to the north side of the Golden Horn.
Just off the ferry is a one-stop underground funicular that takes us up to the Sishane Metro station. The otehr two travelers, the father and son split but not before the dad gives Beyza a tip. I realize I should. As we walk through the Metro stop for the short ride back to Sisli I pull out my wallet and extract most of my Turkish money for her. It’s somewhere between here and getting off at Sisli that my wallet goes missing.
It’s kind of bummer evening. I can’t believe I let it happen. Good news was I took lots out of the wallet so all I’ll have to replace is a credit card, debit card and my drivers license.
THURSDAY
Home again Home again. It’s going to be one of those crazy flights where you’re in the air for 12 hours but arrive home just a hours after you left. We breakfast on bready snacks, baklava, and nuts we’ve accumulated. I’ve gotten no specifics on the airport transfer so I start texting IstanbulEPass, that had a discounted transfer offer. They gave me the name and license plate number of the driver. He’s supposed to arrive at 10:15 but hasn’t so, pessimist that I am, I assume we’ll end up having to grab a cab. But he shows at 10:17. He is the slowest driver on the highway back the airport. Everyone passes us. But we’re plenty early anyway. Customs is super easy. Check in for business class is even elegant with chairs and tables stocked with water containers.
There’s a lavish duty free area and we got into a fantastic hospitality room above the duty free concourse with meatballs, Turkish breakfast, fresh made coffee drinks, great pastries, not to mention slot cars for the kids.
On the way to the gate H. checks out an even more elaborate airport lounge with even more upscale treats.
I had been ready to spring 7k for the round trip business ticket when Harriet said she’s let me ride up front on the return flight on June 8th. Score! When the baby in the next seat to her starts throwing up, she has second thoughts.
It IS a different world in Turkish Airlines business class. You’re cossetted on three and a half sides. You don’t even see your fellow passengers, much less wrestle over arm rests. The food is fancy on real plates instead of wrapped, served from elegant little carts. You get great set of headphones to use. You can stretch out.
About 7 more hours in this cocoon of luxury before we get home to SEA.
