A blog post about our recent week-long trip to Istanbul this past January, traveling together with Lucy and Scott. We decided it would be an interesting place to visit during the wintertime to escape the snow and ice of the Boston area. I had been to Istanbul briefly back in 2011, but Amy had never been, so it seemed like it might be a good place to (re)visit.
[Blog post meta-note: normally I do these posts as a sort of travelogue where I run through everything we did in chronological order-- rather than doing the same old same old, this time I'm going to have a small time outline and then have different sections based on topic. Hope it is digestible that way...]
Our flight from Boston left on Friday night, so we arrived Saturday afternoon (it is about 9 hours or so in the air), made it to our hotel, and after unpacking had a dinner at a local fish restaurant. Sunday and Tuesday we did sightseeing accompanied by a private guide that Lucy+Amy had hired; those days included Topkapi palace, the Blue Mosque, the Cisterns, the Aghia Sophia, and a trip to Balat to see the Cora church. On Monday we did a cooking class together, then spent time exploring on foot. On Wednesday we visited the Istanbul Modern museum and then the Museum of Innocence, later we had a Hammam visit in the afternoon. On Thursday we took a ferry over to the Asian side and explored the Kadıköy neighborhood, then after we got back we went to a whilrling dervishes performance in the early evening. On Friday we did a Bosphorous cruise in the morning, then more walking/exploring/shopping in the afternoon, mostly in Beyoğlu. Saturday we rested a bit in the morning :-) and then headed for the airport around 11.
Mosques
We visited three on this trip, the Blue Mosque and the Aghia Sophia, then the Cora church (the latter is technically a mosque, but to be honest I think it seemed more like a small museum to me, even though it had a tiny but functional mosque operation).
The first time I visited Istanbul our group went to the Blue Mosque and the Aghia Sophia, and at the time I greatly enjoyed the latter but didn't get much out of the former. This time things were reversed, oddly. Part of this had to do with what they let you see: in my earlier trip to Aghia Sophia, people coming to visit (as opposed to worshippers) were allowed more or less free run of the place. This time access was much more restricted: no access to the ground floor, but instead visitors were funneled into a stairway up to the mezzanine, then back down. Not clear what the thinking was of the government when they made these changes, but it is now a lot less welcoming place. Photos:
Also different this time around was that we were with a guide, who had a lot to say about the history of the Blue Mosque and the ceramic tiles that you can see there -- I think I got a more complete picture this time around.
Some Blue Mosque photos:
The Cora church was amazing, they have some really astonishing mosaics there. Very little signage, however, so in most cases you were not clear on what you were seeing. I would have given a lot for some sort of written or audio description.
Airports/airplanes
In general we had a good experience with the flights and the airport stuff. We flew into İstanbul Havalimanı, the big new airport on European side that opened four or five years ago (replacing an older smaller one). It was large and very efficient, although it is a solid hour (plus) drive away from old town in the city center where we were staying. On the return leg we were able to get through security and customs reasonably quickly, which was good. Interestingly, when you arrive at the airport, instead of going to to the ticket desk right off to check in, they put you through an initial security screening (with your bags) right from the get-go. Then after that you deal with the ticketing and bag drop-off and then finally go through the "usual" security screening. On the plus side, everything is very well staffed -- there are always lots of people to help move things along, we never encountered the typical American airport scenario of a giant line leading to a single overworked clerk.
Hammam
Amy booked us a session at one of the older and more famous Turkish baths in the city (hammam). That was really something -- quite the works! 15 mins sauna, then a marathon scrubbing session, first with scratchy cloth (remove dead skin cells) then soap + bubble bath-ish stuff, with a significant massage component, then finally a shampoo and an extended sluice off. Wrap up with tea, turkish delight, and cherry juice. No photos of course, but it was very memorable.
The baths are of course an entirely single-sex experience, there seems to be two completely separate/parallel operations, one for men and one for women. The bath experience is also very people-intensive; you have an attendant assigned to you who helps you with everything (about the only time they leave you alone is for your sauna session). My bath guy looked like a defensive lineman for the Pittsburgh Steelers, he was very beefy, so it was not to the most delicate or gentle cleaning session I think I have ever had :-).
Safety/security
One of the things that honestly puzzles me about visiting Turkey is that if one googles "visiting Turkey", a large majority of the results seem to deal with people asking whether it is "safe" to visit, the subtext being (presumably) that they are worried about crime or terrorism (of some sort) or encountering people who are unfriendly to Americans. Americans have never been particularly good with geography (especially geography of places outside the USA) so maybe people think that Istanbul in the middle of a conflict zone? Who knows. What I can say is that the entire time we were visiting I never had a single situation where I felt the slightest bit unsafe, even when wandering the streets at night in unknown parts of the city (and this is definitely more than I can say for American cities like New York).
Street scene
The last time I was visiting the city was 2011, and even back then the Sultanahmet area was very touristy, but it is even more so now. Touristy stuff in itself doesn't bother me all that much, you can just walk past the things that don't interest you ... but this time around on just about every street corner there seemed to be a guy "working the crowd", looking for likely customers and making a "pitch" to get them inside to buy whatever was on offer. The usual lines, e.g. "Excuse me!", "Hey!", "What's your name?", "Where are you from?", followed by some sort of description of the food ("Come get some wine and beer") or ("Best food in Istanbul") and so on and on.
The first few times we were accosted in this way I just paid no attention, but after a while it started to get kind of annoying, especially in the three or four blocks near where we were staying. I suppose we have ourselves to blame for picking a place to stay in the busy part of the old town, but it was still kind of a headache. It also strongly emphasizes your feeling of being an outsider or foreigner, in spite of any efforts you have made to "blend in".
Istanbul has a number of "umbrella alleys" where they've suspended colorful umbrellas above outdoor cafes and such -- we saw a number of those. This one was near Galat:
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Weather
If you read the guide books about visiting Istanbul in the wintertime they say that it's cool/cold but the temps are steady, without any really warm days or really cold days, and that indeed turned out to be the case for our visit. It stayed between about 40 or so for a low, to 50/55 as a high. It was nice to take a breather from the really freezing weather in New England; we would occasionally look at the forecast for Arlington on our phones and gulp at at the low temps (in the teens and lower). The lack of big temp swings also made it easier to pack and to dress while out and about, since we knew pretty much what to expect.
Money
Turkey is currently in the grip (and has been for some time) of fairly stiff inflation, I think the rate has been running around 35-40% per year, which is definitely something to think about. Not really a problem that tourists need to contend with in any real way, but I am sure for the locals it is a huge hassle. The main places that we noticed it were the ATMs, where the largest bill dispensed is a 200-lira note (bit more than five bucks) and at the Istanbulkart machines that you can use to buy or charge up a transit card. The most you can add to a card is again 200 lira, which (again) is not really quite large enough.
Prices:
Things in Istanbul (meals, gift stuff, entertainment, museums, lodging) were definitely more expensive than I would have expected. Not exactly New York prices, but enough to give you occasional sticker shock and definitely not "this is still a developing country" type prices. The museums all seemed to have two-tier pricing, a specific amount for locals and then another amount (double or triple) for international visitors. I can't say I felt bad about paying though since I am sure a lot of the money goes to maintaining and caring for all of the amazing sites and buildings.
Transport
We relied almost entirely on the tram to get around, it was speedy and not too expensive (under a dollar to get on) and got us where we wanted to go. Istanbul has lots of buses, and a real subway as well, but for our purposes those connections weren't really that useful. The trams were very heavily used, a couple of them we took were almost comically crowded.
Museums
We enjoyed Topkapi Palace and the "Museum of Innocence", but my top pick was the lovely new Istanbul Modern Art museum.
In the "visiting exhibit" section they had a big retrospective on the Turkish photographer İzzet Keribar, which truly knocked our socks off. I had never heard of him before, somehow, but he is clearly a genius with the camera and a national treasure. There was also an interesting installation thing by the Turkish/Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, cool to look at and wander through.
Tons of stuff in the permanent collection, lots of good things to look at. Interestingly it was about evenly split between male and female artists (or possibly even a few more women than men). All very interesting and eye-opening.
On the top floor there is a sort of observation deck thing that we also enjoyed; it has a huge, shallow pool of water on it that attracted a lot of gulls and other birds, and there were fabulous views in all directions. The museum is in the Karaköy neighborhood, which is a great vantage point for admiring the old city to the south, asian side to the west, and Beyoglu/Galat to the northeast.
Top floor view:
Cooking class:
The class was held at a local restaurant in Sultanahmet, just a couple of blocks from our hotel as it turned out. Pair of instructors, a gregarious and talkative man (originally from Italy it turned out) and a more taciturn woman from Anatolia; she did most of the real cooking work and showed us all of the techniques during the course.
We made traditional red lentil and bulgur soup ("Ezogelin"), zuchini fritters, figs stuffed with walnuts and then poached in syrup, dolmas (stuffed grape leaves) with rice + beef/lamb, and (for me the most interesting dish) braised eggplant stuffed with onions and tomatoes (the so-called "İmam bayıldı"). I think I might try to make that dish on my own when we get back, it was not hard to make and was very tasty indeed.
The running joke for the class was that we would at various points add a "Turkish teaspoon" of olive oil to the pot or bowl (this turned out to be an enormous glug of oil, a good deal more than I would have used heh). After all of the prep and the cooking we sat down and had a nice lunch from the various dishes we prepared, it was a good repast.
Prepping the grape leaves before stuffing them:
Shopping
The "old" sections (e.g. Sultanahmet) are packed with shops where you can buy things, but a great deal of these places feel very overpriced and touristy. The area that we liked the best for window-shopping was Boğazkesen street in Beyoğlu: this street I think had the most interesting collection of small shops (although to be honest we weren't working that hard on trying to find good places to buy stuff). They had some cool leather goods stores, a bunch of artsy fabric and design stores, it was fun to take them in. This part of Beyoğlu is very hilly; you have to work to get up and down the street here.
Spice bazaar:
Cats
Istanbul is no doubt the most cat-friendly city I have ever seen, art least for cats of the outdoor and "public" variety. They seem to be everywhere, as is the evidence of the feeding and caring for the critters. The cats themselves are not human-shy, they don't run away or show any fear when approached by people. I would imagine that they help a lot when it comes to pests of the rodent variety, although I would also guess that they are not great for the local birds (the smaller ones).
Food
We had all sorts of nice meals on this visit. In some ways I liked the lunches better than the dinners, the choices seemed more interesting and varied.
One excellent lunch was at Ciya Sofrasi; we ate here after our session of wandering and walking on the Asian side on Thursday. As with many Istanbul lunch places after picking out your table and setting down your bags/coats, there is a sort of negotiation period where you pick out the specific mezze dishes that you want to eat -- no menu here, this is a purely visual + verbal only process. The waiter person puts in a pitch with specific recommendations ("try the XYZ!"), and then you go over to take a look at them behind the counter and decide on the specifics. This time around we had a green bean dish (which turned out to be mostly sauteed onions and other misc veggies), a broad bean dish, rice pilaf with lamb, zucchini fritters, fresh bread, some assorted dips, and a dish of sauteed celeriac. The celeriac here in Turkey is very good but a much milder flavor than the stuff you get in the USA.
Bosphorus cruise
We picked a nondescript tour company (one of many) leaving from Eminonu, departing at 10am. Boat was not especially full (a good thing), and definitely a no-frills approach. We had expected some sort of narrative or description of the things we were going past, but this outfit just stuck to the transportation end, so we filled in the details using a combination of Google Maps and Lucy's guidebook.
Weather was good, although not especially warm and with a decent breeze, so I had to stand outside in the wind in limited doses. We saw the Dolmabahçe sarayı (palace), and the various high-dollar houses and mansions lining the coast on the ride north. The boat eventually turned around back south at that Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, then we took in views of the Asian side on the way back.
The two big bridges over the Bosphorus are impressive but not that enormous in the grand scheme of things -- my mental yardstick for such bridges is the Verrazano Narrows bridge in New York, which is around 4100 meters long; these guys were on the order of 1500 or 1600 meters long. I am sure they were game-changers when they were built however back in the 70's and 80s.
All in all it was a great trip, I really enjoyed spending time with Lucy and Scott, and the city was full of interesting things to check out.
