Exploring Istanbul

We spent three nights and two days in Istanbul, the only major city that spans two continents. I as pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed a city so filled with sensory overload: lots to see, full of human and other sounds, delightful and less pleasant smells and tastes, and so many different types of cobblestones and other hazards that walking on the streets and sidewalks requires paying attention. 

Our lodging was in Europe, a short walk from the Spice Bazaar and not far from the Great Bazaar, Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque and Haga Sophia (another mosque). Monday we had a tour of many of these sites. We had a wonderful visit to the palace in the morning, then had a mass-produced tourist meal with kebabs that did not begin to compare with the kebabs of the previous night. The afternoon was, shall we say, not as successful. 

My “museum muscles” definitely benefitted from the forced day of rest at the Bucharest airport as I enjoyed the palace much more than I expected. The archways were not the traditional arches we see at home with a keystone in the middle of the curve. They did not follow a geometrical curve that I recognized and had a point in the top center. Clearly they work, though I don’t understand the physics/mechanics of the design. Lots of complicated brickwork and cobblestone patterns. Mosques have exquisite minarets, rotundas, columns and other features that make the rooflines interesting. Intricate tile work on floors, walls and even ceilings. The buildings were built and added onto so sometimes a single building could have a brick arch adjacent to a marble arch. Lots of decorative gold visible on building exteriors and interiors. 

The room that sultans greeted their dignitary visitors had a throne made of solid gold whose seat appeared to be as wide as a loveseat, I wonder what it weighs. There were beds that were larger than some of the hotel rooms we stayed in this trip, one supposes that they had handmade linens so being a non-standard size wouldn’t have been as problematic for the palace as it would be for someone today. 

The feature that I found most intriguing looked like half a soccer ball wedged into the wall, atop an especially tall green door with gold decorations surrounded by a white marble arch which made the “ball” somewhat higher than the top of a soccer goal. I was fascinated by the geometry, and curious about why it was there, though not so curious as to research it. It had a regular pattern of five hexagons surrounding a pentagon, the exact same pattern that many soccer balls have. It seemed to be about the size of a soccer ball, with the “space” between each polygon outlined in white marble. Each hexagon and pentagon was outlined in a thick “stripe” of gold with the interior appearing to be a green marble, the single hexagon that appeared to be vertical had a gold circle inside of the green marble. We had a certain amount of time to admire it as it was outside of the relic room which had items reportedly used by St. John the Baptist and Moses and there was quite a queue to get into the room. Inside, the Koran was read 24/7 (not sure how that works during the 5 daily prayer sessions and didn’t think about that issue until now), so a man was reading and chanting as we admired the relics. 

After lunch we had a quick bathroom break after which I suggested to Mustafah, our guide, that he might not want to send western women to that particular bathroom as there were five toilets, four of which were squat toilets….he hadn’t known this fact. Suffice to say that my knees didn’t love the experience, and grab bars would have been helpful especially as I didn’t have the foresight to ask a friend to hold my backpack. I hadn’t expected squat toilets, but there were two other locations where I saw (but did not use) the name: Haga Sophia seemed to be half and half and the Istanbul airport offered one. 

Then off to the Blue Mosque. The women in group had a variety of head coverings as required to enter the mosque (no such requirement for the men), some had scarves similar to what the locals were wearing, some used sweatshirt or windbreaker hoods, Mustafah thought my baseball cap with my ponytail tucked in would suffice but I had to augment it with my Portland Thorns soccer scarf around my neck. An impressive building but it’s undergoing renovation so it was hard to get a feel for it. 

We then faced a curve ball. The line to go to Haga Sofia, the mosque on UNESCO’s list, was quite long. And it seemed that some of the group wanted to buy a carpet. So without knowing that it would happen, we were brought to a carpet store to learn about Turkish carpets (it reminded me of similar uncomfortable “tourist” experiences in Japan with pearls and in Italy with cameos). After an impressive display and “free” beverages (David chose Turkish coffee, I took cold apple cider), the sales people came up to members of the group, particularly the women, to see what we wanted. My response to the question, “which one do you want to take home” was to point to David and say “him” which achieved my intended result of asserting that I was not a potential sales target, though your mileage with similar lines may vary. 

While some people were negotiating for carpets, Mustafah took the rest of us on a walk to the Grand Bazaar. Suffice to say the frustration level was high. As an aside, we used a particular hand signal — raise an arm and then hold your hand as though you’re holding a puppet and open/close the fingers — to identify our group in Romania and Turkey, so the walk through the bazaar was “follow the hands”. Interestingly, lots of kids and even some adults we encountered in Istanbul were intrigued by the gesture and we received lots of “greetings”. 

Anyhow, we entered the Grand Bazaar. The human density was amazing, as crowded as entering or leaving sporting event. The hallway was only a couple of meters wide, with stores on both sides and aggressive sales people outside trying to drum up business. We’d been warned to be watchful of pick pockets. So with one hand up to signal the group, the other protecting pockets, one eye looking ahead and one eye looking back every so often especially at turns, being jostled by the crowd and not being able to walk in exactly a straight line it was both harrowing and overwhelming. Eventually we reached a coffee shop and were told to sit down and offered either Turkish coffee or tea — I chose option 3, still water, which seemed to be the most popular among our group, in part because we’d just had beverages at the carpet store. 

Despite previously having some intentions to shop, we chose to escape as soon as possible and take the 15+ minutes walk back to the hotel rather than spend more time at the Grand Bazaar waiting for the bus. Six of us walked back together and then had dinner at the same place as the previous night; dinner was good but not as spectacular as the previous night. 

Tuesday we breakfasted in Europe, took a private boat to Asia for a few hours then returned to Europe. The boat was delightful — plenty of space to walk around, take pictures of ourselves and of both continents. It led to the obvious question: while between continents, were we incontinent? 

The goal on the Asian side of Istanbul was to walk around and explore. There’s only one way for cachers to do this, so we did. A group of six of us went to look for a particular cache, and while we were searching another similar size group joined us. Then the cache owner came out of the small restaurant he owned to offer assistance and we had a lovely talk while we signed the log and took a group picture. 

After some debate we identified the next cache to target. Unfortunately none of us read the cache page that said it required permission of the head rabbi. Oops. Eventually we reach the outside of a fenced synagogue, start searching, and finally read the page. Meanwhile, some men came out of the synagogue and one of them and I had a conversation. He spoke first in Turkish (I assume), I asked if he spoke English, he offered Spanish, I countered with French and that became our language. The man was very kind, petite and frail, hunched over, and wearing a mask so it wasn’t the easiest conversation. We established that permission was required, that it was our last day in Istanbul, that he was Turkish/I am American/most of the people I was with are Canadian, and a few other details. Needless to say, a memorable cache even though we didn’t find it. Once again I find myself grateful to M. Johnsonstein (that’s what he called himself, his last name was actually Johnson), my high school French teacher! Several members of our group were surprised that I could have such a conversation, and at the airport this morning one person seemed quite surprised that I’d learned French at a public Los Angeles school. 

We needed to be back at the boat dock by 12:30 so David and I decided to get lunch. Not a trivial matter when we needed to be able to pay with credit card as we didn’t have much Turkish currency (less than $2 worth). We found a place with shawarma, confirmed they would take Visa, then started using google translate to read the menu when the server graciously delivered an English menu. We each had a small chicken pita sandwich and a soda, spending maybe $8 total. Perhaps you’re aware that someone has a sweet tooth so we popped into a bakery where we found chocolate bars for 15 lire (less than $1) which was perfect as we had 30 lire in bills and 2 lire in coins (which later were used to “spend a penny,” ie, pay to use a public restroom). 

The return boat ride was fine, not quite as fun as the morning ride since we were on a public boat this time, Several of us staked out the outside back so were able to watch a flock of gulls following the boat for quite a distance and take pictures. 

Had we gone to the Spice Bazaar before the Grand Bazaar we might have been overwhelmed. But after yesterday’s debacle and our intercontinental morning we were able to take it in stride. Think somewhere between a farmer’s market an a shopping mall, with small stores on both sides. The majority of the stores seemed to have someone in the walkway encouraging people to by from them. It was crowded but not overwhelming. David and I tasted more delicious Turkish Delight, decided not to import any Iranian saffron, and went searching for souvenirs. I eventually purchased a single handmade plate that’s a rich medium blue with a black hand painted design that includes tulips, pomegranates, and ships. 

Our last sightseeing of the trip was to Haga Sophia. Fewer than half of our group chose to visit it, but David had prioritized it and I didn’t want to skip something that UNESCO has recognized so we went. Alas, we’d arrived just before prayer time so we didn’t get to go into the “rotunda” but that’s ok. As with the Blue Mosque, we had to take off our shoes to go to the carpeted area, but we were quickly shooed out of there in deference to the upcoming prayer. For those keeping score at home, yes I yawned at both mosques. At least my Pavlovian response is ecumenical. 

After returning to the hotel it was time to pack. I was determined that David’s and my items would fit into our two carryon suitcases (which we had to check) and backpacks. It took a bit of doing, but we were successful. Then a final dinner with most of our group before our 4:20am bus to the airport which sounds ridiculous except that many people had a 2:10am bus so ours was a great improvement. Our flights home were pleasantly uneventful, and we were fortunate to have our middle seat empty on the long flight so that was nice. 

What an amazing trip! Ireland, Northern Ireland, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania and Turkiye. I definitely recommend it, though also recommend finding the right ship for your interests and demographics.