(Istanbul) Happy Birthday Amanda

First, for the boring stuff, we stopped by Topkapi Palace. It was originally built by Mehmet II in the 1460's following his conquest of Constantinople, and subsequently used by Ottoman rulers through the 1890's. It is now a museum with some interesting aspects (the tiles, harem, views of the bosphorous  and information about the eunech's they created and kept...seriously) and probably some lies and half truths regarding religious history.

But more importantly, today we knocked off one of Amanda's bucket-list items: a kilim. After hours of deliberation, and with thanks to the kind and patient shop owner, we settled on a 120+ year old, traditionally woven kilim from the caucuses of North Persia, or what is now Azerbaijan. This kilim oozes character and we cannot wait to build a reading room around it!

And to further celebrate Amanda's birthday we secured a reservation at one of Istanbul's 'it' restaurants -Mitla - which has perhaps the best views in the city...not to mention spectacular food.

(Istanbul / Heybeliada) Near & Far

Last night we realized that we are not beside one great neighborhood, but sandwiched between two - the already mentioned Beyoglu and Cihangir.  The reason we hadn't visited Cihangir before last night is largely a result of growing up in the US.  Back there, if you see a dark alley you avoid it like the plague. In Istanbul, you waltz on down it and find antique shops, cafes, bars, restaurants and countless people enjoying their days. After we discovered this last night it was inevitable that we would return for breakfast, and as it turns out, dinner.

For breakfast we stopped by the retro 70's restaurant Journey for a quick bite. The menneman, eggs and juice were solid and helped propel us on to what was our big excursion for the day -  a ferry out to Heybeliada, one of the Princes' Islands 20km southwest of Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara. Part of the fun was the ferry ride (which was almost ruined by 'selfie-stick' wielding passengers) that took us passed European and Asian Istanbul and a handful of islands before we arrived at Heybeliada.  The island has no cars, meaning that transport is by bike, horse or walking. We chose to uphill through the not so scenic town to the Merit Halki Palace; a hotel with nice views over the sea. As the only patrons, we enjoyed our espressos alone on the balcony before we followed the advice of their guest relations manager and hiked up to the currently shuttered Greek Orthodox Monastery at the top of the island (see: politics for the reason behind this) to see their gardens and views.  Despite being closed, the grounds were open to anyone who wanted to visit - essentially us and three women of unknown origin - and were very well maintained.  After just a few hours on the island we succumbed to Istanbul's pull and took an express ferry back to the city.

Our first stop back was the Blue Mosque, which was fun partly because we got to play dress-up...Amanda sported a scarf over her head and Brian donned a skirt/short/pant to hide his legs.  The mosque itself is beautiful. Unfortunately, there are so many Ottoman-era lights hanging from the dome and ceiling that it is hard to appreciate the tile design and caligrophy without being distracted by cables, wires and lightbulbs.

Afterwards we had a quick bite with singers and a whirling dervish before we spent some time in the bazaar - and the bazaars around the bazaar. Perhaps we were overwhelmed by its scale, so we have no purchases to report.

But, we did get hungry. So back we went up to Cihangir, where we stumbled upon Mellow for an entirely calm, delicious and Italian-style dinner with fantastic ambience. 

Also, and so we don't forget, there was a man with a horse selling watermelon off his cart in front of our hotel. It makes no sense, but it happened.

(Istanbul) Old Town

It was not until 1030am, when we finally woke up, that it became clear that our bodies were not ready for last night's raki. So having already lost part of the day, we had a fast breakfast and took the metro and tram to old-town to see some sights.

Our first stop was the archeological museum, which was modest, under renovation and missing most of its artifacts due to the British. But, they did have the one artifact we were both hoping for: links from the chain that was used to protect the Golden Horn (a sliver of water that runs perpendicular to the Bosphorous into Istanbul's heart) for over 600 years in  Byzantium Constantinople. This chain was innovative, and together with its city walls, helped to secure the city for over 1,000 years.

By the time we made it through the museum a heavy rain had set in over the city that impaired our ability to make good decisions. Rather than simply walk over to the Blue Mosque we decided to take a long wet walk over to the Ottoman Palace (Topkapi), which we learned is closed on Tuesdays.  We then took an equally long and wet walk over to the Spice Market where we noted the reasonable price of saphron but purchased six new Turkish towels.

Eager to get back to our room to dry off we took the 140 year old 'Tunel' - a 1/2 km inclined subway that runs uphill - back to Beyoglu, which saved us from making our 10th trip through the Galata hills. Once back and finally dry we found a nice vegetarian restaurant in the lively back alleys of Beyoglu and set out plans for our day tomorrow. And just as important to our planned early rise was the absence of raki from our dessert order!

(Istanbul) Cross-Roads Walking Tour

After fully resetting our biological clocks, we set out on a self-guided walking tour that touched on Turkish food, Byzantine history and Ottoman conquest.

For our first stop we walked down to 'Privato Cafe' in Galata for a village breakfast. Holy crap. Their breakfast included countless marmalades, spreads, olives, breads, butter, cheese and honey. And our only picture was just the appetizer; we were later served Mennamen (a sort of omelette), eggs, Turkish pancakes and fried cheese. And of course, they refused to charge us for our six teas, bringing the grand total for breakfast to $17.

Afterwards and apparently fully fueled up, we unintentionally set off on all day walking tour across the Galata bridge, through and around Sultanamet, and back to the restaurants off Istiklal Caddesi.

Our first stop was the Basilica Cistern, built by early Christian rulers about 1500 years to collect water it was only "rediscovered" about 50 years ago by the city and restored. 

Our next stop was just across a public square to the Hagia Sofia,  originally built by Constantine as the basilica of 'new Rome', it was later conquered by Mehmet and converted to a mosque, and more recently converted to a museum by Turkey's secular government. The manner in which this building displays the convergence of Islam and early Christianity, together with the fact that Istanbul takes such pride in this overlap, makes this building an enormously fascinating and hopeful landmark.  For instance, where else in the world will you see a gold mosaic of Jesus sitting atop Arabic script pronouncing that 'God is Great'?

Following that visit we made a failed attempt to visit the Blue Mosque, which encouraged us to take a cicuitous, if somewhat disappointing, l
walk around what the maps showed to be a waterfront walk, but which was in actuality a waterfront highway. Nonetheless, we still made time for lattes and cake back in Galata, and superb dinner, drinks and dessert at Antiochia.