Istanbul (4): Taksim Square and the Galata Tower

Istiklal Cadessi, Whirling Dervishes and a Genoese Tower

26-Aug-2014

Turkey

Our short flight from Batumi arrived in Istanbul in the early evening. Once through formalities Lynne rummaged in her handbag to produce the plastic bag containing the surplus Turkish lira from our 2012 visit. Discovering it contained 500,000 Vietnamese dong and 400 Thai baht, we realised that we had picked up the wrong bag and headed for the ATM.

Return to Sultanahmet

Stepping out into the warmth of an Istanbul evening we made our way to the taxi rank. The driver groaned when we gave him an address in Sultanahmet, the peninsula between the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara. The densely packed and always busy grid of narrow cobbled streets is understandably popular with tourists and equally understandably unpopular with taxi drivers, but he forced a smile, heaved our cases into the boot and we set off.

Sultanahmet - not a great place to drive round (photograph May 2012)

After a fortnight in Azerbaijan and Georgia, whose combined population is less than this single city, Istanbul’s size and bustle required some mental adjustment.

We arrived, checked-in to the Hotel Niles and went out for a stroll. Sultanahmet had changed since we were last here; hotels had been upgraded and everywhere new restaurants were spilling out into the narrow streets. August is high season, our 2012 visit had been in a surprisingly chilly May and that accounts for some of the change, but we were sure Sultanahmet looked not just busier, but more prosperous.

After a good lunch in Batumi and a meal of sorts on the plane eating did not appeal, so we repaired to the hotel's roof top bar to drink raki and nibble peanuts.

27-Aug-2014

The breakfast room - the roof bar in its morning clothes - overlooks the Sea of Marmara; we drank our juice surveying the ships riding at anchor, waiting to load or unload.

A slightly mist Sea of Marmara from the Hotel Niles breakfast room

After breakfast we walked to the nearest tram stop. We had explored Sultanahmet, the centre of the Byzantine and Ottoman city, in 2012 and although we had returned there (to the Hotel Niles where the staff were so friendly and helpful) we intended this time to visit the city’s modern centre. The tramway does not take the shortest route, circumnavigating Sultanahmet before crossing the Golden Horn by the Galata Bridge and running north beside the Bosphorus.

Taksim Square, Istanbul

The extensive waterfront development includes the Beşiktaş Football Stadium and the Dolmabache Palace (which we visited in 2012) but the Taksim area, the heart of contemporary Istanbul is on the higher ground behind. From the tram terminus, a funicular railway runs up through a tunnel to Taksim Square. Like the tram it is modern, cheap and efficient if rather crowded.

We emerged into the hot, bright sunlight of Taksim Square.

War Memorial, Taksim Square, Istanbul

Taksim Square, according to the Rough Guide is the central pivot of Istanbul ... a symbol of the secular Turkish Republic but I am not the first to observe there is something wrong. The square is vast enough, and there is an appropriate war memorial at is centre, but somehow it is less a city square than a hot, dusty vacant lot. Recent plans to construct a mall here resulted in rioting, as did the 1997 suggestion of building a mosque, but the unrest was more about the politics of the developments than any feeling that a much-loved square should be left unmolested. The Rough Guide calls it a failure as an imitation of a grand western plaza. A failure it may be, but there is nothing particularly western about the concept of a city square. Tiananmen Square may be a brutalist expanse of concrete, but it is the beating heart of Beijing, Imam Square in Esfahan, surrounded by a palace and two grand mosques, is as fine a city square as any in the world. Taksim, however, is not.

Taksim Square - 'a hot, dusty, vacant lot'.

Istiklal Cadessi, Istanbul

Our plan was to walk down Istiklal Cadessi towards the Galata Tower. Before our 2012 visit I wondered if Turks actually ate donner kebabs, or were they, like chop suey and balti, invented in the diaspora to feed ignorant foreigners. I had quickly found the truth, and as we stood on the corner of Istiklal Cadessi and Taksim Square that truth was hammered home. It would have been a better picture if I could have persuaded the chatting stallholder and his friends to move out of the way, but however long I was prepared to wait they were determined to talk for longer. It was too early to eat kebabs, they were just giving the spits an exploratory spin, but at any time I would have said no. It is a mystery why Turks are so keen on eating something fundamentally nasty (I try not to present personal opinion as fact, but sometimes…).

Kebabs, corner of Taksim Square and Istiklal Cadessi

Istiklal Cadessi is a pedestrian street, which is to say it has no cars, but you still have to watch the traffic as a venerable tram line runs down the middle.

Venerable Tram, Istiklal Cadessi, Istanbul

We passed Balik Pazari, the fish market, and took a brief look.

Balik Pazari, Istanbul

Churches of St Antony of Padua, and St Mary Draperis, Istanbul

A little further along is the Church of St Antony of Padua, a redbrick neo-Gothic basilica. The original, built by the Franciscans in 1725, was demolished in the early 20th century to make room for the tramway, and the current church dates from 1913.

Church of St Antony of Padua, Istanbul

It was open so we had a good look round....

Church of St Antony of Padua, Istanbul

... and Lynne felt the need to light a candle. The Church has strong connections with Pope John XXIII who frequently said mass here when he was the Apostolic Delegate to Turkey in the 1930s.

Lynne lights a candle, Church of St Antony of Padua, Istanbul

Nearby St Mary Draperis, between, a little behind and well below the Dutch and Russian consulates (the whole area is studded with consulates), is the oldest Catholic church in Istanbul. The first building on this site dates from 1584, its Ottoman era origins accounting for its positioning - only the minarets of mosques were permitted to break the skyline.

Church of St Mary Draperis, Istanbul

That building burned down in 1660, its replacement suffered from further fire and earthquake damage and the current structure dates from 1769 (or 1903 according to one source). Inside is an icon of the Virgin Mary, sole survivor of the 1660 fire. Sadly the church was locked and we only saw the outside.

Lunch on Istiklal Cadessi

Lunch time had arrived. I may not be a fan of donner kebabs but Turkey does have some delights to offer for a light lunch - though in terms of calories light is the wrong word. Turkish Delight itself has whole shops dedicated to it - and wonderful it is too - but for lunch, baklava seemed more appropriate. We found a pastry shop where we could sit and eat baklava and drink apple tea - another of Turkey’s many delights.

Now this I like - a whole shop full of Turkish Delight, Istiklal Cadessi, Istanbul

After St May Draperis, Istiklal Cadessi comes to an end and we turned slightly left into the road leading down to the Galata Tower.

Galata Mevlevihane, Home of the Whirling Dervishes

An unassuming doorway on our left took us into the Galata Mevlevihane, a former monastery and ceremonial hall of the Mevlevi sect also known as the Whirling Dervish.

Wudu, Galata Mevlevihane, Istanbul

Celaleddin Rumi, known as the Mevlana, was a thirteenth century Sufi mystic. His followers lived a semi-monastic life where contemplation and mysticism were important, but they were also able to continue with their ordinary jobs and to marry. He instructed his followers to pursue all manner of truth and beauty, avoid ostentation and practice love, tolerance and charity. He condemned slavery, advocated monogamy and encouraged women to take a higher profile in religious and public life. (Rough Guide) He was, in other words, an all-round good egg. The museum was very informative with a display of items used in devotion set in waxwork tableaux. Paying for the audio guide, though, was an error - it told us nothing we could not read on the well captioned displays. It is sad that a branch of Islam that opposes religious bigotry and approaches God through dancing and music should never quite have gained acceptance from the Muslim mainstream. It is equally sad that Europeans dismiss them simply as Whirling Dervishes, there is so much more to the Mevlevi. Having said that, the dervishes still whirl. If you turn up at the right time you cab see them, approaching God through giddiness, spinning in circles on the spot (with a nail driven into the floor grasped between the toes to keep the rotations centred.)

All sorts of hats in this cemetary, Galata Mevlevihane, Istanbul

Perhaps the most interesting parts of the museum were the graveyards, one for senior Sufis, the tops of their gravestones modelled on the hats which signified their status, the second for the most senior - where there was only one style of hat.

Only one sort of hat for the truly important, Galata Mevlevihane, Istanbul

The Galata Tower

Further down the road, and further below the top of the hill is the Galata Tower, built by the Genoese in 1349 on the site of an earlier tower constructed by the Byzantine emperor Justinian. Over the centuries it has been a jail, a fire tower and the site of some of the earlier unsuccessful attempts at human flight. The 61m tower is now used only by those who want to see the view or use the restaurant.

The Galata Tower, Istanbul

The modern tram round Sultanahmet and the funicular are good value, the much shorter ride up the Galata Tower is expensive - and you have to work your way through a lengthy queue and then, above the lift, there are still a couple of flights of stairs. The top of the tower was packed and we shuffled round in a clockwise manner – but it was all worth it, the view really is spectacular. The Galata Tower is not particularly tall as towers go, but it is built just below a high point and the combination of sea, city and sunshine is breath-taking.

The Golden Horn and the Sülemaniye Mosque from the Galata Tower

To the north is the Bosphorus, with the Asian half of the city beyond, to the south the Golden Horn crossed by the Galata Bridge to the bump of the Sultanahmet Peninsula with the outlines of the Blue Mosque, Aghia Sofia and the Topkapi Palace in its green parkland. Beyond that is the Sea of Marmara; as a viewpoint, the Galata Tower is among the world’s finest – indeed everything that Taksim Square is not.

Panorama from the Galata Tower

From the tower we walked down the hill to the Golden Horn and picked up another crowded tram back round Sultanahmet to our hotel where we headed for the roof to drink tea overlooking the Sea of Marmara.

Lynne walks down to the tram from the Galata Tower

In the evening there were plenty of restaurants to choose from and maybe we went back to one we used in 2012, but if it was it had expanded considerably and spread out into the street. A simple steak and chips for me and chicken for Lynne with a bottle of beer, then it was back to the hotel roof for a glass of raki. And that was the end of this trip as all we had to do the next day was head for the airport and start the long trek home.

Istanbul posts from May 2012

Part 1: The Blue Mosque, Haghia Sofia and the Bosphorus

Part 2: The Cistern and the Dolmabahçe Palace

Part 3: The Topkapı Palace and The Grand Bazaar

Breakfast in Kerala, Lunch in Libya, Snack in Istanbul, Dinner in Chengdu

Three Memorable Meals - and a Snack - in Different Places and Under Different Conditions

So we have survived Christmas and the New Year. The season of Peace and Goodwill has passed with family harmony intact and without us drinking too much or grossly overeating.

No gross overeating then, but traditional Christmas fare is heavyweight winter food, suitable for these coldest and darkest of days. Do we still need such food as we sit in our overheated houses, occasionally sticking our noses outside to see if we can manage a stroll between showers? Obviously not, but what has ‘need’ got to do with it?

Having consumed my quota of traditional British fare, my mind wandered to other meals in other places. The Independent Saturday travel magazine Pointless Celebrity of the Week is always asked ‘what is your favourite meal abroad?’ If I was asked, I would struggle to limit myself to one, but here is a day’s worth of good eating. None of these come under the heading of ‘fine dining’, none were expensive, but does that matter?

Breakfast: Ildis and Chutney
Palakkad, Kerala, India February 2010

India

Kerala

Bhagwaldas (call me 'Bhags') is the sixth generation of his family to reside at Kandath Tharavad, a palatial farmhouse in the village of Thenkarussi in Kerala. After thirteen years in California he returned to take over the family estates after his brother died in a road accident. He is now very much the village squire, but has also opened Kandath Tharavad for homestays.

Lynne at Kandath Tharavad

Bhags is a natural host. On our first morning he took us to a village tea shop for breakfast. Along with his other guests – a pleasant couple from Devon whose names I have forgotten - we set off on what we thought would be a short drive to the local tea shop. Half an hour later we arrived at the Sree Saraswaihy Tea Stall in the village of Ramassery on the outskirts of the city of Palakkad. Ramassery Idlis are renowned across southern India, ‘They are,’ said Bhags, ‘special’.

Sree Saraswaihy Tea Stall, Ramassery, near Palakkad

I have to admit I had hitherto been unimpressed by idlis, pale, fluffy, utterly tasteless rice flour buns which appear on every south Indian breakfast table.

Two idlis were placed on our banana leaves which, as is usual in basic south Indian eateries, were serving as plates. Food in such establishments generally circulates in stainless steel buckets, ranging in size from the full ten litre down to those too small for the smallest child on a beach. A mound of pineapple chutney was ladled out from a modest bucket. From a smaller bucket came a little pile of dust. We looked it uncertainly. ‘You make a hole in the middle’ said Bhags, demonstrating with his forefinger. A gleaming oil can appeared and the depression was filled with coconut oil. ‘Then you mix it to a paste.’ Bhags finished his demonstration, wiping his finger on an idli.

Bhags, Lynne and a 'man from Devon' eat Idlis and Chutney
Shree Saraswaihy Tea Stall, Ramassery

Keralan pineapples are the finest in the world, but Keralan pineapple chutney dithers uncertainly between sweet and spicy and is, I feel, a disservice to both pineapples and chutney. The powder chutney, on the other hand (or finger) was magnificent, concentrating the pure flavour of coconut in a way it never quite manages on its own. Served with Indian tea, made with condensed milk and poured from glass to glass from a great height so it arrives sweet and frothy, it even made an idli a thing of joy.

Unadorned idlis are outstandingly dull, but teamed with the right chutney their popularity suddenly became understandable. I took to eating them regularly after that. I have not come across powder chutney since, but when I do I will be first in the queue.

Lunch: Chicken and Chick Peas
Kabaw, Libya April 2006

Libya

On our way from the Greek and Roman ruins of Libya’s coast to the oasis town of Ghadames we passed through the Jebel Nafusa. ‘Jebel’ is Arabic for ‘hill’ but the Jebel Nafusa is less a range of hills and more a scarp where the land rises from the coastal plane to the desert plateau. When the Libyan War was at a stalemate last year, the Berber people of the Jebel Nafusa quietly freed their towns from Gadafi’s control and descended towards Tripoli, decisively tipping the balance.

Massoud, our guide in 2006, was a Berber from the Jebel Nafusa and we called in for lunch with his mother, sister Seham, and brother-in-law Omar at home in Kabaw.

The main road through Kabaw in the Jebel Nafusa

Their house was a new single storey building by a rough road in a small development off the main highway. A high wall cut off the clean and well-swept courtyard from the scruffy outside world. We were greeted by the family, Massoud's mother telling him quite firmly that he did not visit often enough. We were shown into a large entrance hall. In this land of heat and light, the curtains were drawn and the interior was cool. Then the women disappeared to the kitchen while the men (and Lynne) sat and chatted in a room with cushions around the walls but no other furniture. Massoud’s sister, a primary school teacher, had been given the morning off to cook for ‘important visitors’ -‘Don’t try this at home,’ I thought. The house seemed unnaturally tidy for a family home (we were to meet Omar’s children later) but whether that was contrived for guests or was just the way Omar lived (I could believe it of him) we never discovered.

There was no table; the food was placed on a cloth spread on the floor. The women served us and then retired, Lynne becoming an ‘honorary man’ for the day. This is not the way we would wish it to be, but as guests in someone’s home it would be inappropriate to challenge the way they do things.

The food was excellent. There was salad, noodles with chickpeas covered in a thick tomato sauce, portions of roast chicken with caramelised onion and a sort of quiche with pastry top and bottom, crammed with egg and diced vegetables. As Arab (or more exactly Berber) hosts must Omar and Massoud ensured the finest morsels were heaped high on our plates.

Lynne, Omar and Massoud have lunch, Kabaw

We were not allowed to finish until we were stuffed. Then the dishes were cleared away, tea, apples and cake appeared, and the children (Omar's three plus two cousins) were allowed in. The youngest climbed all over us as small children do while their very serious older brother read to us from his school English text book.

The women appeared again at the end, to say goodbye as we set off for the desert with Massoud, and Omar came along for the ride. It is always a privilege to be invited into someone’s home when you are travelling. Despite the lack of furniture and, more seriously, the regrettable invisibility of the women, family life in Libya is not so different from family life anywhere else. Well brought up, well behaved Libyan children are like well brought up children everywhere.

Since our visited there has, of course, been a revolution. We have lost touch with Massoud, so can only hope that he was all right. No fan of Gadafi, he was an impulsive individual who wore his heart on his sleeve. I can imagine him rushing to join the rebels and getting himself killed through an excess of zeal. I hope that did not happen. Omar was more thoughtful, and with a wife and family and a responsible job in the oil industry he had more of a stake in society. He was a devout Muslim and a decent man, I hope he and his family have come through without mishap.

Afternoon Sweeties
Istanbul, Turkey May 2011

Turkey

This was a later addition after a suggestion from my daughter in the comments section below - and it's only taken me 8 years to get round to acting on it

This was originally a lunch, perhaps not the most balanced of diets, but once in a while... Outside the Archaeology Museum we had found a faux-Ottoman narghile café where trendy youths puffed away at the water pipes which have recently become unaccountably fashionable. We ordered Turkish coffee, baklava and a plate of mixed Turkish delight.

A well balanced meal, Istanbul

It looked pretty and tasted wonderful; as a meal it may have been low on fibre, but there was plenty of sugar, and we probably needed the energy.

Dinner: Sichuan Hotpot
Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China August 2005

China

The people of Sichuan do like a chilli; Sichuan cuisine is indisputably the fieriest in China, and maybe in the world.

Few Chinese restaurants in England do hotpots, but they are ubiquitous in China; Mongolian Hotpot is popular in Beijing and we have encountered hotpot restaurants in places as far apart as Shanghai and Guiyang, in the the south west, but the Sichuan version is, reputedly, the finest of all. The hotpot itself is a bowl placed in the centre of the table over a heating device. It contains stock and various floating items probably including tofu, some random greenery and, in Sichuan, a lifetimes’ supply of chillies. You order your food and cook it yourself in the boiling bowl before you.

Hotpot restaurants were easy to find near our hotel somewhere in the south of Chengdu’s vast urban sprawl. The restaurant we chose, for no good reason, was the ground floor of a tower block with two absent external walls.

Management looked panic stricken as we walked in, a reaction we have met before in places where foreigners are rarely seen. We selected a table and realised the system was, no doubt inadvertently, foreigner friendly. There was no need to choose from a long list we could not read, all we had to do was walk to the counter and select from the many items skewered on wooden sticks.

While we were making our choice - some meat, tofu, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and several things we did not recognise but thought we might try - Management was busy. The chilli laden bowl was removed and replaced by the one containing plain stock, the one they keep out the back for when the eccentrics come to town. ‘No’, we said, though not in any language anyone understood, ‘this is not what we want, we want the one with chillies.’ Everybody in China knows that Europeans cannot stand chillies, so they stood looking confused as we pointed at the bowl in front of us and shook our heads, pointed at the bowls everyone else had and nodded. Convinced they were confronted with lunatics and perhaps worried that we might become dangerous, they relented and brought us a bowl with chillies. ‘You’ll be sorry,’ was the unspoken warning as they fired up the gas.

Sichuan hotpot, the bowl with the chillies

Compared with other meals we had eaten in Sichuan it was not that spicy, but we enjoyed ourselves for an hour or so chasing slippery mushrooms with chopsticks and watching our cubes of tofu slip off their skewers and disintegrate.

By the time we had finished, Management had reluctantly decided we might be alright after all. Calculating the bill was simple, he just counted the number of sticks and applied the appropriate multiplier. He wrote some numbers on a pad and held them up for us to see. 18 Yuan, then worth less than £1.50. We did have a tiny bundle of sticks compared with some of our fellow diners, but we had eaten well, we thought. Thinking he might have forgotten that we had a beer each, I pointed at the empty bottles. He nodded, 18 Yuan was the price, take it or leave it. ‘That bill is far too small,’ I roared, ‘take it away and bring me a bigger one.’ Of course I did not, but it is a rare joy to leave a restaurant with that thought running through your mind.

Istanbul (3): The Topkapı Palace and The Grand Bazaar

The Palace of the Ottoman Emperors, Lunch on the Galata Bridge and a Fabulous Market

Turkey

The Topkapi Palace

The Topkapı Palace was the home of the Ottoman sultans from 1465 until Abdül Mecit built the Dolmabahçe Palace in 1856. It sits on the broad tip of the Sultanahmet peninsula alongside Haghia Sophia and the Blue Mosque.

The tourist heart of Istanbul.
The Topkapi Palace and Grand Bazaar are on the Sultanahmet Peninsula, the Galata Bridge crosses the Golden Horn to the north

Unlike European palaces, it is not a single building, but a series of pavilions in four courtyards – a stone version of the tented encampments of the earlier nomadic Ottomans.

Hagia Eirene, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul

The first courtyard is, and always was, open to anyone, though entering by the Imperial Gate may not have been an option in days gone by. It once housed a bakery, a college and a hospital; still there are the imperial mint, the 6th century church of Hagia Eirene – rare among Byzantine churches in that it was never converted into a mosque - and the fountain where the imperial executioner washed his hands and sword after nipping off a few heads. We strolled towards the Camelot towers that guard the entrance to the second courtyard, stopping only at the ticket office on the way.

The executioner's fountain, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul

There is little in the second courtyard, the peacocks and gazelles of Ottoman times are gone, so we walked diagonally across it to the harem entrance, which requires another ticket. Guidebooks say you must arrive early to see the harem but turning up at 9.45, several hours after dawn prayers had been called, we may not have had the place to ourselves, but we were hardly fighting the crowds.

The Harem

My idea of a harem is based on the adventures of Jim Dale and Kenneth Connor among the Vestal Virgins in Carry on Cleo. This may have little to do with history, but the idea of a life of ease and comfort, albeit in a gilded cage, is not easy to shake. In the Topkapı harem, the walls are covered with blue tiles, giving the rooms a hard, cold feel particularly on a day that was not conspicuously warm. The few furnishings – maybe there would have been more and softer carpets and couches when the palace was in use - offered little comfort.

Inside the harem, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul

The western system of kings having one wife and, therefore, one clearly defined oldest son to inherit the kingdom, has the advantage of clarity, even if it lacks quality control. With multiple wives, the status or ambition of a prince’s mother often trumped primogeniture. The sultan generally had dozens (occasionally hundreds) of sons, so succession was a serious problem. After Beyazit I died in 1402 (before the Ottomans took Istanbul) there was an eleven year interregnum while his sons fought over the succession. This was not good for the empire, so it became standard practice for the prince who grabbed the throne to start his reign by executing his brothers and half-brothers. By the 17th century such barbarous practices were no longer acceptable and it was part of the genius of the Ottoman sultans that they found a solution that actually made the problem worse.

Courtyard of the concubines, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul

On ascending the throne an emperor would now imprison his brothers in ‘the cage,’ a suite of rooms within the harem where they were tended by deaf-mutes, eunuchs and concubines. Being confined in luxury was an improvement for the sultans’ brothers, but not necessarily for those around them. More than one sibling was plucked from the cage to become emperor whilst having a very tenuous grasp on reality. Ibrahim the Mad (sultan 1640-48) was reputed to enjoy archery, but only using live human targets, and had all 280 of his concubines sewn into weighted sacks and dumped in the Bosphorus on the basis of palace tittle-tattle. These stories were disseminated, possibly even invented, by those who deposed him; there is no hard evidence for their truth – and none that he was anything remotely like a competent ruler.

The Third and Fourth Courtyards

We emerged from the harem into the third courtyard which contains a tiled pavilion that was once the library of Ahmet III, but is more remarkable for the artefacts housed in the pavilions around the edge.

Temporarily daunted by the queue for the treasury we took a quick look at the collection of imperial clothing. The Sultans were not, apparently, large men, at least not in height, and it was interesting working out exactly how some of the garments were worn. Fashion, it seemed, changed remarkably little over four hundred years.

In the third (or possibly fourth) courtyard, Topkapı Palace

Facing up to the Treasury queue, we shuffled round the four rooms in a slow moving crocodile. Peering into the recessed display cases we saw many expensive but rather useless objects. Jewelled flasks, bottles and arrow quivers might be beautiful but are of little use as flasks, bottles and arrow quivers, though a diamond encrusted suit of chain mail scooped the prize for pointless opulence. The 86-carat ‘Spoonmaker’s diamond’, the world’s fourth largest cut diamond, was allegedly found on a rubbish tip in the 17^th century and does have a certain beauty. There is also a throne, a gift from the Persian Nadir Shah.

The Topkapı dagger - so-called only since it co-starred with Peter Ustinov in the 1964 film 'Topkapı’ - was made as a return gift to Nadir Shah. Unfortunately, the Shah died before the dagger was delivered and it was brought back to Istanbul.

View of the Bosphorus from the fourth courtyard of the Topkapı Palace, Istanbul

A box of several dozen emeralds, some of them very large, for which no use had been found, seemed a fine example of conspicuous excess. To be fair to the Ottomans, when it comes to flaunting unused wealth, their treasury comes a distant second to that of the Shahs of Iran. In one room in Tehran, they gathered together all the justification ever needed for a revolution.

Across the courtyard are treasures of a different kind. In chronological order they are, the saucepan of Abraham, the staff of Moses, the sword of King David, the hand and part of the skull of John the Baptist, the mantle of the Prophet, and various strands from his beard. I know nothing of the history of the mantle or beard and it is possible that they are what they are claimed to be, but for the saucepan, skull, staff and the rest mere skepticism would seem foolishly naïve.

One tiled pavilion gets to look a lot like every other tiled pavilion, Topkapı Palace, Istanbul

The fourth courtyard has views over the Bosphorus on one side, the Golden Horn on the other and several pavilions in between. The problem with tiled pavilions is that it soon becomes difficult to tell one from another. The word translated as pavilion is ‘köşkö’, from which we get ‘kiosk’ – a word from which we have stripped the grandeur along with the accents.

Lunch Beneath the Galata Bridge

Seeing the palace easily took up the whole morning and at lunchtime we headed down towards the Galata Bridge. Beyond the bridge a couple of ornate boats grill fish on deck and provide inexpensive fish sandwiches for a steady stream of punters. Our daughter had recommend them, but ....

Fish sandwich, anyone? By the Galata Bridge, Istanbul

...we headed under the bridge to the lower deck, lined with more formal fish restaurants.

Fish restaurants line the lower deck of the Galata Bridge over the Golden Horn, Istanbul

We chose a restaurant, a trolley of fish was wheeled to our table and we examined various suspects. They were sold by weight, and as the waiter popped them on the scales and I mentally calculated the cost. It was not cheap, these things never are. According to Lynne I then had an attack of meanness; I rationalized my decision by saying the fish was not the freshest I have ever seen. Straight out of the Bosphorus, we were told, but any Portuguese restaurant would invite you to choose from shinier, healthier, fresher fish than these.

We settled for the basic ‘portion of Sea Bream’, which may have disappointed the waiter, but it is his job to make me happy not vice versa. It was acceptable if a little dry and overcooked. The ‘complimentary’ fruit salad and Turkish coffee were far better.

The Grand Bazaar

We again walked back via the spice market and Grand Bazaar. The Grand Bazaar is a vast network of roofed streets – to call it a covered market is like calling the Grand Canal a ditch.

Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

There are areas for clothes, carpets, gold and silver, antiques and anything else you might wish to buy. Lynne and I are not great shoppers, but it was still fascinating to walk through. We ended up with several boxes of Turkish Delight, some extraordinarily expensive Iranian saffron (Turkish is much cheaper, but lacks the richness of smell, flavour and colour) and a coffee pot to replace the one we bought so cheaply in Egypt (we soon discovered why it was so cheap - it leaked).

Inside the Grand Bazaar, Istanbul

That evening we returned to the restaurant we had visited on Monday night, straight from the airport. It was small and unpretentious, little more than a lokanta, though it served alcohol. We were recognised and welcomed, which is always pleasing. We decided to share one main course and add a series of vegetable dishes and from the reaction of the management we were doing nothing unusual. Steak and rice, green beans, aubergines, cheese and bread, were all washed down with a large glass of Raki – similar to Ouzo but with a rougher, just-distilled edge. It was our best meal in Istanbul.

The city has been officially called Istanbul by the rest of the world since 1930, but the name has been used locally for a thousand years. We spent most of our time in the old quarter, which has an exotic charm, but even here it is seems (and there are those who disagree) to be a city whose soul is Islamic, but whose heart is European. It is the only major world city to straddle two continents, but modern Istanbul is, if not in the European mainstream, not far from it. The vast rural hinterland in what was once called Asia Minor, may be another matter – I have not been there…yet.

We saw most of the major sights in three days, but it was hard work and there is much more to Istanbul than this. It is a city worthy of a longer stay.[Update: We returned for a very full day in  August 2014]

Istanbul

Part 1: The Blue Mosque, Haghia Sofia and the Bosphorus

Part 2: The Cistern and the Dolmabahçe Palace

Part 3: The Topkapı Palace and The Grand Bazaar
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Part 4: Taksim Square and the Galata Tower (Aug 2014)

Istanbul (2): The Cistern and the Dolmabahçe Palace

A Roman Cistern, Museums of Oriental History & Archaeology and a 19th Century Ottoman Palace

Turkey

Istanbul is home to some of the world’s greatest mosques; it was, however, one of the smallest that most affected our stay. The Direkli Mosque, fifty metres from our hotel, may be tiny and the minaret may be merely a token, but it possesses a state of the art sound system. Dawn prayers were called, it seemed, by a muezzin sitting on the end of our bed.

The tourist heart of Istanbul. The Cistern and Museums are on the Sultanahmet Peninsula, then across the Golden Horn to the Dolmabache Palace

The Basilica Cistern, Istanbul

After breakfast, we walked back into Sultanahmet, this time heading for the Basilica Cistern. Built by Justinian in 532 AD to supply water to the Great Palace, the cistern was lost during Ottoman rule but rediscovered when they found the locals going fishing in their basements.

The Basilica Cistern, Istanbul

Descending the 52 stone steps, we entered a cavern considerably larger than a football pitch, its 9 m high roof supported by 336 columns. Fed by a system of aqueducts from a source 20 Km north of the city, the water is currently about a metre deep. When in use it was considerably deeper, but there is still ample to provide a home for hundreds, if not thousands, of carp. Walkways allow the visitor to stroll between the columns to the present end of the cistern (a third of it was bricked up in the nineteenth century). The columns are a mixed bunch, being recycled from various sites in Constantinople and further away. Two, at the far end, have been placed on Medusa head pedestals. In one case the Medusa is inverted, in the other turned through 90º. The idea may have been to negate the petrifying power of the Gorgon’s gaze, or perhaps it was the easiest way to make them fit. Opinions are divided.

Inverted Medusa head pedestal, Basilica Cistern, Istanbul

Istanbul Museums of Oriental History and Archaeology

Back at ground level we made our way to Gülhane Park which surrounds the Topkapı Palace (the dotless i indicating a vowel unstressed almost to the state of nonexistence) and found our way to the buildings containing Istanbul’s archaeological treasures.

Shalmanezer IV, Museum of Archaeology, Istanbul

The Museum of Oriental history concentrates on the Babylonians and Assyrians, and has a truly remarkable display. The glazed friezes from Babylon’s Ishtar Gate caused some excitement, but the Assyrians are Lynne’s specialist subject and she was thrilled to find all her heroes were there; particularly Sennacherib, Shalmaneser IV and Tiglath-Pileser III. These 8th and 9th century BC kings were present as statues and also represented by the clay tablets so carefully scratched out in the cuneiform writing Lynne learned to read and translate at university.

Babylonian lion, Museum of Archaeology, Istanbul

It is a shame that most of the names we know from the dawn of history are of warriors with outsized egos. The contribution to human progress of Sennacherib and his cohorts was, I suspect, largely negative. I also never cease to be amazed that at least three times in history doting parents have looked at their newborn son lying gurgling in his crib and one of them has murmured, ‘I know, we’ll call him Tiglath-Pileser’.

Alexander sarcophagus, Museum of Oriental History, Istanbul

Across the courtyard, the Museum of Archaeology houses a collection of ‘more recent’ artefacts from Sidon in modern Lebanon. The featured exhibits are a series of elaborately carved marble sarcophagi. The finest shows Alexander the Great hunting on one side and fighting the Persians on another. There are also two busts of Alexander, which are, more or less, contemporary with him.

Busts of Alexander the Great

A Lunch of Sweeties, Istanbul

Outside the park we looked for a light lunch and found a faux-Ottoman nargile café where trendy youths puffed away at the water pipes which have recently become unaccountably fashionable. We settled for Turkish coffee (this time excellent), Baklava and a plate of mixed Turkish Delight. It looked pretty and tasted wonderful; as a lunch it may have been low on fibre, but there was plenty of sugar.

Light lunch with ample sugar
Baklava, Turlish Delight and sweet Turkish coffee
Istanbul

The Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul

We took the tram down to the Golden Horn, across the Galata Bridge and on to the end of the line. A ten-minute walk past the Beşiktaş Football Stadium brought us to the Dolmabahçe Palace.

Here comes the tram
Sultanahmet, Istanbul

The Ottoman Empire reached its zenith in 1529 when the armies of Süleyman the Magnificent reached the gates of Vienna. His son, Selim the Sot, seemed less capable of focussing on military expansion - or indeed on anything at all. For three hundred years the Ottoman Empire, like the Byzantine Empire before it, gradually decreased in size, power and wealth.

Realising they were falling behind, a series of nineteenth century sultans set about reform and modernisation, importing European ideas wholesale. In 1856 Abdül Mecit I decided the latest phase of modernisation would involve moving out of the Topkapı Palace, the homes of the Sultans since the fifteenth century, and building himself a whacking great European style palace beside the Bosphorus. Exactly how he thought this would help, particularly as he lacked the money to pay for it, is a mystery.

Lynne at the Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul

The Dolmabahçe Palace, the fruits of Abdül Mecit’s labour, is huge and magnificent, or at least it hangs somewhere between magnificence and bad taste. Despite being built largely in the baroque style the palace includes harem quarters, suggesting the sultan’s commitment to Europeanisation was, at most, partial.

Inside the entrance is a salon where visiting ambassadors waited to see the emperor. It was built to impress. We walked through the ground floor offices before climbing to the Sultan’s quarters via the ‘crystal staircase’, a double horseshoe staircase with balusters of Baccarat crystal. The Sultan clearly intended to live in comfort, but his main bathroom, carved from solid alabaster, may have been better to look at than to use.

After the First World War put an end to the Ottoman Empire, Kemal Atatürk, the father of modern Turkey, had an apartment in the palace. He died there at 9.05 on the 10th of November 1938. Officially, all the palace clocks are stopped at 9.05. Unofficially, that is not quite true; it seems beyond the wit of humanity to have all the clocks telling the same time, even when they are stopped.

The Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul

We descended to the Ceremonial Hall, designed to hold receptions for up to 2500 people and lit by the largest chandelier in Europe, all four and a half tonnes of it. Although it was made in England, Trotter’s Independent Traders did not win the contract to clean it. The hall is a huge domed room, but only the third largest domed room we had seen in the previous thirty hours.

For a while we sat in the gardens in the sunshine watching a couple of dolphins making their way up the Bosphorus. It was almost warm enough for Lynne to remove her pullover, but not quite.

A place to sit and watch dolphins
Bosphorus Gate, Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul

Hot Chestnuts, A Lonely Dinner but a Better Dessert

The tram took us home, perhaps not by the most direct route, but certainly the quickest. In the square by the Beyazit tram stop we bought some hot chestnuts; their sweet chewy flesh a perfect accompaniment to a drink before dinner. Hot chestnuts stands are common on the streets of Istanbul; I do not know if they have disappeared from English streets or I now live in the wrong place. If they have gone away, they should be brought back immediately.

For dinner we let a tout con us into a restaurant on the fourth floor of a nearby hotel. There was nothing obviously wrong with the restaurant, it was smart and well appointed - but empty. We ordered different lamb dishes which were satisfactory and reasonably priced, but there is little pleasure in being the only customers in an empty restaurant. After our main course the management seemed to lose interest in us, so we paid the bill and did what many Turkish people do, we went to a café for dessert. A glass of tea and a mixed plate of Baklava and Kadayıf is about as good as desserts get. The usual description of Kadayıf as ‘shredded wheat soaked in syrup’ does scant justice to its sticky loveliness.

Before turning in we checked the weather forecast. Almost the whole of southern Europe had spent the day bathed in warm sunshine, temperatures in Rome and Madrid had been in the high twenties and even in the north, temperatures over 20º were expected to continue in London and Birmingham. The exception to this rosy picture was Europe’s southeast corner. Being so far south and relatively close to the Mediterranean I had naively expected sunshine, but Istanbul was forecast to be no warmer than 14º - though rain was, fortunately, considered unlikely.

Istanbul

Part 1: The Blue Mosque, Haghia Sofia and the Bosphorus

Part 2: The Cistern and the Dolmabahçe Palace

Part 3: The Topkapı Palace and The Grand Bazaar
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Part 4: Taksim Square and the Galata Tower (Aug 2014)