Istanbul - Sultanahmet
For the duration of our stay in Istanbul the city decided to rain. She was gracious enough not to pour, but an incessant drizzle demanded daily trappings of raincoats, boots and umbrellas. We might as well have been in an urban version of a rain forest. The weather was mild and we mostly hung out in museums and the like, so we didn’t terribly mind the wetness. It could have been worse; don’t forget, this is the land where Noah once parked his ark.
We arrived to Saruhan Hotel in the Sultanahmet neighborhood on a Friday night, about 11:00 pm. With Cat jet lagged from trans-Atlantic travel we hunkered down in the room to consult Lonely Planet Turkey and plot our priorities for our painfully short three day stay. Rather than scouting out obscure untouristed precincts, given our time constraint, we opted for Istanbul’s most famous landmarks. When it became apparent that Istanbul is teeming with sites of that caliber we had to get brutal with our schedule by prioritizing our priorities. In any top ten list of sights to see in Istanbul, eight of them will likely be in Sultanahmet. This neighborhood forms the core of old Istanbul that harks back to the days when the city used to be called Constantinople (still is by the Greeks) and reigned as the capital of the Byzantine Empire and later the Ottoman Empire. It lies on the European side of the Bosphorus, the body of water that splits the city of Istanbul into its unique presence on two continents. Typical of very old districts, Sultanahmet is brimming with character. Like the French Quarter in New Orleans, everywhere within Sultanahmet is walkable. Unlike the Quarter whose streets are laid out grid-style, Sultanahmet’s streets are curvy and confusing with unfair cul-de-sacs. Setting out from our hotel we’d activate a sixth inner GPS sense determined to remember the route, but every single time upon return we got lost. However, for anyone claiming to have toured Istanbul, it is a rite of passage to get lost in Sultanahmet’s charming residential area. Actually, it is imperative to roam these neighborhoods before all the precious pre-20th century wooden homes are destroyed. It is estimated that only one percent of the original 150,000 pine wood houses are still standing, and as of this moment they are feebly fending off modernization creep. |
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HippodromeSaturday morning our first destination was the Hippodrome in the heart of Sultanahmet. Rebuilt circa 300 AD the U-shaped race track was 1400 feet long and 427 feet wide. How big is that? Big enough for a seating capacity of 100,000 spectators. How large is that? Large enough to accommodate up to eight chariots powered by four horses each. How much of the Hippodrome exists today? Only a fraction of its original girth. In the 1400s when the Crusaders sacked Istanbul they destroyed the Hippodrome, too. Although Ottoman pashas were indifferent to sports, fortunately they did not build atop the race track ruins so that remnants of it are still visible today.
We are the type of tourists who would feel compelled to walk the length of the Hippodrome but strangely we did not. It seems we got distracted by the monuments that stand tall in the center of the Hippodrome, such as a pink granite obelisk from the Temple of Karnak erected in Luxor in 1490 BC and hauled from Egypt in three pieces. Only the top segment survives where it sits on a marble pedestal with a fascinating carving of Emperor Theodosius offering a laurel leaf to the victor of a Hippodrome race. Next to the obelisk is the Serpent Column whose provenance was Delphi, Greece where it was made and erected to celebrate the Greeks’ victory over the Persian invaders. Those nasty Crusaders destroyed it too, so that only the swirly serpentine column remains: gone is the solid gold bowl on top once adorned with three snake heads. Another reason we probably didn’t circumnavigate the Hippodrome’s skeletal remains is because we noticed a little café with a guy out front making fresh squeezed orange juice. But what was that light red fruit next to the oranges? Upon closer inspection we saw the same device also squeezed fresh pomegranates. We were hooked and drank a glass of “nar” juice daily. Every corner in Sultanahmet’s landmarks district seemed to have an outdoor stand selling juice or roasted chestnuts or corn on the cob. |
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Blue MosqueSultanahmet’s skyline pops with minarets thin as fashion models posing next to obese round domes. Most eye-catching is the Blue Mosque which sits on the southeastern side of the Hippodrome flaunting six (count ‘em, six!) minarets and a cluster of grey domes. We had expected the Blue Mosque’s dome to highlight the sky in either midnight blue, teal blue or even robin egg blue. Nope. The eponymous blue refers to the mosque’s interior tiles most of which are on the ceiling. As non-Muslims, we were not aware of prayer hour times and just barely made it inside before the mosque closed for one-half hour, as it does five times a day for the benefit of worshippers.
Entry was free. Everyone must remove their shoes. Women must cover, so we compliantly transferred our pashmina scarves from our shoulders to our heads. The Blue Mosque’s ceiling is the magnet drawing your attention upwards until your neck hurts. Perhaps because attendants were rushing us out, perhaps because we didn’t have binoculars to make out the detail on the tiles, perhaps because too many cameras kept us ducking to avoid their upward line of vision, we didn’t feel particularly gratified by our Blue Mosque experience. |
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Agia SophiaOur next stop, Agia Sophia (“Church of Divine Wisdom”), was far more rewarding and although it is a religious site we had to pay to enter because it is a museum. Built in the 6th century as the center of the Orthodox Patriarch, it was the world’s largest church until trumped by St. Peter’s in Rome one thousand years later. When the Ottomans conquered the Byzantines, they transformed the church into a mosque at which time four minarets were added like explanation points to punctuate the fact of the building’s religious conversion.
The church’s greatest attraction is its collection of ecclesiastical mosaics composed of millions of pure gold tesserae (small tiles). Centuries of dust and disrepair fail to smother the glow emanating like an aura from the pious portraits. Crowds huddled around the mosaics so you had to wait your turn to get a good view. Truthfully, we were far more spellbound by the church’s utterly marvelous marble walls and doors. Inexplicably, no one except the two of us was photographing or paying attention to these unheralded works of art. |
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Sunken Palace CisternOur final stop for Saturday sightseeing was the Yerebatan, also known as the Sunken Palace Cistern. Beneath the city of Istanbul lie several acres of water in which stand, like a subterranean Venice, over 300 marble columns connected by curved arches illuminated by flood lights. Walking along the raised platforms in this watery underworld, the feeling is funereal as if you’ve descended to the River Styx.
The Yerebatan was built in 532 during the Byzantium era with water arriving by aqueducts into this gigantic underground reservoir that stored water for the palaces and surrounding buildings. The Ottomans ignored the cistern, which is strange since water is so central to Islam, and it was eventually forgotten and momentarily lost to memory. In the 1500s a visiting French scientist was told by locals that water and fish could be obtained by lowering buckets from their basements, and thereafter the aquatic bowels of Istanbul were revived to public knowledge. We walked to the end of the platforms where stone Medusa heads can be found supporting two separate columns. Their origin is unknown and one head is mysteriously upside down as if to jinx her beholder. We saw carp in the cistern’s waters and coins well-wishers had thrown. There’s a café off to the side and sometimes classical music concerts take place down in the cistern. All told, it would be practically scandalous if a visitor to Istanbul bypassed this intriguing and highly unique venue. |
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Bebek & TaksimSaturday evening we went to Bebek, a trendy neighborhood on the European shores of Istanbul, where we rendezvoused with our friend Taclan Topal whom we had met in 2004 and subsequent years on Follow the Women bike rides. She recommended drinks at a posh hotel whose outdoor terrace overlooks the Bosphorus. During sunny seasons the terrace is pitch perfect for watching the yachting traffic, but with the rain we retreated indoors. No one comes to Bebek for historical sights. It is the waterfront scene and upscale people watching that lures locals to Bebek.
Leaving Taclan we took a taxi to Taksim Square, the epicenter of fun in modern Istanbul. It is an entertainment hub with restaurants, nightclubs, cafes, hotels and shops, all anchored paradoxically by the cheerless looking Ataturk Cultural Center. We ate dinner in Taksim (starting with lentil soup, of course), strolled around, bought hiking boots for Cat, greeted the Greek Consulate building and retired early. It would have behooved us to go in the daytime because we make pathetic night owls but, as mentioned, time was in short supply. |
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Topkapi PalaceWe reserved all day Sunday for the jewel of Istanbul, the Topkapi Palace which opened to the public in 1924. We turned down a private guide, fearful he would bustle us along, in favor of rental audio tapes which allowed us to meander at our own pace. The riches, spaciousness and splendors inside are incomparable. Even the pre-entry grounds near the ticket window are sprawling with inviting benches to sit on under shady trees.
With hundreds of rooms, the Topkapi Palace housed the Ottoman pashas and their families, concubines, eunuchs, servants, factotums, flunkies and whoever else curried the favor of these fickle potentates. More than a private residence, the Topkapi Palace was the seat of the executive-judiciary council and held a training school, hospital, bakery, arsenal, state mint and kitchens with 800-1000 cooks preparing food for 10,000 residents. With so many books and web info about Topkapi it is pointless for us to resurrect step by step our self-guided tour, except to say that we did pay the additional entry fee to the Harem feeling somewhat like voyeurs in this “forbidden” space (the Turkish word for harem). Here are some of the palace’s highlights we ogled: a tooth, hair and footprint from the Prophet Mohammed, the 86 caret pear-shaped Spoonmaker’s Diamond allegedly found in a rubbish heap and traded for three wooden spoons, the sultan’s robes which Colleen was scolded by a guard for photographing, the notoriousTopkapi Dagger with emeralds as round as walnuts. Unsurprisingly, as we wandered Topkapi Palace our eyeballs were the size of silver dollars from start to finish. |
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Our Hamam Experience
There are over ninety hamams in Istanbul and we chose Cagaloglu Hamam because of its age (built in 1741) and its separate space for women. The hamam closes for women at 8:00 pm, but, for reasons unknown and too frustrating to speculate on, it remains open to men until 10:00 pm. We arrived at 6:00 pm on a Sunday and seemed to be their last female customers. In the changing room we were finally given towels with a sullen look from the matron that said, “Damn, I thought I was going home early tonight.” Sorry, this is our spa-in-Istanbul moment!
We left our clothes and valuables in a personal stall, locked it, and then were handed the most awkward wooden shoes that looked like the footwear of a geisha and made us walk like one, too, in diminutive clipped steps. We asked about a robe but somehow it was conveyed that no clean ones were left which was either the truth or the matron didn’t feel like adding more work to her laundry basket. In any event, we made do wrapped in big white towels. We proceeded to the next room which had toilet stalls and was warm, and here we were instructed to leave the towel. We opted for no bathing suits, entering the sweltering hot room naked. There were two customers already there, presumably locals, both in one-piece bathing suits, one frightfully overweight as you might imagine a sultan’s wife to look like. An attendant in a bathing suit was massaging her rolls of flesh from where she lazed on the huge octagonal white marble platform that is the centerpiece of the steam room. It is a gorgeous room with white marble Corinthian columns and a domed ceiling where light dreamily filters in through round holes as big as grapefruit. |
The white marble basins spaced at discrete intervals around the hot room are beautifully carved with floral designs and have two heavy bronze faucets from which the luxuriantly hot water endlessly flows. Although we were directed to separate basins, we twins stuck together using the same one. With the little bowls they gave us we poured hot water on each other over and over and over just like we used to do as toddlers taking baths together.
When the locals left, the two attendants approached us and asked if we wanted a massage. We didn’t really but we felt compelled to accept because they somehow made it obvious that they couldn’t leave the premises until we left and they clearly weren’t keen on loitering there unless they were making moola. They scrubbed and exfoliated, soaped and shampooed, all the right moves but performed mechanically, unenthusiastically. We did not begrudge them. We’ve waited tables and know what quitting time feels like when your last diners insist on another round of gin and tonics. We returned to our stalls to dress back in street clothes. When we emerged there were our attendants sitting on little stools just staring at us, watching every move as we gathered our belongings. Their demeanor mirrored that of a pet dog who knows you’re hiding a bone behind your back and is poised attentively, eyes only on you, waiting patiently for you to present the treat. Oh, yeah, right, we’re supposed to tip them. And we did with an appropriate amount that made them smile more out of relief than gratitude because now they could go home which they proceeded to hastily do. As for us, we left Cagaloglu Hamam squeaky clean and blissed out. |
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Grand BazaarWe had honest intentions of spending our last day at Istanbul’s esteemed archaeology museum. But somewhere along the line we got sidetracked to the Grand Bazaar and, like gamblers in Vegas, we couldn’t leave. We meant to just take a peek inside because it would be heretical not to while in Istanbul. We probably would have remained loyal to our original plans had our initial encounter been with the copperware stalls or the section where belly-dancing costumes are sold. But, no, of the twenty-one entry gates to the Bazaar we stumbled upon the one leading directly to the jewelry stalls and then there was no turning back.
The Grand Bazaar originated in the 15th century making it the oldest covered market in the world. It houses over 4,000 shops in a labyrinthine of 56 interconnected vaulted passages catering to over a quarter million customers daily. You could easily spend your entire Istanbul vacation just hanging out in the bazaar perusing the endless cornucopia of tantalizing products: candlesticks, alabaster bookends, four foot water pipes, mother-of-pearl backgammon boards, silk carpets, pointy slippers, ceramic carafes, fresh figs, soft leather bags, ottomans and on and on and on. How did Americans get stuck with cheesy Walmarts? Neither of us had intentions of buying any jewelry but by the time we walked out of the same gate we had entered, between us (mostly Cat) we ended up dropping about $500. Gasp! We assuredly had gotten taken on every purchase because we are loathe to negotiate and that is the only skill that matters in a marketplace born from medieval days. The shopkeepers were consummate salesmen (no women) who were cognizant of every ring and earring we put on and how much attention we paid to it. We’ve been told to pretend you are uninterested in your desired product as a strategy to get a good price, but we were really poor actors and couldn’t hide our emotional attachment to certain pieces and the salesmen easily smelled our weakness. From our perspective we bought fabulous jewelry that we had never seen on anyone else and at a price we could afford. We left the Grand Bazaar satisfied to have had as much fun as our mother does at neighborhood yard sales. Then, dodging raindrops, we predictably got lost on our way back to the hotel. |