A Taste of Turkey

So our journey eastward began in Istanbul. Upon arrival we were struck by how incredibly massive the city is. It just seems to go on forever in all directions. Additionally, we were surprised by how busy it was. It seems to have a hustle and bustle all it’s own. And, of course, it’s beautiful.

The only traditional sites, or attractions, we went to were the Blue Mosque and the Underground Cistern. The Blue Mosque was quite impressive. Not only was it the first mosque I’d ever been in but it’s just beautiful, yet so simply decorated. The gardens around the mosque are also gorgeous, filled with the most beautiful tulips I’ve ever seen, they were so tall!!

The Underground Cistern is an old subterranean aqueduct that they’ve refurbished. It contains a great number of different types of columns (Ionian, etc.) and also two statues of Medusa’s head. It was really pretty, and very serene. They’ve added some lights to it that grant for pretty cool pics once you find the night-time setting on your camera!

We also took the ferry to two different areas on the Asian side. The first, Uskudar (sp?) was very mellow, there wasn’t much

going on. The other, Kadikoy (I think, forgive me if my memory is wrong), was much busier but still considerably less touristy than The Golden Horn (the main bit that contains most of the attractions) or the Istikal/Taksim areas (a massive pedestrianized area with lots of restaurants, cafes, bars, etc.). It was also a lot cheaper! So, that was really interesting. In Kadikoy we also came upon a political demonstration of some sort. As far as we could gather it was for their equivalent of the Democratic Party. But, the police were on hand with full riot gear ready to move in when we got there. By the time we left they (the police) were all sat in the same coffee shop as we were. I guess they were just being preventative but it was quite a sight to see when we first got off the ferry.

Other than that, we did what we always do, we ate! Again, we referenced Bourdain’s travel guide and tried several of his recommendations. The least favorite (according to Matt as I didn’t have it) was the baby lamb cooked under ground, too smokey apparently. But the place we went for it was

located in the Fatih district which is traditionally a very conservative Muslim area. It was very interesting to walk around this part as I was often the only female I could see on the street. The men have tea houses where they all go to drink tea, smoke, and play chess. I was very intrigued by these and wanted to go in but I was worried I’d either offend them or the local women so I didn’t. They all looked pretty grumpy any way!

The other interesting thing about Istanbul (to me anyway) was that there are stray cats EVERYWHERE!! And they all look quite healthy, I think they live on kebab leftovers as kebab shops are on virtually every corner.

Oh, the hostel we stayed at was pretty gross. There are enough bad reviews about it on-line so I won’t add to them other than to include a picture below (because it made us laugh- a lot!). But it was called Erasmus. I kind of booked it by accident but I’d suggest reading others’ reviews and taking them seriously before booking. It was cheap and in terms of proximity to Sultanhamet it was good though it was

down quite a dark alley.

Anyway, that’s our time in Turkey in a nut shell. We took it pretty slow and had a very nice, relaxing time. I think we were subconsciously preparing ourselves for the madness of Delhi…stay tuned!! xo

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Submited at Saturday, April 24th, 2010 at 2:00 pm on Europe by chuck
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