Istanbul

A sunny weekend in Istanbul, lots of sight seeing,  good food and rest.  .

This was our little guest house, our room had a traditional Turkish bathroom where you have a hose over the bowl and use the copper dish to scoop water over yourself.  I think this place was a little quirky, it had a tiny little courtyard onto the cobbled street where we sat in the evenings watching the neighbourbood cats.  It felt very quiet and calm, yet we were only about a 10 minute walk from the Blue Mosque and main attractions.

Our guest house was in the road above, close to these little ramshackle wooden houses and a very grubby cafe.  The man next door to the cafe had a duck, presumably as it had no pond, the paddling pool is what house ducks get?  You could see he was a much loved duck, circling his little pool happily with a bowl of wet bread to dip in to and the company of his owner relaxing in the sun together (they agreed to having their picture taken).

 

 

We found the Grand Bazaar where flags were being sold to commemorate Attuturk/the Anniversary of Turkey's independence.  A lot of buildings were displaying huge flags and the ones above were for people to put up on their houses. 

Rough translation = to please God brings abundance

Our first sight of the Blue Mosque was at night.  As we are in the month of Ramadan, there were a vast number of people in the park surrounding the Mosque.  They had laid out picnics and were waiting for sundown to eat together.  It was a lovely atmosphere to be a part of.  On the Sunday night there was a huge crowd, we were drawn closer by the loud music to find the crowd was actually a spiraling circle of about 500 men all dancing, spiralling out as more joined in. 

The Grand Bazaar goes on for ever and is laid out with a street for each category, so you would get a haberdashery road, a road for vegetables, one for ironmongery, another for shoes and so on.

There were, of course, millions of turkish carpets for sale, but we didn't buy (we have a very nice one already) but it was fun to chat with the vendors, many of whom spoke good English and told us they came to Istanbul in the Summer but worked in rural areas at other times, we met a sheep farmer and a crop farmer and learned that tulips come originally from Turkey and were introduced to Amsterdam.  The road from the airport on arrival had been lined with many white tulips.

We found that all transport was free on 19th May, part of the Attaturk celebration - so we made the most of it and took the tram to the docks and on to a ferry across the Bosphorous River which divides Istanbul into two parts to  Kadekoy.  Locals get this ferry to go to work and market daily so it was crowded. On the other side the City has a smaller market, mainly fish, and a Turkish bath.

We ate with the locals. No alcohol is served so we would have a few beers in the evening back at the guest house.

This was Turkish pizza, ver light stoneground dough with cheese and spinach, the puff in the background is a kind of bread and there was salad of olives, tomato and onion.

My Ebay skirt got plenty of wear, being very light and cool.

Squat toilets aren't the best, you rinse with a bucket and refill for the next person.

This pretty pile of pots and pans was at the back of a cafe where everyone was smoking hooka pipes.


 This is one of many picnics we saw being laid out hundreds of people were out setting up, waiting for sunset so they could eat together.

 more food:  this was from a buffet at sundown, you queue up to get your food in the cafe then you wait until a seat is available at the little wobbly tables on the pavement, trams whiz past so you have to keep your elbows in!

 I had vegetable and rice, hubby had some chicken.... everything was hot and delicious.

 This man was selling fruit, he didn't mind having his picture taken.  His little makeshift stall was held up by his moped on the other side.

 This was the entrance to the gardens of the Palace, we didn't go inside the Palace as the queue was very long and it was so hot to wait.  The gardens were full of red roses.

 More food, this was a flaky pastry with potato inside, so delicious I had it two days running!

Carpets on tables, lovely cold beer.  This was a tourist restaurant, so licensed for alcohol.  I had hummus with olives and flat bread here.

 Above is Baclava, it's our favourite dessert which we have for birthdays and treats at home, but it's far better here.  Flaky filo pastry with syrupy honey and filled with pistachio nut.  We ate at this little open air cafe on our first night, it was raining so they put up some plastic coverings.


The streets are immaculate, there is a huge army of street cleaners out all hours.  Every corner has a stand for corn on the cob and chestnuts.

 It was only a few pence to go inside the Basilica (underground fresh water system for the city), it was undergoing some rennovation.  Very beautiful inside, dark, nice and cool. 

 These beautiful heads are Medusa, there were three like this, all the others were undecorated, hundreds of them, then these three in the centre.

I am showing my travel card, you get it from machines around the streets and load it up with cash, then you can use the trams, buses and ferry with it.  It cost 10 Lira and lasts 24 hours, because we had purchased when travel was free, we benefitted the following day with a free bus back to the airport!

Istanbul has a new airport, it rivals Dubai.  It's vast, futuristic and beautiful, but in the design they forgot to put in some travelators so a lot of walking from one end to the other is involved.

Istanbul New Airport

For us, the trip was about meeting the people, eating locally, seeing the markets and the challenge of getting around on public transport. Sorry for the lack of pics of the Mosque, there were so many people in there and they were doing renovations so not much to see other than the ceilings ...

I have filmed the ice cream vendors who do quite an entertaining act, can't find the film! will add when I do.  Hope you enjoyed seeing a bit of our trip.  I think we were very lucky to see so much in a weekend.