Turkey, Day 1 Friday
The tour leader allowed us the afternoon and evening off, so we hit the streets with Rick Steves' Istanbul. We took the New District Walk from Taksom Square down Istiklal Street to the Galata Tower, first pausing for lunch in the Zencefil Cafe (vegetarian, menu clearly posted, good food, I'd go there again).
Istiklal Street is pedestrian-only, and is lined with shops and restuarants. I'm not going to give a step-by-step account of everything on the walk - see the book for a good description. Instead, I'm just going to give what I thought were the high points.
The street was crowded on this Friday afternoon, and tourists were only about 10% of the mass. Shops were selling all kinds of things.
Who knew baklava came in so many shapes and sizes?
We found the Aya Triada Greek Orthodox Church right where the directions said it would be. It's set back from the main street maybe 30 yards behind the first row of shops. Chickens, peahens and other domesticated birds chased the cat away from the garden in front of the church. The door was locked. A kindly but mercenary gentleman opened the door for us (for a tip) and let us look around but we couldn't take any photos, sad to say. It's reputed to be the largest Greek Orthodox Church in Istanbul.
A few blocks further down is St. Anthony's Roman Catholic Church. This is a neo-Gothic structure built in 1912 on the site of earlier churches back to abourt 1250 when the first Franciscans arrived here. It looks pretty neo -Gothic, but if you look at the decorations right below the roofline you see tiles of Turkish blue.
Inside, there were tiled niches along the wall for you to put candles. The tray is filled with water and sand. The little electric fan at the top of the archway keeps all the heat from the burning candles from making the church too toasty. I thought it was a neat trick.
One of the nice urban design elements of Istiklal Street is the use of passages, each of which have an entrance from the main street. A narrow passageway heads off at right angles from Istiklal, with shops and restuarants on both sides. In the old days, each passage specialized in one kind of thing for sale: in the Flower Passage you found flower sellers, the Fish Passage was for seafood, and so on. Nowadays the passages are more mixed use, but the Fish Passage still has plenty of seafood markets, as well as restaurants and touristy shops.
We made it all the way to Galata Tower where we climbed and elevatored up to the top. What a view! Straights of Bosphorus, bridges, boats, mosques, roof tops, all beautiful. And OK it was a little crowded but a lot of the people weren't tourists, but locals on a date. There's a restaurant up there, and a bar, but we chose to eat elsewhere so I can't comment on the food or prices. The view would be good, though.
Here's the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia from the top of the tower:
We ate dinner at a restaurant in the Fish Passage with some nurses from the group and heard funny stories about nursing in the military. Basic training, learning about wearing a uniform properly, etc.
For dessert, we went to Mado Cafe for baklava, chocolate cake and unusually chewy ice cream. It doesn't drip as it melts, it just gets soft. You have to almost bite it. The guidebook says it is made with goat's milk and wild orchid pollen (?) which gives it this unusual texture. Outside the care, people were protesting in the street. We stayed safely inside until they were finished.
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On our way back to the hotel, we heard music! A festival! Across the square (Taksim Square, where the suicide bomber exploded on Sunday), a stage had been set up. Musicians and singers on stage, dancers on the floor. Shades of Bora Ozkok! The crowd danced, not performers but just people attending. Not complicated dances, but full of energy. Everybody knew the words to all the songs.
We stayed about an hour then walked back to the hotel. We flung open the windows and listened to the music, accompanied by car horns and the occasional police siren. Ah, the big city!