Istanbul, a city that spans two continents, brims with history and charming street life.
SUMMER nights and days in Istanbul can be magical as you roam the streets amidst the teeming markets and waterfronts, tourist hordes and cultural monuments of a city that has seen the rise and fall of great empires.
This harbour city has become one of Europe’s most acclaimed destinations.
Magnificent minarets of the Blue Mosque, Sultanahmet. (Pic inset) Worshippers and visitors at the Blue Mosque. Although some glossy magazine features, preoccupied more with “style” than with substance, seem loath to venture outside the modern Beyoglu shopping and business precinct, to me the heart and soul of Istanbul resides in its historic hub – that sliver of land which forms the southern shore of the Golden Horn, in particular the Sultanahmet, Süleymaniye and Beyazit neighbourhoods.
Land of mosques
In this district of Istanbul (spelt by the Turks with a dot over the capital I), smart stores and shiny new tramcars are juxtaposed against the medieval beauty of Aya Sofya – the Hagia Sophia, the great Byzantine church turned into a mosque; its majestic Ottoman neighbour, the Blue Mosque, and countless other legacies of vanished empires.
The Grand Bazaar, the Spice Bazaar and the bustling waterfront of the Golden Horn – a secure harbour formed by an estuary on the European shore of the Bosphorus waterway – are guaranteed to amuse and fascinate.
The light rail line runs down Divan Yolu Caddesi, the busy artery which divides the labyrinthine Grand Bazaar, Kapali Carsi, from Sultanahmet, down to the Golden Horn. To the right, lie the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya and the museums around the Topkapi Palace.
Resplendent: The Aya Sofya (Aghia Sophia) awash in golden light at night. At Aya Sofya, Divan Yolu – the main avenue through Old Istanbul – leads towards Topkapi Palace and the remnants of the marvellously named Sublime Porte, once the seat of the Ottoman government. A little further is the Sirkeci Station – think Orient Express – to Eminonu on the shores of the Golden Horn, with its fleet of ferries jostling for berths, sirens hooting.
Back uphill on Divan Yolu, a traditional tea house or cay bahcesi operates on what was once a historic cemetery facing the centuries-old medresse or theological school on the corner of Piyer Loti, a street named for the French romantic poet and Turkophile, Pierre Loti. In a garden setting, tall grey gravestones record the lives of Ottoman luminaries in Arabic calligraphy. One bears the etchings of several favourite musical instruments.
The tea house offers rosehip or black tea, Türk kahve (thick, black Turkish coffee) and the narghile or bubble pipe, stoked with hot coals by each passing waiter. Smokers happily pose for us and pass boxes of Turkish Delight around, which we reciprocate with tasty roasted chestnuts bought from a red-and-white striped barrow parked outside.
Further along Divan Yolu stands a marvellous old coffee shop and confectioner with its pyramids of candied bergamot, quince, walnut and chestnut; rice pudding; sweets garnished with pistachio or chocolate. We recline on well-stuffed divans in a sumptuous inner salon.
The property, held by Edebiyat Kiraathanesi, a literary foundation, also houses a bookshop. The genial garcon or head waiter is Teoman, his wife as large as he is wiry, and happily hamming it up with him behind the counter.
Neighbouring confectioners specialise in lokum or Turkish Delight, displaying trays stacked with mouth-watering concoctions of nuts and jellies. A few doors away is Tarihi Sultanahmet Koftecisi, an old-fashioned kebab shop established in 1920. Displayed on its dark wood and marble-top tables is a limited but authentic array of kofte kebab, white bean salad and corba soup; the kofte is absolutely mouth-watering.
In the street outside, theatrical ice cream vendors sporting tasselled crimson fez and gold-braided vests perform party tricks with their rapier-like skewers (the entertainment gives more pleasure than the product – a sticky, gooey substance). Carpet dealers stagger by, laden like mules with rugs thrown over their shoulders.
Small price to pay
Embarking on the great Asian overland journey, I have dossed down in a flophouse somewhere down a lane near the Blue Mosque. Over breakfast, a French backpacker displays red, inflamed welts all over his back, to the morbid fascination of one and all. Fast forward to 2:30am on a summer night in 2011, and it’s scratch, scratch, scratch.
Aaargh, I grope for the light switch.
What the hell are those little black spots all over my side of the bed? (Oddly enough, not on hers.) Deja vu… but this time the welts are all mine. Ah, well, it’s a small price to pay for the experience of rediscovering a city which has largely left behind its old Third World persona.
We settle into another hotel around the corner and head up to the sixth floor terrace to tuck into the robust Turkish breakfast of borek pastry, fresh bread, cherry jam and other treats, as the morning mists slowly lift from the jumbled rooftops and from the Bosphorus beyond.
Today being a public holiday, crowds throng Divan Yolu; women, young and old, wrap their heads in floral scarves and their bodies in dowdy buttoned-up coats in deference to Islamic modesty. We dodge the trams and the crowds to cross the street to reach Sultanahmet Park, enlivened today by a children’s inflated jumping castle and a rock band warming up on stage, all forming an incongruous foreground to the dignified, needle-like minarets of the Blue Mosque.
I never tire of wandering around the Blue Mosque, the inspiration of the 17th-century Sultan Ahmet I, and its environs, which include the Hippodrome of the Byzantine emperors and a formal public park, usually bustling with hawkers and buskers – wooden flutes, sticky toffees in six colours, sliced watermelon. Then there are the families, often with the boys dressed up like small princes in party clothes for circumcision celebrations.
The courtyards of the Blue Mosque bustle with worshippers and sightseers, domestic and foreign. Quick, doff the shoes, cover your shoulders, head into the mosque before tourist entry closes ahead of the 5pm prayers. As the worshippers file in, non-believers settle quietly onto the carpets, admiring the intricate calligraphy.
Farther downhill, Gülhane Park encloses Topkapi Palace. The park’s tree-lined paths are popular with families and young lovers.
Out on Seraglio Point (Sarayburnu), the busy tea garden named Set Ustu Cay Bahcesi serves up tea and hot water in nesting pots against a backdrop of sweeping views over the blue waters of the Bosphorus. You may have to wait for a table to become free before settling in here.
At Topkapi, we merge into a crowd of sightseers, swollen by coach parties from the two huge white cruise ships docked at Galata, across the Golden Horn. Long lines waited to shuffle through the imposing palace gate, so with some relief we take up the supplementary tickets giving access to the treasures of the Harem.
As we roam through the salons, kiosks and courtyards to the Courtyard of the Favourites, our sense of wonder is restored.
All roads lead to Eminonu
From around the Palace, all roads seem to lead, by twists and turns, down to the waterfront at Eminonu, the Spice Bazaar, Misir Carsisi, to the “new” mosque, Yeni Cami, and, above all, to the incessant bustle of ferries going to and fro, and of buskers and hawkers. Theatrically garbed men hawk mouthwatering grilled fish sandwiches called balik ekmek, or serve hot chestnuts and a Turkish version of the bagel from their barrows.
As well as the usual commuter runs, the ferries also depart for the upper reaches of the Golden Horn, the holiday townships up and down the Bosphorus, and to the weekend retreats of the Princes Islands dotted across the Sea of Marmara. The Galata Bridge, packed shoulder to shoulder with fishermen casting their rods, crosses the estuary to a northern shore crowned by the centuries-old Galata Tower.
Like the novelist Orhan Pamuk, one could spend a lifetime exploring the many neighbourhoods of Istanbul.
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