Istanbul

Two days after David and I returned from Greece I had to hop on another plane back to Eastern Europe. This time I was being sent to Istanbul for an audit, and I was really excited because I had never been to Turkey before and David was able to fly in on Friday to spend the weekend site-seeing with me.

Istanbul is the only city in the world to span two continents - Europe and Asia. The city is divided by the Bosphorus Strait, which connects the Marmara Sea to the Black Sea. The huge Bosphorus suspension bridge spans the strait and connects the two continents. Our audit team decided to stay in Beyoglu, the modern European section of Istanbul known for once housing foreign consulates before Ankara became the capital of Turkey. But the Dell office is located in Asia so this made our commute each morning and evening about an hour long. But I’m used to that living in West London and commuting out to the ‘burbs all the time so it wasn't too bad. And once I arrived, the work week FLEW by. I hadn’t been to work in 11 days, so I had A LOT to catch up on and a ton of meetings scheduled with the local Turkey team.

Our first night in Beyoglu the team went out for traditional meze platters (kind of like Spanish tapas, lots of little appetizers). Afterwards we walked back along the main pedestrian street, Istiklal Cad, to get ice cream and roasted chestnuts for dessert. There are a lot of trendy bars and restaurants in the area and cute bookstores and shops. One enormous store sold Turkish delight, fresh or boxed. I could not believe all of the different flavors available. The candy store was huge!

On Thursday night, we had a team dinner with some local Istanbul residents at a trendy restaurant, House Café, in Ortakoy, a bit further from the city center. I chose the traditional pounded steak with caramelized onions and small potatoes. At night, the area around Ortakoy is filled with local bars and a thriving nightlife. It's supposedly a celebrity magnet, but I didn't see anyone I would've recognized. 

Mecidiye Cami Mosque and Bosphorus Bridge from Ortakoy

Friday afternoon I moved from the Dell hotel in Beyoglu to a boutique hotel in Sultanahmet, the more historic district dominated by the Blue Mosque and Haghia Sophia. David arrived around midnight and we tried to get some sleep before our busy Saturday.

It was a bit hard to sleep in Istanbul though. It was warm the week we visited, but the hotels did not have working A/C systems, so we slept with our windows open. But the Muslim call to prayer occurs five times a day, including around eleven at night and four thirty in the morning. Staying in Sultanahmet was a great location, except for this. Because of the number of mosques in the area all going off at the same time, I was woken up almost every morning. For those that haven’t heard the call to prayer, it is a bit haunting.

So David and I slept through our first alarm, but made it in time for breakfast. Turkish food is very, very similar to Greek food so it was chocolate cake for breakfast again for me! Pound cake with jam is also popular in Istanbul. After breakfast at the hotel, we headed to the Blue Mosque.

The Muhammad Ali mosque we visited in Cairo was modeled after the Blue Mosque, so it was deja vue during this tour. The Blue Mosque is named after the blue Iznik tiles decorating the interior of the building. The construction of the mosque began in 1609 and lasted only 7 years but the building was controversial because it has six minarets, which rivals the mosques in Mecca, which many considered sacrilegious.

Across Sultanahmet Square is Haghia Sophia, a Byzantine church over 1,400 years old. The structure was built over two older churches and inaugurated by Emperor Justinian in 537. It functioned as a church for almost 900 years before the Ottomans converted into a mosque. However, unlike in Athens and other areas of Europe where the Christians destroyed any non-Christian works of art when converting buildings into churches, the Muslims believe in many of the same Christian prophets so they left all of the original artwork in the building.

Mary holding baby Jesus next to the Emperor and Empress

The church is now a museum, with the highlights being one of the original Byzantine friezes of sheep, the colossal nave, the mosaics, and the galleries accessed by a ramp. Next to Haghia Sophia are the mausoleums of many sultans and their families. I could not believe how many children are entombed there. But I guess if you had a harem full of wives and concubines, you are bound to produce a lot kids. And without modern medicine or the knowledge of babies that we have today, sadly many of those children didn't survive. We visited the mausoleum of Murat III, who fathered 103 children.  The 400 year old mausoleum contains his remains and 54 other sepulchers of his family, including his favorite wife and many children. 

After leaving the grounds of Haghia Sohpia, we walked a short distance to the Pudding Shop, a famous restaurant known for its delicious puddings. David had a de-constructed gyro and I had zucchini stuffed with a cheese blend covered in mashed potatoes. For dessert, we split a vanilla and chocolate pudding.

After lunch we walked to Topkapi Palace. Topkapi Palace is an enormous palace complex built in the mid-1400s by Mehmet II after he conquered Constantinople.

The most interesting thing about the palace is definitely the harem, the residence of the sultan’s mother, wives, and concubines. At one point, over 1,000 concubines lived in this section of the palace. Competition was stiff between the women to become the sultan’s favorite, and maybe even his wife. One infamous wife, Roxelana, was so cut-throat she had the sultan’s grand vizier strangled and later, his heir murdered by deaf mutes.

Inside the courtyard of the harem

The other highlights of the palace were the Treasury, which houses an 86-carat diamond, and the Costume Room for visitors to view the sultan’s XXL robes. Most of the paintings of the sultans depicted them as morbidly obese, which explains why their clothes were ginormous. There is also a Holy Mantle Pavilion, full of "holy relics." I had never heard of this place before, but it was one of the main attractions. The rooms were overflowing with people clamoring to get a view of Moses’ staff, David’s sword, and part of Joseph’s skull. I’ve seen "relics" like this before. In Bruge, there is a small church that claims to have a vial of Christ’s blood. I paid a lot of money (for a penny-pinching student studying abroad) and stood in line for a long time to see that vial. But who really knows where this stuff comes from? That staff could’ve just been some stick someone found in the Sinai. Maybe I'm just a skeptic, but it’s very hard for me to believe that I’ve never heard of this place that supposedly contains all of this important relics. Even now that I know Topkapi Palace is considered a pilgrimage site for Muslims and a UNESCO World Heritage site, it’s still hard for me to believe those objects are what they say they are.

An unhappy David on the Circumcision Pavilion of Topkapi Palace. 

Topkapi Palace is so enormous, you could literally spend all day there. The park around the grounds is also very nice, as it sits along the Marmara Sea. But we only had a weekend, so we headed out after a few hours and walked across town to the Grand Bazaar. This bazaar was also enormous! There weren’t stalls, like in the Cairo bazaar we visited a few months ago, but actual stores so it felt more like an outdoor mall to me. This was a lot better because we didn’t feel pressured to really buy anything. But when I saw a Turkish delight store, David and I had to go in. We chose 4 boxes - pomegranate, plain, mixed fruit, and mixed nut. The clerk originally said 50 Turkish lira, but I had heard to offer about 60% less. So I said 30 and stuck to it. I thought I did a great job bargaining but later we saw an ad for 5 boxes for 20 lira. Dangit! I guess I'm not as good a bargainer as I thought I was! :(

After the bazaar we had dinner outside at a hotel café and then headed to a Turkish bath…

DISCLAIMER – The following section around our Turkish bath experience can get pretty graphic, so don’t continue reading if you don’t want to hear about a bunch of naked people bathing together.

A Turkish bath, or hamam, is kind of like a sauna/bath. Karen did a hamam in Morocco a few months ago and raved about it. But one of my coworkers also did a hamam and said it was one of the worst experiences of his life, but keep in mind he doesn’t really like being touched. Well I’ve never even had a massage before, so it was basically like someone who’s never had chocolate indulging in a hot fudge sundae with chocolate ice cream and Oreo crush-ins. I dove right into the experience!

There are two historic Turkish baths in the city – Cagaloglu and Cemberlitas. Cagaloglu is 300 hundred years old, on the list of 1,000 Places To See Before You Die (the NY Times bestseller), and it was closer to our hotel. So after David and I drank maybe a bit too much at dinner and convinced ourselves it would be fun, we walked to Cagaloglu ready for our baths. Immediately after we entered, I was whisked away to the women’s section and David proceeded to the men’s.

Cagaloglu Bath Entrance

I wish I had had a friend with me because I had no idea what I was doing. And I was one of the only women in there alone. Apparently it’s very popular in Turkey to bathe with your girlfriends. I think there was even a bachelorette party going on in there.

Changing Room

So here goes:

I was given my own room to undress. But it was only when I locked myself into the room that I realized how unprepared I was for this experience! When we had left our hotel that morning, David was refusing to do the bath, so I didn't really think it would happen. Only when I was getting undressed did I realize I was about to be bathed and I hadn’t even brought a swimsuit with me or shaved my legs in days! The worst part was it was granny panty day! I kept telling myself my "bather/assistant” wouldn’t mind, that she’d probably seen much worse. My suspicions were confirmed when I saw a much older, much larger naked woman walk past my room. I have to keep reminding myself that Europeans have a totally different attitude towards nudity. Just the week before, while sunbathing on Thirassia during our boat tour, a full grown man stripped down to his birthday suit and went skinny dipping right in front of David and me! No qualms, just jumped right into the sea!

But I am NOT European so there was no way I was getting totally naked, so I kept my granny panties on but removed everything else. Then I walked back out wrapped in a couple of towels. They escorted me back into the bath area. I don’t know why I thought I would be getting a private bath, but when we walked back into the sauna room, all of the girls inside were completely stripped down, lying head-to-toe on a giant marble slab in the middle of the room, being bathed in front of everyone else! It was just strange for me, as a prude American, to see BFFs sitting around eating fruit, chatting it up naked.

I wasn’t even that nervous about being topless in front of everyone, though. I was more worried about all these ladies seeing my hairy legs and ugly underoos. The majority of girls were topless with swimsuit bottoms on but some wore bikinis and others were totally naked. I found a free spot on the edge of the marble slab and enjoyed the sauna for a while. Then my bather came over to me naked and told me to lie down for my exfoliation. Before she started, though, she put on a swimsuit uniform. I guess the staff present themselves in the buff to make you feel more comfortable. But it didn't work... So I just lied down on one of my towels and kept the other one wrapped around me. Well my bather was having none of that! She ripped that thing right off, exposing me to everyone. Oh well.

I quickly got over my embarrassment and instead tried to concentrate on the exfoliation, but it kind of hurt! I had even requested the softer towel for the exfoliation, but I guess when you’re scraping dead skin away, no towel is going to be that soft. After scrubbing me down, she proceeded with the soapy massage. It lasted about 15 minutes. And for my first massage, it was really nice! It was so relaxing that I didn’t even want to get up when she announced, “Lady finished!” She brought me over to a tub along the wall and rinsed me down, and then gave me a nice shampoo before sending me on my way.

I realized when I got back to my room that I would have to go commando on the half mile walk back to the hotel, unless I wanted to get my jeans wet too. That was unfortunate. I got dressed and then went back out to the common room to find David. He had a great time, except for the fact that he was just bathed by an enormous, half-naked Turkish man. They obviously do not let you take pictures inside the hamam, but I managed to sneak a pic of David during his bath…

Just kidding!  But this is exactly what it was like, so you get the idea...

In the end, I’m glad we did it but I think from now on, I’ll opt for a normal massage.

BACK TO NORMAL – For everyone that read the disclaimer and skipped the last few paragraphs.

On Sunday morning David and I met up with a tour group and headed to the Spice Market, where I was tired of bargaining and basically got ripped off buying a trivet, two bowls, some pistachios and chicken seasoning. I knew I was getting ripped off, but whatevs. In GBP, the cost was next to nothing anyway.

Then we stepped aboard a huge yacht with the rest of the tour group and started our Bosphorus cruise. We passed so many palaces for the sultans. One was a winter palace, another a hunting lodge, but the grandest of all was the Dolmabahce palace. I told David we had to tour that place before we left! What I don’t understand, though, is why most of the palaces are literally down the river from one another. If I was going to have multiple palaces, I would spread them around the country to see more places and meet more of my people.

Dolmabahce Palace

The sultan's hunting lodge

Winter Palace

The best part of the cruise was the Fortress of Europe. This fortress was built by Mehmet the Conqueror of Constantinople (same builder of Topkapi Palace) to aid in his conquest of Constantinople. It was built at the narrowest point of the Bosphorus to prevent foreign ships from entering the strait. After Constantinople was conquered, it became a prison. It was a pretty impressive structure.

We had lunch at a traditional Turkish restaurant in Taksim Square and then headed to Dolmabahce Palace. It reminded me of Buckingham because of its size and opulence and location in the city centre. It was built in 1856, so it’s still pretty well preserved. To continue to conserve the museum, they make all of the tourists wear little pink booties around inside and you’re only allowed in with an official tour to ensure nothing is touched or harmed. We did a Selamlik (state room) tour and a Harem tour.

The palace is no longer in use, except for the enormous Ceremonial Hall. Most recently Turkey has hosted other Europeans presidents here in an effort to get into the EU. The hall was so big I felt like I was in the nave of a huge cathedral or Mosque. No expense was spared here. The chandelier in the center was sold to the sultan by Queen Victoria and it’s supposedly the heaviest chandelier in the world.

Surprisingly, the harem was in use up until the 1920s when the Turkish Republic was established. The creepiest part of the harem is the sultan’s mother’s room situated between the sultan’s and the apartments of the wives. That way, the mother could watch over who came and went from her son’s bed. The sultan controlled the country, but the mother controlled the sultan’s love-life.

We finished both tours and then quickly made our way back to the hotel to pick up our bags and catch our late flight back to London. If you want to see all of the pics from last weekend, click here.