Istanbul 21
Nearly three years ago, a few months before my daughter's 21st birthday, I asked her what she would like for a present. I suggested we went away together so we would always remember it. I lobbed up the odd suggestion like the Blue Train from Joburg to Cape Town and then a trip to Robben Island finishing with a safari. But each time, she would respond "That's what you want to do Dad" to which there was a modicum of truth! Finally, finally last year she settled on Istanbul and these past five days we've been indulging ourselves in this truly great city of 12 million people.
We started off at the “LLW” airport (London Luton Wastelands) on an Easy Jet flight at the crack of dawn. We took three attempts to find the off-site car park largely because George, my friendly SatNav, mistook the new traffic lights for roundabouts….. But once there everything went swimmingly. The airline has had a better half year results with its deficit down from £112m to £61m
It largely operates largely out of Luton and Gatwick. Its motto is "No thrills, no frills” with no reclining seats (though newer and lighter ones are promised), fewer toilets which equates to more seats and expensive on board drinks - £2.50 for a coffee and £4 for a sandwich - and charges for luggage in the hold. And yet it is now making it possible to pre book seats and fast track passengers. Its online offering is hugely popular. So bit by bit it is moving into the BA space especially with its new Manchester flight to Barbados. Most of us understand the Ryan Air/Easyjet and Flybe philosophy. But there are some elements which stick in the craw. Prices at Duty Free are absurdly high: a can of diet coke costs £1.25 (normally 60p in the High Street) which becomes £1.80 on board. This is one of the unintentional consequences of the clamp down on passengers not being allowed to bring "liquids" through security since 9/11. It is time the OFT investigated these prices.
By the by, Easy Jet’s stewardesses are paid a basic day rate with no allowances for flight delays. They receive a small commission on duty free sales but if they are not actually working they receive no pay (even on stand-by). For our flights they were enthusiastic, helpful and courteous.
We bought three guide books with us: Lonely Planet’s Istanbul City Guide, Istanbul from the Wallpaper series which we loved for its eclectic suggestions and DK’s Top Ten Istanbul which we found a tad boring. Lonely Planet won the day. Lonely Planet per se is the company which the BBC World bought and after huge complaints by rival travel publishers like Time Out was sold for a loss of £75m of tax payer’s money. Yet despite this its retiring CEO, John Smith, somehow collected a "retirement" package of £800k - again our money. There was no advertisement for the post when he moved across to run it where he had previously been a senior bean counter.
Turkey has a very sensible attitude to visas and there’s no need to worry unduly about them before you go as you can obtain them quite easily on arrival for £10 at either of the two airports for Istanbul - Ataturk and Sabiha Gokcen (which puts Heathrow to shame). Of course the cheaper airlines use the latter which is just over an hour by taxi from downtown. As yet there is no train connection and so the only other options are coaches, minivans or buses. In the light of the four hour flight we had pre booked a taxi for £40.
We stayed at the Pierre Lot Hotel named after a famous French poet who lived in the city in the late 19th Century though it is not to be confused with an area of Istanbul with the same name. I asked through my Facebook page whether anyone could advise me on a hotel and two friends suggested it. It was an okay choice not because of the service or quality of its rooms or even price but because it was so convenient to both the major tourist destinations and to the all important tram system. You will need the equivalent of an Oyster card to travel on the tram system. Sadly, trying to buy the card itself is - well - trying with only two kiosks allowed to sell them in the vicinity. A sharper transport agency would make them available at every hotel. But the tram system itself is excellent and the only way to travel.
****
After arriving at our hotel we were dismayed to find our room wasn't ready so we had a late lunch on the sixth floor terrace overlooking the city. After a slightly longer nap that was intended, we showered and unpacked and set forth. We quickly fell upon the Grand Bazaar which was fitfully named. We were simply overwhelmed and after losing ourselves in it we decided it was too early in our schedule to buy and wandered off in the twilight to find Hamdi, a restaurant down by the water front, for supper. We made the odd detour as our maps weren't overwhelmingly helpful but fortunately the locals were and we seized upon some beers before tucking in to a number of dips - aubergine in yoghurt, tomato and hazelnut, and humus.
Our second day (a Friday) meant the Blue Mosque was closed until the afternoon so we changed plans; we went in search of a kiosk to buy our Oyster card and a mile later found it having self-harmed on the most delicious Turkish Delights. Soon we were on the tram to Istanbul Modern, their version of our Tate equivalent. IM was an old dockyard building which has been tastefully re-designed and opened in 2005 and like the Guggenheim in Bilbao is suitable for installation art - the new high fashion art movement of the moment. We were blown away by Istanbul Modern: it rocked. There was so much to see on the two floors including a stunning liberating exhibit entitled False Ceiling by Richard Wentworth which is a net holding large numbers of books (you need to see it), and then there were videos of young emancipated Turkish women talking harrowingly about cancer, the Muslim attitude to women's sexual rights and more. And so if you are ever in Istanbul don't skip the mosques which are unbelievable beautiful and show the wealth of the city at different times but don't skip Istanbul Modern either and stay on for lunch at the friendly and rather cool restaurant and catch the rays by the Bosphorus.
After our “customary” late afternoon nap we settled for cocktails and then supper at Khorasani, in the Sultanahmet district, where we had a mix of vegetarian starters with lamb washed down with a couple of Turkish glasses of Sauvignon Blanc which tested our fillings.
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We were at the Blue Mosque on Saturday morning by 1030 by which time the queue was twice round the block but this did not deter us. We were in twenty five minutes later. Built in 1516 before both the Taj Mahal (1641) and St. Paul's Cathedral (1666) it takes its leave from its rival Christian sibling the Aya Sofya (Santa Sophia) a thousand years older and just across the way. The Blue Mosque is spectacular (named after its blue tiles) and its only real rival is Mecca though the mosques in Damascus and Jerusalem run it close. We then moved across to the more imposing Aya Sofya to find the queues stretching to heaven and back. Worse, you have first to queue to buy the tickets (20 minutes) and then queue again for entry (an hour) by which time we thought we might have shrivelled in the sunshine so we bought tickets for tomorrow and settled for a two hour boat trip up the Bosphorus towards the Black Sea.
This was undoubtedly the best decision of the day but not before we’d upset a rather aggressive German by asking him to give up two of the three seats he was occupying so we could also sit on the comfy seats on the top deck! It was wonderful to see at close quarters the truly inspirational Bosphorus Bridge which had the same impact on me as to when I first saw the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco in 1979. It is a work of great beauty and its civil engineers, designers and builders deserve a standing ovation or two. The further we moved down towards the opening to the Black Sea itself the greener the scenery became – deep and lush - with the houses becoming even more luxurious and inviting. It was as if The Hamptons had married the into the Tuscan hillside family.
Back on shore it was back for a third nap before our night out in Galata, which is fast becoming the place to be in the evening. You can reach it either by a funicular or by being total fools like ourselves by risking the steep climb (there are oxygen stops). Once you arrive you will quickly have to learn to side-step as there are thousands of Istanbulers out strolling, window shopping or bagging boxes of eye candy. They have paved the main thoroughfare such that it feels like a cross between Oxford Street and Camden Market. Don't miss the shops, the roof top bars and the wonderful restaurants but move off Main Street to find them. We settled for Ece Aksoy and had a mixture of starter dishes and rib of lamb (again).
*****
By Sunday we had taken a severe aversion to queuing and somehow stirred ourselves to be up and out of our hotel by 8.30am. We were off to see Aya Sofya which opened at nine. We were glad we did as the queue for tickets was already half an hour long whilst our queue for entrance was barely twenty in total. So unlike yesterday at the Blue Mosque (which was closed again this morning for prayers) where we had to share the experience with a thousand others we roamed free for almost an hour and were able to better experience the Aya's sublime beauty even though much of it is busy being restored - funded by Unesco, but don't hold your breath, the work is continuing at a snail's pace. Nonetheless in size it dwarfs both the Abbey and Cathedral in Westminster in every sense. Santa Sophia was commissioned by Emperor Justinian in AD 555 and though it eventually became a mosque in 1453 it still feels Christian (President Ataturk closed it down as a mosque in 1934). Having the two in juxtaposition grandly illustrates the national schizophrenia about which way Turkey should face.
We then gambled and thought we might be prepared to queue for the Basilica Cistern nearby only to find hardly anyone there. This is another Justinian cause built slightly earlier in AD 532. It is 65m wide and 143m long and is supported by 336 columns! At its height or depth it held 80,00 cubic metres of water which had to be shipped in via 20 kilometres of aqueducts from a reservoir near the Black Sea!! It is a wonder of the world. We renamed it the Cistern Chapel.
For much of the rest of the day we scurried trying to find things we half wanted at the glorious Spice Bazaar and the Leather Market - bizarrely the Grand Bazaar was closed. My daughter had a hammam whilst I read Istanbul edited by Heather Reyes which is a fine collection of over sixty writers views of the city. In the evening, we closed our first chapter on Istanbul by having a grown up supper at Yesil Ev (The Green House) to say goodbye. It had been a joyous time for both us. I do hope Istanbul wins its bid for the 2020 Olympics. It will do them proud for this is a truly outstanding city.
*****
P.S. I hope my daughter will be twenty one again very soon.