After a week in Lebanon, we flew to Istanbul for a few days before continuing on to Israel. As you may or may not know, it's not possible to travel directly between Lebanon and Israel, by land, sea, or air. So, we decided to stop over in Istanbul, and it was a blast. An added bonus was that Annie's sister, Lauren, was able to fly over from London and join us for the weekend. It was great to see Lauren, and we totally scored because she found a great hotel with a triple room for all 3 of us to stay in, instead of the somewhat questionable hostel that Annie and I had been planning to stay in originally. Everybody wins.
First, the hotel. We stayed in the Sultanahmet area of Istanbul, just a couple blocks away from the Blue Mosque, at the Stone Hotel. It was a very nice little place, with a great free breakfast and a very friendly staff. We arrived in the afternoon, and Lauren had arranged for a shuttle to pick us up from the airport, so we felt very important when we were met at the airport by a man holding a large sign with Annie's name on it. After the shuttle dropped us off at the hotel, we met up with Lauren and went for a walk around Sultanahmet to orient ourselves and plan our next few days of sightseeing. A few hours of walking up and down the hills of Istanbul and we were pretty hungry, so we went to dinner at a terrific Indian restaurant called Dubb. It was in our guide book, and it was delightful.
The next day, we woke up fairly early (the loud call to prayer from the mosque across the street served as a nice alarm clock), and our first stop was the Topkapi Palace. The Topkapi Palace is enormous, it was the home of the ruling sultans of the Ottoman Empire from about 1450 to 1850. Due to various natural disasters, it had to be rebuilt/expanded from time to time, but the result is incredible. It's so big that you really can't see it all in one day, but we tried our best. One highlight was the treasury rooms, which contained some incredible jewelry, weapons, pottery, and other treasures that had either been created by the Ottomans or plundered as spoils of war. Another was the harem, which it turns out is not just where the concubines lived, but it was also the whole royal residence, everyone in the royal family lived there. The harem was huge, beautifully decorated with great tile work and arched ceilings. My favorite rooms were the twin prince rooms, which is where crown princes lived before they were sent off to learn how to rule in the outer provinces. The palace was also built right on the edge of the river, so there were amazing views across the water to the other parts of Istanbul. It actually reminded me quite a bit of the views of the north bay from san francisco, but maybe that was just because we've been traveling for too long and miss home.
This is where the concubines lived.
After being wowed by the Hagia Sophia, we walked across the square to the Blue Mosque. It's pretty convenient that all these amazing places to explore in Istanbul were built right next to each other. The blue mosque was equally impressive, also massive, and still in use as a functioning mosque. We were there on a friday, which is the most important day of prayer, mandatory for men (though optional for women), and we had to wait outside for a few minutes with the tourist masses because the mosque is closed to visitors during the 5 times a day when Muslims are called to prayer. The name comes from the tile-work inside, which has a blue tint. It wasn't "as blue" as I expected, though of course it was incredibly beautiful. One fact about mosques that I didn't know before this trip is that there are no images of people or icons allowed to decorate the inside of a mosque, so all decoration inside mosques is made up of writing or geometric patterns. The result is a very different than the inside of a cathedral.
After a long day of exploring, we went back to our hotel to relax and plan our evening. The guys who worked at our hotel were very friendly, and one of them, whose english was not perfect but he made up for it with enthusiasm and hand gestures, told us about a dance club (Babylon) in Beyoglu where his brother was the bouncer and said we should go there that evening. Beyoglu is the area of Istanbul where locals hang out, and the highlight is this long, pedestrianized street with tons of stores, restaurants, bars, and of course, night clubs. We made it to the area, but we couldn't find the club and ended up just having a nice dinner and walking around, because the people-watching there was first-rate. When we came back to our hotel around midnight, the guys at the desk were clearly disappointed in us for arriving back so soon. We (trying not to disappoint them by admitting that we just didn't feel like going) told them we weren't able to find the club, and one of them, our new friend Selim, aka Russell Crowe, told us he would take us out the following night to make sure we didn't get lost.
The next day, we took a walk away from Sultanahmet toward the river and went to the Grand Bazaar, which is like a farmer's market or a craft market on steroids. There are something like 7000 shops in the whole bazaar, selling absolutely everything you could want to buy. Somehow, the only thing we managed to come away with was a refrigerator magnet, but it wasn't for lack of trying by the shop owners. After the bazaar we found our way to the Spice Market, which was also quite a scene, but not nearly as crazy as the Grand Bazaar. The spice market is down close to the waterfront, so from there we decided to take a boat cruise tour down the length of the Bosphorous, which provided great views of the modern houses, old palaces, many mosques, and beautiful scenery on the very picturesque river. The only downside was, like ferries in the san francisco bay, it was cold.
After our boat tour we decided to explore the Beyoglu side of Istanbul on foot, after eating some delicious donut-like things from a street vendor. We made it back to the pedestrian street on top of the hill, and had some very interesting sandwiches for lunch (for those of you who are familiar with a chicken finger sub, they were like those, but WITH french fries INSIDE the sandwich - delicious). While we ate, we watched and listened to the protest that was taking place outside. We got a little lost trying to find our way back to our hotel, but we eventually made it, with much help from the locals. We rested a bit and got ready for our last night in Istanbul, and when we were down in the lobby getting ready to leave, we were very surprised to find that our friend Selim, the night manager, really did want to take us out and show us the real Istanbul nightlife. So we went with him to Barabar, a great bar/club with live music, and not just any music, but "real Turkish music". There were 2 bands that played, one was apparently more traditional turkish music, and the other one was what I would call turkish rock and roll. Even better than the music though, was the dancing. Both bands seemed to have their own sets of groupies, and even though there was not a lot of legroom in that club, people seemed to find plenty of room to dance. It was awesome. When the first band finished their set, Selim took us to this incredible little hamburger stand in Taksim square, and we had delicious shwarma chicken sandwiches. It might have been my favorite meal in turkey, it was so good. We went back for the second band, which was very cool because one of the band members is apparently famous in the country for playing a Turkish instrument that was sort of a cross between a harp and a guitar. Selim informed us that it was his favorite instrument in all of Turkish music, and it did not disappoint. The guy who was playing said instrument (I can't remember what it's called unfortunately) belted out some seriously face-melting solos. It was a really fun night, and by the time we made it back to the hotel around 2am, the guys at the desk were much more impressed with our ability to have fun, as we were the last guests to return back to the hotel that night (yay!).
The next day, we unfortunately had to make our way to the airport, but we went for a walk in the morning along the river, and had our last Turkish food (and ice cream), before we had to depart. Israel for Annie and I, and London for Lauren.
A couple more photos:
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