Revisiting Sultanahmet

Vince and I saw just a very small part of the Sultanahmet district yesterday, and planned to spend the day in the area again to see the sights we had missed. We began the day with breakfast at the foot of the Galata Tower. Vince tried the Turkish scrambled eggs, which were a lot like Oeufs Basquaise while I had an assortment of Turkish pastries made from layers of a phyllo-like dough, wrapped or folded around minced meat, cheese, or whipped potato, and looked a lot like egg rolls and samosas on the outside. 

Turkish tea

The Bosphorus with the southeastern tip of the New District on the left.

We arrived at the Blue Mosque, but since it was closed momentarily for prayer, we took a peek at the Monuments in the Hippodrome, where chariot races once took place in Constantinople.

This Eygptian obelisk dates to 1500 BC

A fountain (gift) from Germany.

We returned to the Blue Mosque, or Sultan Ahmet Mosque as it's called by the locals, and shed our shoes to enter. The inside is decorated with beautiful painted Iznik tiles in blue hues (thus the name), frescoes, calligraphy, and unlike the Ayasofa, there are lots of glass windows (engineering had improved since the Ayasofya's construction).

Entrance to the courtyard of the Blue Mosque

Exterior of the Blue Mosque

So beautiful!

Blue Mosque at night

Since our last trip to the Grand Bazaar, Vince and I read up on rugs and carpets. After a bit of research, we knew Sisko Osman was our go-to guy. His family has been in the rug business for five generations, and they've developed a reputation for high quality, authentic, hand made Turkish carpets. As well as being mentioned in several travel guides, Sisko's shop has had several celebrity customers. Ready to go, we headed back into the chaos to find a souvenir.  

A pretty quiet corner of the bazaar

Camal (pronounced Jamal), Sisko's nephew, welcomed us into the shop. There we were brought hot tea to sip on as we learned about the many aspects of Turkish carpets. Knots, wool, silk, cotton, dyes, village woven, tribal woven, age, region...all things to consider in addition to price. He and his assistant began unrolling dozens of beautiful carpets, each one unique. Some of these carpets can take one person over a year to craft. These floor coverings are really fine works of art, and we learned that in Turkey, a beautiful handmade carpet was sometimes part of a bride's dowry, made by the bride and her family (we saw a few of examples of these). In our reading we learned that there really isn't such a thing as a new, hand-woven Turkish carpet as the industry completely left the country in 2000, meaning dishonest carpet sellers could be selling "Turkish" rugs and carpets made in China, India, or Iran. Carpets hand made on a loom can also handle more wool, whereas machine made ones often result in a thinner pile or incorporate other fibers. I could go into how region affects the characteristics of a sheep's wool, direction of the loops and how it affects the appearance of the carpet...as you can see there's a lot to know when it comes to carpets, and I'm hardly an expert. After several rounds of tea, carpet show-and-tell, and bargaining, we purchased a vintage (1955-1960) wool on cotton Hereke and a Kilim from the Kayseri region.

Thanks to Camal, we are owners of a new-to-us Turkish carpet.

A real beauty

If you're interested in learning more about Turkish rugs and carpets, here are a couple of links we found interesting:

Turkey's Unraveling Carpet Industry

Craft of Turkish Rugs

Wandering in Sultanahmet

It finally stopped raining! We got a pretty late start today but headed out on Istiklal to grab a light breakfast of boyoz, a Turkish pastry, coffee and tea. First making a pit stop at the Galata Tower, we crossed the Golden Horn, and began following the tram tracks through the Old Town to the Ayasofya museum. 

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Doner kebab on Istiklal

Shake Shack. More on this later.

The southwestern tip of the New District

The first structure of the Hagia Sofia, as it's also called, was built in 537 as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral, and also served as the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In its third and final construction, it remained the largest cathedral for one thousand years until the Cathedral of Seville was completed, a serious engineering feat. When the Ottomans took Constantinople, the church was pillaged, and made into a mosque. Plaster applied to the walls in disrepair and to cover the iconography in mosaics actually did a lot to protect them. Sounds a bit familiar, right? We spent a lot of time wandering the ground level and upper gallery admiring the art and mosaics before taking a break at the bar at the Four Seasons down the street with a glass of raki, a sparkly mint soda, glass of Turkish red wine, and some meze.

Exterior of the Ayasofya

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It's much taller than it appears here. Unusual to see Islamic and Christian art under one roof.

Comnenus Mosaics

With our blood sugar up, we thought we'd check out the Hippodrome, but never made it, as we were side-tracked by a shop on our way at the Arasta Bazaar called Jennifer's Hamam. After getting the towel talk at the shop, we were whisked away to their showroom with a couple from Salt Lake City...and then left with a bag full of organic Turkish cotton goodies. 

Arasta Bazaar under a crescent moon

A whirling dervish performance for tourists

Hafiz Musafa's shop window

It was getting late in the evening, so we started back towards Galatasaray, stopping first to stock up on Turkish Delight at Hafiz Mustafa 1864 - lots of nut-free varieties for me and nutty incarnations for Vincent. The Turks really do love their pistachios. There are pastries and candies stuffed with pistachios and then dusted or rolled in more pistachios. There's a chartreuse crumble on or in almost every sweet! They say when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Well tonight we did as the Turks do here in Istanbul, and had Shake Shack burgers for dinner. No shame here. A single and a double, side of fries, and extra Shack Sauce.

Galata Tower at night

Turkish Delight - How Bazaar

We resolved to get out of bed by 10:30 (alarms were set for 8 AM, ha!) and walked to catch the tram to cross the Golden Horn and get to the Grand Bazaar, one of the world's largest and oldest covered markets. The Grand Bazaar was a textile market to start in 1455, when it was built shortly after the Ottomans took Constantinople. Today, inside, there are 61 covered streets, and thousands of shops offering carpets, Turkish delight, tea, coffee, jewelry (gold, silver, diamonds and otherwise), clothing, leather goods, and decorative wares in addition to textiles. Oh and fakes. So many fakes. We managed to walk out without spending a single lira on anything but a lunch of rice, doner, roasted vegetables, and pilaf at Havuzlu. We would love to purchase a carpet, and saw so many beautiful ones, but need to arm ourselves with some knowledge before we return for some haggling!

Turkish simit. Kind of like a bagel.

After wandering through the Grand Bazaar and effectively brushing off the hawkers, we headed down the hill to the Spice Bazaar. Built in 1660 as part of the New Mosque complex, it remains the spice trade center of Istanbul. We walked past piles and piles of a variety of curry, Iranian saffron, rose tea, pomegranate tea, lemon balm, henna, and lots of spice blends. There were also shops selling all types of nuts with a focus on pistachios and pine nuts as they're a huge part of Turkish cuisine, delicious Turkish Delight and other sweets, Turkish pastries, and olives.

We visited the Yeni Cami, or New Mosque, next. I had read and been told to bring a scarf along for visits to mosques, even though they're often available to borrow.  Appropriate dress for women means having a covered head, shoulders covered, and legs covered above the knees. Shoes are not allowed inside, and there was also a working fountain in the courtyard for those who want to wash before prayer.  Since Vince and I had been on our feet for some time by then, we enjoyed sitting on the carpet inside and admiring the beautiful iznik-tiled interior walls and domes.

Jet lag was catching up to us, as was the cold rain and wind, so we stopped by a cafe overlooking the Golden Horn for a break of Coke (for me) and Turkish coffee (for Vince).  With Turkish coffee, the beans are ground extremely fine, and not filtered.  This makes the consistency of the coffee very mud-like, and the strength extra strong!  The coffee came served with a small dish of Turkish delight -- gelled fruit, which is often embedded with pistachios.  It might be Vince's new favorite afternoon pick-me-up.

We then continued on foot to the Chora Church.  Considered as one of the finest remaining examples of a Byzantine church, it was built outside of Constantinople's then-walls in the early 5th century, though today most of the structure dates from the 1000s.  Frescoes and glittery mozaics partially line the walls and domes, and although restored after they were covered with plaster (the Ottomans had it converted into a mosque) and perhaps natural disaster, it's easy to imagine how stunning they really used to be.  Today it sits as a museum.

Turkish Delight - Arrival in Istanbul

After a full-morning layover at Schipol, we finally got on our flight (with lots of other Americans) to Ataturk International Airport. Arrival for me was a breeze, but Vince had to meet three passport control guards before being admitted with his Indonesian passport. We soon got into a cab and headed to Beyoglu in the rain.

After winding through Galatasaray, we pulled up to Turnacibasi Sokok no. 19, and were greeted by Nahide's mother, Selma, who then gave us a primer on the amenities of our well-appointed home for the next week, as well as her personal recommendations for places to get dinner. Vince and I were both pretty tired, so we headed down our street to a local favorite self-serve restaurant, Hayvore, and loaded up on some Black Sea specialties for our first taste of Turkish cuisine: stewed pazi (chard), sarma (grape leaves filled with minced meat and rice), kuru fasulye (creamy white beans in a buttery tomato sauce), kofte (turkish meatballs), hamsi (anchovies), and pilaf.

On the way back from dinner, we grabbed some supplies like laundry detergent, toilet paper, and bottled water for the apartment.

The Pajama Post goes live

Starting a blog was the perfect diversion on a stormy Saturday evening.  Looking forward to keeping our loyal followers updated on our goings-on of all kinds.