Istanbul was Constantinople...

Wow - finally, a posting from Istanbul. I had to get up early this morning to wrest control of the computer from the rest of the family. So here I am, sitting in the hotel's rooftop terrace, sipping my coffee. This morning I chose to look up at the Blue Mosque, just a few blocks away, silhouetted against a pale blue sky. If I turn around, I have an equally stunning view of the Sea of Marmara. Today it is breezy, and hopefully it will stay that way - it's definitely hot here, but the breeze and lack of humidity make it bearable.

Where to begin? We've been in Istanbul now since Thursday afternoon. The hotel is perfect - located in Sultanahmet, a few blocks down the hill from the Blue Mosque, and just inside the old city wall which separated Istanbul from the Sea of Marmara (literally - walk outside the hotel's entrance, cross the street and there's the wall), we can walk to all the famous sites in this touristy, but fascinating part of the city.

After settling in we walked to a local place, Doy-Doy (literally, Full Full) for different types of meat platters - not exactly a "kebap", not exactly a Greek gyro, but an interesting assortment of meat, a fat type of pita (called pide, I think), and I don't remember what else (we were pretty tired out by then). After dinner we took the tram to see the Galata bridge, which connects the peninsula of Sultanahmet to the Beyoglu section of town, at sunset. From the bridge you can see all the mosques of this part of the city against the peach-colored sky. It was beautiful. The bridge accommodates cars, the tram, and pedestrians, many (most) of whom are fishing of the side of the bridge. As best we could tell, the small (maybe mackerel?) fish in tubs at their feet were the catch and not the bait. It seemed funny since the bridge is big and high, so they had enormous fishing poles to catch these teeny fish. We saw men, women (some covered head to toe), kids, young and old, with their fishing rods.

Our Sultanahmet "neighborhood" is appropriately named, as Topkapi, place of the sultans, is just up the street from our hotel. On Friday, we started off early as we heard the popular sites inside the palace (the Treasury and Harem) have long lines later in the day. The palace is built right at the tip of the peninsula, high on a hill where the buildings and kiosks can catch the breeze. (This part of the city is where all the waters of Istanbul meet - the "banks of the mighty Borphorus" (non-Cake fans, click here for song lyrics), the Golden Horn, and the Sea of Marmara. Although I was disappointed that there was no mannequin of a sultan wearing the Topkapi dagger like in the movie, it was still quite an impressive bauble. Unfortunately, the Treasury exhibits need a major upgrade - the various gifts to the sultans and spoils of war, collected over the hundreds of years, are badly displayed in 1970's-style poorly lit cases, inset into the walls with fairly non-descriptive plaques (luckily in both Turkish and English). The Spoonmaker Diamond was stunning despite the presentation - pear-shaped and 86 carats, surrounded by smaller diamonds, it was at one point a ring the size of my palm! The palace itself is huge, impressive and very interesting (many specialized buildings - the menfolk were a little squeemish about visiting the Circumcision Room, a building devoted entirely to this ritual, performed, we believe, at either 14 or 16, on the sultan's sons), but with bare walls, void of any artifacts of the life of those who lived there, it is hard to get a good sense of what life at the heart of the Ottoman empire was really like.

Lunch was a leisurely meal of the Turkish equivalent of pizza. It took forever for the mini-pizzas to arrive - like an hour - and the owner sat and talked to the boys for most of the time while we waited for the pizza dough to rise, apparently - he lives in DC and teaches about antique textiles.

After lunch (by now it was after 3m) the Tengi clan headed off for the Spice Market, and the Websters went back to their rooms for a rest. The Spice Market is the Turkish version of Englishtown, only smaller (we haven't gotten yet to the Grand Bazaar, which makes Englishtown look like the local strip mall, I understand). Nothing to write home about - many vendors selling exactly the same things - spices (which I really doubt many people buy, but they look beautiful), Turkish Delight (soft, nougat-y candy of many interesting flavors - pistachio, honey, rosewater, pomegranet. We learned that they keep the "good stuff", much more expensive and flavored with honey instead of, I presume, corn syrup, in the back), scarfs, hanging lanterns, cheap earrings, bowls and other ceramics, and belly-dancing outfits (an interesting souvenier). It was fun and we escaped with our pocketbooks mainly intact. No bargains to be had, but we did a buy some candy to bring back.

For dinner we headed out to Beyoglu, the party part of the city. Found a great, trendy restaurant in the Fodor's guide - prices are much more expensive than we had anticipated, so we reined ourselves in and ordered modestly. (Classical music - Vivaldi's the Four Seasons, I think - just suddenly started blaring from the outdoor speakers. A twist on the morning call to prayer? Odd, but adds to the morning atmosphere, I guess.) After dinner we strolled up the Istiklal Caddesi, Beyoglu's Main St., full of restaurants, cafes, trendy clothing stores, a zillion people and no cars, to Taksim Square, the heart, they say, of modern Istanbul. From there we took the funnicular (unfortunately, it's underground) down to the tram station for the ride "home".

We will be uploading pictures, as we get to it, on Chris' "Turkey!" set on Flickr.