Turkey 2008

April 16 - Instanbul

The Way into the Palace

Topkapi Palace Imperial Hall

The Passage of Concubines

We woke up to clear skies and cool, breezy weather. Our breakfast was the same, but I discovered yogurt mixed with honey and molasses. It could become a breakfast staple.

At 8:45, we checked out of the hotel and loaded our bags on the bus. Then we walked to the Topkapi Palace which was the sultan's official palace. It is now a state-supported museum. Sidar gave us an overview and led us on a walk around the grounds to get us oriented. We then split up to go our own directions. The first exhibit we saw was the Royal Treasury. The jewels and jeweled swords and daggers were spectacular. Three things that I remember best were the chest filled with emeralds, the 86-karat Spoon Diamond and the jeweled dagger that was featured in the 1964 movie "Topkapi".

The next major exhibit we saw was the Harem. This is a huge complex of many rooms that were used by the eunuchs, concubines and the sultan's mother, who had the power to control the choice of future Sultans by manipulating the offspring of her favorite wives to power. The richly decorated apartments, the library, lavish baths and receiving rooms were covered with splendid tiles and the doors were paneled with exquisite mother-of-pearl inlay. All this accommodated up to 400 concubines as well as wives and their Black African attendants.

Dancing Children

We left the palace and meandered past the Hagia Sophia to meet our bus. On the way, we sampled pretzel-like breads from a street vendor. I had one that was covered by sesame seeds while Ann had one that was filled with cheese. While waiting for the bus, we joined a big crowd watching groups of school children in ethnic costume performing traditional dances watched by a viewing stand full of dignitaries.

Istiklal Street

The bus took us over the Atatürk Bridge to the New City. This is the newer section of the city with more modern buildings and stores. We came here to see the contrast from the old part of town. We strolled up Istiklal Street towards Taksim Square past dozens of shops and cafes until we reached Bostana, an Armenian restaurant recommended in the RS tour book. The manager, Alisir Aday, helped us order. We enjoyed a salad of split cherry tomatoes with feta cheese and walnuts and a couple of plates of appetizers including dolma with yogurt and breaded ground meats mixed with herbs. We shared dessert of two delicious pie slices - caramel-apple and white corn bread with a filling of something sweet mixed with chopped nuts.

Spices

The bus took us back to the old part of the city and dropped us off at the Egyptian Spice Market. This market is much smaller the the Grand Bazaar and it specializes in all kinds of exotic spices. The smell inside is wonderful. Not needing any spices for our meals, we wandered around for awhile and bought some salted peanuts for snacks on the bus. Then we walked over to the water on the other side of the busy street and met our group for a cruise on the Bosphorus.

Our Cruise Ship

The cruise was on a small tourist boat that could seat 100 people easily. We sat outside on the upper deck while we went north. When the boat turned around and headed south, the wind drove us inside to the lower deck. The cruise lasted for about 1 1/2 hours. Sidar pointed out many landmarks on the way including several palaces, a strategic located fort and many old timbered houses that were sold for tens of millions of dollars. As we headed back we were treated to some sea traffic drama when several large ships bearing down on our boat forced our captain to take some quick evasive action.

Ann and our Waiter

Waiting to Board our Train

Our cruise ended in the Kadiköy district which is in Asia. It is interesting that a large mass of people commute between Europe and Asia every day. Our goal here was to eat dinner and then catch our overnight train to take us to Ankara. The market/dining area in this part of Istanbul is much smaller than in the Europe area. So it shouldn't have been difficult to find what we wanted which was fish. Of course we couldn't find the first restaurant we were looking for - Raki & Fish - so we settled on Ottoman cuisine at Yanyall. They spoke very little English there so we ordered by pointing. We each had fish that was cooked in a stew of vegetables. We also split a mixed green salad that contained beets and carrots. We ordered two kinds of rice - white rice with small bit of liver mixed in and a Spanish rice. Most of the rice that we have eaten so far has been prepared with lots of butter.

After dinner, we wandered through the market with our friends Tom and Leslie from Colville, WA, and bought some bananas and oranges for the following day.

At 9:00, the bus took us to the Haydarpasha Railway Station where we boarded our overnight train for Ankara. Each couple had a small compartment with bunk beds and a sink. Bathrooms were down the corridor - at one end was the Turkish squat-style one-holer while the other end had a Western-style toilet. The train left the station at 10:30. We were in our bunks by 11:00.

The map of our route is below. To see it in Google Earth, follow this link.