Istanbul was grey and amazingly dense, so after landing and reaching the Nena Hotel we ventured out in Search of Sights like all good tourists do, finding them easily at hand, as we were, in Sultanahmet, right in the heart of them…

I regret not being sufficiently brazen to record the women in burqas taking pictures of other women in burqas or selfies in front of these iconic sites as such scenes of black silhouettes with architectural backgrounds were remarkably common, but after a bit we wandered into slightly more obscure neighborhoods seeking esoteric mosques to gawk at and duly did, with varying degrees of discomfiture on my part.

…one particularly resonant moment was hearing prayers softly chanted from deep within an interior at dusk; visually it was all quite overwhelming, and things became even more delirious after dark…

Sunday morn we found the hotel’s breakfast to be considerably more lavish than the boat’s, which we suffered through on a rooftop overlooking the two great mosques with the Bosphorus beyond before venturing off into the Land of Many Things [and this was not even the Grand Bazaar, which L. and I unfortunately missed] to see a beautiful little mosque by Sinan, the stellar Ottoman architect who perpetrated many masterpieces throughout the sixteenth century Empire in the course of a long and productive life…

…then afoot across the Galata bridge and circuitously uphill to the tower of the same name.  Maybe it’s the hammer and nail syndrome, wherein if you have only a hammer every problem seems like a nail, but being such tourists everything looked extremely touristy…actually, given our locations, that was true; Karakoy, for instance, appears to have been designated the international free graffiti zone, so graff was ubiquitous, probably to encourage the plentiful international vagabonds in hopes of shaking out their presumably plentiful monies…

After ranging about a bit we settled on an upscale cafe for a very nice lunch with very nice mezze and then half of us went off seeking music up a street selling mostly musical instruments while others shopped the shops, coming back together to wander the bewildering little streets back down…

…and so to the tram stop and hotel ablutions before L. and I set out for the “Asian side” on our own…

In California a friend had suggested we look up her college friend who had lived in Istanbul for many years; I’ll call her V., as that’s her initial initial [fans of vintage Pynchon may infer whatever they like from this coincidence].  As an antidote to mondo turismo she suggested we meet at an old style seafood restaurant in Kanlica on the Asian side, last stop for the 6:20 Sunday ferry from Eminonou, which we duly found and boarded, noting a surprising sunset light [it had been flat and dim all day] reflecting from the windows of Uskudar across the water as well as, more conspicuously, the glass of an immense cruise ship setting off for the Sea of Marmara as we began our voyage up the Bosphorus…

…at the last [and only] stop on the European side a woman got on, recognized us somehow, and introduced herself…V., of course. We proceeded in gathering darkness to dinner and intense conversations, rapidly spiraling into life, death, religion, language [there is, apparently, a specific Turkish word for the sunset light reflecting off the windows of Uskudar] and the State of the Nation [Turkish Nation] in ways not exactly like what is heard from the often hysterical American media but infinitely more disturbing for all that…a great good time was had by all, as well as a lot of raki.  At evening’s end, the ferry long done, we took a water taxi across the Bos’ to await, from far up the line, the bus…somewhere nearer the center V. got off to go home and later we reached the terminus of the tram, which handily took us home, too, L. waxing sporadically lysergic  as a joyful result of the conversation or the raki, or both, which she has rapidly learned to love.

We rejoined our little covey at sunrise for another breakfast with world class views, trying to moderate the abundance into something more manageable for an actual human.  I eventually opted for a glass of orangey juice, olives, yogurt with one or another of the excellent preserves, and a glop of eggs accompanied by red chile mezze.  Oh and way too much coffee…relieved to have eluded, by virtue of our trip to Kanlica, what was rumored to have been an overly dramatic evening the night before we were fueled and ready for the next installment of Touristic Turkey…

Next up; the “Byzantium and Golden Horn” private tour…

 

M