We began the day, Monday it was, with frantic cab rides through frenetic chaotic traffic to meet our guide, Zack, at the remnant Roman acqueduct across from Istanbul’s City Hall and begin a northerly walk on streets of varying widths and levels of obscurity investigating Byzantine Church basements, earlier monuments [at which point, amazingly enough, who should come careening down the same side street on their own explorations but our four friends who’d jumped ship right after Saturday’s last supper!]

…onwards, seeing mosques which had supplanted other religious sites built on earlier religious sites ad infinitum, neighborhoods curiouser and curiouser, churches turned to mosques to museums, the ubiquitous cats of Istanbul…and information, information…plus the tiny vibrant  streets of Fatih, Carsamba, and Draman.  Walking…

We pause for tea [and pee], then forge on to the highlight, somewhat; Chora Church, way up near the outer city walls…

Chora Church, itself now a museum [its interior interior spaces of course under renovation though not its anterior interiors];

… some of the exterior exterior as well…after which we and Zack went fruitlessly looking for a tiny hidden but allegedly exquisite Sinan mosque before he went off to pack, this being his last day before returning to New York, another life…

…and we to lunch at a rather grand restaurant where the offerings’ recipes were listed by provenance [many duly dated] dating back centuries.  And, for all that, quite good…after a bit more unsuccessful floundering about in search of the mystery mosque and taxis we were successful, thanks to the intervention of a kindly local [and everything they say about the hospitality – the genuine, not the “have a nice day” American smarmy hospitality – of the Turks should be considered an understatement] in the taxi business, anyway.

So then the long and circuitous trip from Draman to Sultanhamet [unclear on the concept I kept wondering when we would intersect the tram line once we were on the water, but the water was the Golden Horn, not the Bosphorous, so tram did not appear until Eminonou] in time for a coffee and the afternoon prayers, which, ricocheting  from mosque to mosque, never failed to amaze me, along with our fortunate view.

At dusk that evening we took the ferry to Kadikoy, Asian side again, to meet up with the brother of one of our crew at Ciya, a restaurant  famous for the restoration of traditional Turkish home cooking, mothers’ and grandmothers’ cooking…

Though none of the dishes brought any of us to the tears they are reputed to do to sentimental Turks it was very very good, probably all the more so as said brother’s girlfriend had schmoozed with the owner in advance and gotten us set up for the lushest of samplings…and not that dear, either.  The wine, as usual, wasn’t up to the food, but with desserts like this [below], no complaints…. From the fresh late night markets of Kadikoy we ferried back to Karikoy and home to our cigarette-and-burning trash-smelling tramstop [it truth, not unlike many] and so to bed…

Tuesday, ah, another one of those scenic breakfasts, and off to the Galata funicular to investigate the higher endish shops and galleries of allegedly edgy Beyoglu, which seemed, hammer and nail again maybe, irrevocably steeped in touristness…

The contemporary galleries there were like galleries and alt spaces most everywhere, just browner [reminiscent of Norcal funk ca, l1950’s, Berman, Conner, et al…very influential in my ancient impressionable youth], but maybe more strangely significant in a local context of which I am not fully cognizant.  All too soon time slipped away among the many things…

As one went to meet his brother in the Egyptian bazaar for the eating of tiny fishes and exquisite desserts from street vendors the remaining herd of cats fell off the hill, some shopping, some peeking into commercial art spaces, to reconvene overlooking the water for lunch at Istanbul Modern, curiously only accessible by walking through a parking lot full of Mercedes Benzes associated with the adjacent “Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Istanbul”

We were fortunate to have a wonderful view of the Bosphorus to go with what had to be the best Museum Cafe Lunch ever, and reasonable at that, as the multistory cruise ships who are all too often parked adjacent to the restaurant were…away that day.

The film critic and I finished up with coffees and while the sybaritic ladies retired to a nearby  hamam we looked in on the museum, which happily for me had mounted a survey of their collection embodying All Turkish Modernism in a language with which I am familiar, painting…

This proved an interesting interlude, to be documented subsequently.

 

M