. . . AND JUST LIKE THAT, OUR MAGIC CARPET flew us to Istanbul! Actually it was Etihad Airlines and it took eleven hours in the air plus ten on the ground in Abu Dhabi. But we are indeed in Istanbul, the city formerly known as Constantinople and before that, Byzantium.
On the Street where we live
Breakfast, Turkish-style
The Old Ottoman Castle wasn’t easy to find among the narrow one-way streets and dead end roads—the owner finally came to meet our taxi around the corner. We have a two-bedroom apartment with a kitchenette, steam heat and plenty of hot water. Breakfast, too, if you’re into boiled eggs, tomato, cucumber, olives and cheese. There is a market around the corner, a full street of Turkish restaurants and even a Dominos Pizza if we get desperate.
Everything is within walking distance
Blue Mosque
Hagia Sofia
Everyplace we want is within walking distance—Connie's walking distance, that is—up to ten miles. So after a good night’s rest, fed and armed with a tourist map of Istanbul and a vague memories of a visit sixteen years ago, we set off yesterday morning to get our bearings and shake off the jet-lag. The first kilometer is a bitch of an uphill climb but from there it didn’t take long to find the Grand Bazaar and from there the Blue Mosque, which is closed for renovation. Hagia Sofia, Topkapi Palace and the Basilica Cistern were easy to find—we just followed the long lines. We’ll have to come up with a plan now that we know where we want to go.
Show me the way to go home—Column of Constantine
The New Mosque
Friday is the Muslim “sabbath,” not a good day to visit a mosque so we decided to walk across the Bosphorus to climb to Galata Tower. Using the Column of Constantine as a landmark, we followed the narrow streets through the “Lingerie Alley” to “Luggage Street” and found ourselves at the New Mosque—“new” being relative. It was built in 1665, by which time Istanbul, or Constantinople, had been an imperial capital for sixteen centuries!
Sitting on the Dock of the Bay
Dolmabache Palace from the Bosphorus
Grand Mecidiye Mosque from the Boshporus
Before we reached the bridge we got side-tracked by the touts promoting Bosphorus tours. You would think we’d had enough of boats but it was hard to turn down a 90-minute tour for $4 each. We had to wait for the boat to fill up but it was nice to see mosques and palaces and ritzy hotels on both Europe and Asia.
