The Land Walls, Istanbul
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After meeting with my mentor Terry at the
decidedly non-Turkish (but conveniently easy to find) Starbucks and discussing
my upcoming assignments over chai latte, we headed out to a lesser-trodden area
of town for my first foray into ‘the life of a travel writer’.
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There couldn’t have been a more fitting
place to start exploring the city than the city’s boundaries, some six and a
half kilometers of crumbling yet once-impenetrable double-layer stonewalls. The
Byzantine remains left today still trace the outline of the city and offer not
only a fascinating insight into what was once an innovative and successful
defensive structure but also a tranquil walking route through territories less
explored by the masses.
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Almost as fascinating as the towering
stones are the outer city neighborhoods they lead you through – a mass of slum
dwellings and gypsy quarters fast being buried by government-commissioned flat
blocks but retaining all the life and charm of the inner city areas. These are
the streets where baskets are swung down from balconies to collect goods. Where
smokey clusters of men clog the doorways to dimly lit taverns and young kids on
rusty bicycles still ponder quizzically the presence of the white travelers
wandering through their streets. It’s a world away from the tout-littered
streets of Sultanahmet or the glittery blur of the Grand Bazaar.
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Of course, there was also work to be done –
a reworking of the walking route and area maps, taking into account the changes
and reconstruction efforts that now rendered parts of the old guide inaccurate.
There was a tower to scale and new pathways to discover and beer to be drunk in
local haunts that few tourists would enter without prior guidebook assurance.
We walked for the best part of the day until my heels were sore and sweat
pooled in the crook of my neck, so that by the end of my first day on
assignment I was exhausted and collapsed into bed, my head swimming with information.
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Walking the final flight of steps to the top of the tower
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The view from the tower
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Terry marks the main gateways on the map
Inside the locked part of the walls
