April. We knew April was a good choice, because I (Diana) love flowers and fancied from the very beginning the idea of tullips spreading their colors and charm all over the city.
Half-awake. The tram takes us to Sultanahmet. Yellow. Hearts start beating faster. Blue. My hands start tapping. Red. I need my camera. On. Click.click.click. Tullips everywhere, just like we dreamed about it.
“Come on, it is getting late, we need to find our way at the hostel during daylight.” Edgar’s pragmatic voice echoes in my ear.
“You’re right, let me just take..one..more…shot… Done, let’s go!” I am already in love with the city.
The old neighbourhood close to Sultanahmet with wooden colourful houses had me stopped a few more times. And the cats. First a nice kitty, then two, three, then a whole invasion of cats, watching from the windows, below the cars, on the rooftops, on the fence, on the trees…. How naïve of me to think it was just this neighbourhood! The cats even enter the mosques! They are everywhere!
All of a sudden we found ourselves surrounded by a group of kids playing games, but mostly trying to play a game on us by selling magnets with taxi numbers. And we let ourselves tricked – the first TL worth spent. They also rewarded us by posing for a photo. I promised Edgar it would be the last photo for the day.
Awake and it’s midnight, tomorrow a whole day ahead on the Asian shore. One last question out-loud: really Asia? But to me the whole vibe of the city seems more Middle East than Asia.
Edgar whispers back in a sleepy voice: it’s because the Asia continent starts there…
Silly question. Let’s call it a day.
Next morning started already with the call of the prayer – ezan – a recurrent song chanted six times a day, gathering the muslims to the mosques. Every time we’d hear the rejoicing sound we found ourselves thrown in a far-off surreal space…
Another surprise
It was not before entering some coffee shops, museums and the post office that we realized there’s an omnipresent figure ruling over these places, guarding the city from the shadow – a painting with Ataturk, “Father of Turks”, hanging on the walls…Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was the first president, who turned Turkey into a secular and modern state, who gave equal political and civil rights to women, built schools and made education free and compulsory. One can imagine why he is still so admired and referred to as a political role model nowadays.
Ataturk and the cats are the spirit of Istanbul. Can it be?
Diving into this city, a sea of people of all cultures and ethnicities, Armenian, Greeks, Arabs, Jews, Syrians to mention but a few. Edgar makes sure I understand how big this city is and why it takes so much time to get from one place to another: just think that only Istanbul has 14 million people, which surpasses the population of Portugal; it is basically the largest city in Europe by population. My next thought: and that without counting with the tourists that pack it every day…
Instameeting
If you wonder why we began with the Asian side, it is because we planned an instameet with two wonderful photographers that you should follow on Instagram: Neslin (@neslin.co) and Eyüp (@eyupbeyhan), both in love with their roots and with the authentic and the city’s simplicity. They made sure we stopped by inspiring spots and learned about what it takes to be a day-by-day Istanbulian. On the way, we met another instagrammer, Cihan (@exif), who takes his hobby – photography – very seriously, and dedicates it to protests that take place mainly in Taksim square, so it is him you should follow to see the “dark side of the moon” in Istanbul.
When asked about whether he feels the pressure of tourists in the city, Cihan claimed it doesn’t affect him at all, as it is most commonly felt by locals who live in Sultanahmet. That’s true! However, it is a great central area where most of the touristic spots are placed within a stone’s throw – Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, Cistern Basilic etc.
Neslin, who is working and studying in the advertising industry, lives on the Asian side, an hour by bus from the shore, which means she has to take a bus, a boat and the tram to commute. Making the accounts, that means two hours to the European side and two hours back to the Asian side…the bridge and the Bosphorus Strait in between, dividing and connecting the two portions.
Eyüp’s location (next to the Ataturk airport) and profession of designer doesn’t keep him away from the rush of the city centre either. It seems that locals’ lives revolve around the traffic. Neslin admits she dreams of a life at the countryside, or on the Asian side, in a quiet place, where she could have a garden and grow her plants. That sounds more than familiar to us too…
Hippie stroll up and down in Kuzguncuk
It turned out that choosing Kuzguncuk was the best option: a quiet neighbourhood, creative sceneries due to the old and colorful wooden mansions, all of which allowed us to take photos at a slow pace and to learn about Istanbul from a local perspective while enjoying a cup of coffee side by side with a cup of conversation. Neslin told us that she (and most of the Turkish people), cannot start her day without a cup of tea. Only after will she ask for a coffee, and then tea again for the rest of the day. We later found out there are people who drink up to 15 cups of tea a day…
Experiencing new food is FUN
Meanwhile we stopped for some typical sweets by the sea and eventually the famous clams filled with rice, followed by the famous fish sandwiches (which should also be listed in Lisbon’s menus). Kuzguncuk is perfect for the sea food lovers. You might wonder: will the whole food thing ever finish? Well, it won’t, and you’ll convince yourself too, as Istanbul is filled with street food. Then you feel like you need to try all those mesmerizing delicious dishes. We’d recommend you try something new every day. Plus, did you forget we are incurable foodies?
For me, some of their dishes made me feel at home in Romania, not only because of the look and taste, but because they actually carry the same names. We had the luck to come across a small restaurant that had all these meals, so we ordered them all.
Turkish: sarma – Romanian: sarma
Turkish: Pilav – Romanian: Pilaf
Turkish: Çorba – Romanian: Ciorba
Turkish: Fasulye – Romanian: Fasole
Considering that Romania was occupied by the Ottoman Empire, I guess we cannot really boast about inventing them. Of course I had to share with the cook this “coincidence” of name dishes due to the Ottoman Empire that had invaded us, until they met a terrible man, Dracula, who sucked their blood and they got scared and abandoned the country. We had a good laugh…especially that I had him going for a minute. 🙂
Following the same topic, for a large variety of yum desserts you must (very must) hit the café, Hafiz Mustafa, that offers the real Turkish delights, from baklava, borek, Sütlaç, kazandibi, lokum candied walnuts to the famous Kanafeh – a cheese pastry sent from the Gods.
Evidently, you cannot miss the Turkish ubiquitous kebab that you can find at every step, as well as the pides, the lentils soup and the burgers from Taksim square, where Anthony Bourdain stopped by and then couldn’t stop eating them, and all the sea and fish food and and and… As you may see, there are limitless menus for everyone’s taste. Thus when it comes to culinary tourism, you won’t be disappointed.
As the stars somehow aligned and the weather was gorgeous almost all the days, we took advantage and walked a lot. For those of you who also do walking marathons in your vacation, don’t you feel like you need a vacation to just rest after the vacation? Ha ha..
The next days we embarked upon a journey through Cappadocia and when back to the city, we visited the rest of attractions on our list, of which we talk in another post – how to plan your 4-5 days trip to Istanbul. For off-beaten paths, we took the boat to Princes’ Island.
If you asked us what we liked the most about Istanbul, we’d say, the warm-hearted people who are all over Turkey in fact, the mix of cultures and ethnicities, streets boosting with history, exquisite architectural Islamic design, the Sufi Whirling Dervishes, the eye-candy mosques ceilings and Iznik tiles dressing the walls, the colorful bars and restaurants in Beyoglu where Turkish people mingle over pides and çay, the mix of Roman with Byzantine and Ottoman recaptured in the buildings, splashes of colors in the local markets, sunsets we caught from the Galata bridge and tower that filled our eyes with glow for months to come, the sarma that felt like we were in Romania or the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge over Bosphorus that felt like we were in Portugal.
There are so many little details here and there that left a memory.
We miss the city already. Typing: Turkish restaurants in Lisbon.
AMAZING!!! I wanna go there now! That’s a great post 🙂