Istanbul, or Carpets are Us.

I can't tell you how many times Rose and I heard something like "Haghia Sophia? Just this way. Where are you from? Oh, Canada. I have a brother (cousin, uncle, friend) in Toronto (Vancouver, Montreal). I am not official guide but I know a few things. The Haghia Sophia, it is very old, very beautiful. I own a small carpet shop just over here if you are interested." This happened every day, several times a day. The men hired to stand outside the various restaurants were much more imaginative: "Oh, there you are; we were expecting you earlier!" or "Did you want a table outside or inside?" And all of this in a friendly jocular way.

But the carpet guys . . . sheesh. I just started saying, "We live in Saudi Arabia and we've got all the carpets we need, and cheaper too." That generally shut them up or put them off and we could proceed in peace, until the next guy saw us, and he'd say, "Blue Mosque? Just this way. Where are you from? My brother is there." And so on. Just so you know I wasn't misleading them, here are two carpets we bought in Saudi. All hand knotted, gorgeous. The darker red one is half again as big as the blue one which is 5 feet by 3.5. They're a good size.

But so much of Istanbul more than makes up for what minor annoyance all of this turned out to be. In fact, we accepted the carpet men and their approaches as part of the landscape, another part of the cultural difference we had come to find in the first place. (Please, more tea. You are my brother.) Having arrived, the first thing I wanted to do was race up to the rooftop patio and see what Istanbul looked like at 7 in the evening. We'd read about being able to see the Bosphorus on one side and the Haghia Sophia (local signs for which read Aya Sophia) and a more romantic setting, it seemed, would be impossible. Despite the grey clouds, it was breathtaking to see a building as unlike any building I'd seen in person. Bits of it resemble St Paul's in London, but we were never able to see that from our breakfast table in any of the various places we've stayed in London. Sophia's dome has been visible since about 530 AD. The thing astounds in so many ways. Here are a few pics of some of the interior.

Notice the graffiti from1847. Some must be much older.

The balcony railing on the second floor was scratched full of graffiti, most of which I couldn't read. The mosaic you see was covered over by plaster when the place became a mosque  but has been restored to some extent. The place became a museum once modern Turkey was created in 1923. The figure you see in the centre--Virgin and Child--is from the 1100s, the other two added later.

Aya Sophia looking east.

I could go on and on about the history of the city--the ancient Roman remnants, the Byzantine aspects, the Ottoman, the Christian, and so on--but you'll get much better info on-line than you will from me, so I'll just go on with some more pics, and maybe a bit of advice.

For instance, if you go, be sure to visit the Grand Bazaar. The gold and silver is something to behold, not to mention the carpet places, many of which also sell gorgeous table cloths and prayer mats. But there are mountains of seriously overpriced tat. However, it's a carnival of colour, noise, spices, and pitchmen.





This is one "street" of dozens in the world's largest and oldest covered bazaar. If you click on the picture for a closer look, you'll see all sorts of different things for sale: dresses, scarves, more scarves, dishes, chess games, and on and on. There must be close to 50 shops dealing with silver, another 50 for gold, at least 100 that sell carpets, hand stitched tablecloths, and other impressive textiles, but not being a patient shopper, it all became too much.

It looks busy, but it is a beautiful piece. Who could resist?

Here's a pic of the tablecloth we bought, or as Rose likes to point out, I bought. Don't ask me why but we reached a point in our negotiations with the merchant where I simply fell in love with this piece, always a dangerous thing. His schtick was to refer to me as Brad Pitt and Rose as my Angelina Jolie.  I tried very to look  neither amused nor anxious to buy it, and we did manage to get it for less than half at what our man started at. Nonetheless, I expect his family will not go hungry. Here are two pics of the tablecloth. The stitching is all silk and the background is cotton. It was made over several months by a young woman who, in the tradition of her ancestors and like many young women, sewed it as part of the dowry she'd bring to her marriage. Our man, now another brother, told us it was at least 90 years old. Hmmmm . . . and maybe I'm Brad Pitt, too.

This is a bit of the detail work.

Istanbul is a very walkable city, or at least the centre of the European part of it is. There is also an easy-as-pie tram system that you can take advantage of once the hills get to you. And there are many hills to deal with. But you can tell by the number of street merchants desperate to sell you knock-off Hugo Boss socks, 12 pair at a time, or hoping with those slightly panicky eyes that you'll grace their tiny dusty shop and buy some cheap t-shirts or whirling dervish bowls, Istanbul is a city trying to pull up its lower middle class socks on the street while upper-end bars and cafe's hope to lure you in despite the ridiculously high prices. We visited the Pera Hotel, the final destination of all those well-heeled patrons of the Orient Express (Mata Hari, Hemingway--ok, not so well-heeled in some cases: he was a 24 year old reporter for the Toronto Telegram at the time--British novelist Graham Greene, Agatha Christie, Prime Ministers and Presidents, Mark Twain. They showed us the spot where a diplomat had been assassinated in the front lobby.). Our misfortune was to visit just after a 24 million pound makeover. This meant that in the fabled bar it only cost me 55 dollars for a double of Jameson whiskey and a glass of unpleasant red wine. I'd do it again though if I hadn't done it this time. The place was stunning (as were the prices). The wrought iron elevator is hand operated and rarely used, but a woman who maybe thought that at my advanced age the stairs might be too much, offered to give me a lift, so to speak. Creaky, but elegant. The elevator; not the lady. She didn't mention Brad Pitt.

There's a great little bookstore, Robinson Crusoe, which reminds me of our even better bookstore in Owen Sound (The Downtown Bookstore to those of you who are reading this from beyond the city limits). We walked out with three books by Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul's literary son.  Cafes and restaurants abound, and many of them offer excellent food at good prices. One curiosity of Istanbul is that the city is home to hundreds if not thousands of well fed stray cats. We spent a lovely 2 hours in a very old hotel restaurant, all glassed in, old wood, and plants. A large white cat came in with us and rather than shoooing it out, three of the four waiters who had nothing to do, played with the cat for 15 minutes, and then left it to wander about the place. Dogs stroll and nap their way around the city, too. On each of my runs, I came across dogs in small packs, but friendly, dogs asleep in parks, on sidewalks, on benches, on some pretty uncomfortable cobblestones. None were scrawny or scraggly or hungry. Many of them, in fact, resembled slightly overweight hairy-faced middle-aged men, several of whom I saw getting off the ferries that crowd the docks on the waterfront.

Most of the newer cafes, bars, and restaurants, along with the Pera Hotel, are in the northern section of European Istanbul, separated from the southern section where we stayed, by the Golden Horn, a body of water over which but linked by the double-deckered Galata Bridge, upon which you see Rose standing as we prepare to cross on the lower or restaurant level and brave the restaurant solicitors who insist on walking with us and telling us their menu, everyone of which offers better and fresher food than all the others on the bridge, and there are about 60 or so of them. It's a mildly daunting gauntlet.

Rose on Galata Bridge, heading north.

As you can tell, I can go on and on. So I'll try to finish quickly with just a few more pictures. The first one is of a fellow working hard up hill, although you can't tell from the picture that it is a steep climb. He is the third of three men, equally burdened, in quick succession.

The Blue Mosque, across the park from Aya Sophia, looking west.

The Blue Mosque is almost as gorgeous and inspiring as Aya Sophia, but we had been in a few mosques, seen so much beautiful tile, that by the time we visited the Blue Mosque on our last day, we'd almost lost our interest but once in we were again jaw-dropped by the intricate tile work, the enormous arches and domes, and all the beauty. Inspiring (pun ever so slightly intended).


On our last afternoon we visited the old Roman cisterns,underneath the houses across the street from the Aya Sophia. Eerily lit and very cool, the cistern is a wonderully spooky way to spend a half hour or so, strolling the boardwalks that wind in and out between the pillars. No one knows quite when they were built but the safest assumption is around the time of Emperor Justinian, so 500 AD ish. But they were forgotten about for a long time and only discovered again in the 1500s by a Frenchman who noticed people dropping buckets down through holes in their floors and hauling up fresh water. When he investigated, he found the cisterns. It's still a mystery, though, about how the lights survived so long.

Rose has developed the habit of becoming obsessed with the national symbol of whatever country we visit. In Rome it was all things Pinnochio--a marionette, wine stopper, quill and ink, pencil holder, t-shirt, and wrapping paper. In Istanbul it was the whirling dervishes on bowls. Here are the ten little ones she bought, now artfully arranged in our dining room, just so. She can tell when I've moved one, and she gets particularly upset at our cleaning lady on Wednesdays because she moves them all. As I said, it's a bit of an obsession, sort of like the whirling dervishes themselves.
Finally, we got escorted in to an old wooden house beside the cistern to look at some rugs, even after I guaranteed the fellow we had plenty of rugs in Saudi and wouldn't be buying one here. He assured me that he would be happy if we looked and did him the honour of visiting his humble shop. To get to the point, we bought a rug that we really liked; we were worn down by cups of tea, the charm of the salesman and, in my case, an Effes lager, not to mention the beauty of the thing.  So now we have a Turkish carpet, which I guess is not a bad thing. That's it in the picture.

Istanbul is loaded with so  much history, so much colour, and so much to do. If you haven't been, go. But be strong-willed when a pleasant fellow tries to tell you his uncle owns a little shop and he'd be honoured if you would just step inside. You may find out he's your brother.