Baltics24: Day 18 – Istanbul
And yet, despite everything, it’s still not Constantinople. I’m beginning to think that I can’t go back to Constantinople.
Our last full day in Istanbul, and kind of the last day of the trip. Tomorrow morning we grab breakfast, then a car takes us to the airport, then the next stop is a couple of hours in Singapore before the final stretch home, where a dog should be very happy to see us.
Today was all about commerce: Byzantium/Constantinople/Istanbul has been a centre for trade for a while, like most of its history. Marco Polo was here (though I don’t think he graffitied the Hagia Sofia). Out of all this commerce arose the Grand Bazaar, it was a shopping mall before there were shopping malls, where all manner of things can be bought and sold. Thousands of shops, in the past each type of shop would have its own street, so all the gold sellers had their street, lantern sellers another, tee sellers another, spice shops had their own, and so on. Nowadays it’s a bit more evenly distributed, there are still clusters, but enough sporadic rug shops that a casual visitor can’t let their guard down. And I’m singling out rug shops, as it certainly feels like they, and possibly the random gents waving bottles of cologne and perfume around, are the most likely to yell out “Hey Sir! Hey Lady” across the lane.
I’ve shopped in many places, from the souks of Morocco to the crowded markets of Bangkok and Hoi An. The Moroccans are legendary hagglers, after a time there even an overpriced fixed price is welcomed. Hoi An are definitely up there, but at least give you a bit of breathing space. I was expecting Turkey to be similar to Morocco, with a non-stop trade off between the price and the items in the deal, but it was surprisingly easy. Maybe because we weren’t really looking at any big ticket items (spoiler alert: none of you folks expecting us to bring back gifts are getting a rug) but the couple of times we asked for a price, and then started walking away, it dropped at least 40% before we could even open our mouths. We got a bunch of stuff from one seller, and we didn’t even try to haggle as his prices were about as cheap as we expected, and he was very grateful we chose his shop and gave us both an extra little gift. So despite Istanbul being the most visited city in the world, maybe tourist buying habits are changing and the tourists are spending less. Some shops didn’t even bother haggling and let us walk away, so it doesn’t as feel as desperate as when we were in Hoi An not long after Covid restrictions were lifted and we were almost the only tourists in the town, but the bazaar didn’t feel excessively busy. Maybe it’s just a Tuesday thing.
After the Grand Bazaar we headed down around the Blue Mosque to check out some shops there and get a feel for prices based on a couple of fixed price stores. We could then see that some offers had been pretty good, while others were basically dreaming. There’s another small bazaar and shops around the back of the Blue Mosque, including a very beautiful if slightly expensive pottery shop. as with all of these shops, they let us know that the goods were all hand made, and many were artisan pieces and unique. To give them credit, their wares were beautiful and there’s a growing trend in Turkish pottery to use glow-in-the-dark dyes and glazes, and this store had a bunch that were quite cool. They also had a small workshop upstairs where an old gent was in the process of throwing a water jug on a foot powered wheel, and we sat and watched his performance. I made a coil pot in 1983, and that’s the extent of my pottery experience, so as far as I’m concerned making a pot on a wheel is easy, because everytime I’ve ever watched someone do it, they haven’t looked troubled in the slightest. They throw a chunk of clay on the wheel, wet their hands, wave them around a bit, and presto. L, however, has done a fair bit of pottery, and apparently making a thin pot or jug on a wheel is very much harder than it looks. We walked out full of admiration, though with wallets no lighter.
We checked out a number of stalls in the bazaar, L was in the hunt for a specific kind of bowl, and she wasn’t finding it, so we grabbed lunch instead. We went for the chicken doner, which came out on a large plate with thin pita bread, chicken meat, fries, and salad, with a spiced eggplant and a tzatziki meze plate. Again, the tzatziki was superb, and the chicken was tasty. Not sure it was $30 each worth of tasty, but we’ve certainly found that Istanbul can be a little pricey in places.
After lunch we shopped a little more and then headed back to the hotel for a rest to recover from all of the passive smoking we did in the bazaar and all the walking in 30+ degree heat. For our last night, we’d got tickets to see the Canadian Celtic-folk performer Loreena McKennitt and band.
We’ve done lots of tram time, so to mix it up we took the train. The Istanbul Metro system is the second oldest in the world, after the Underground. It has its own quirks, the closest station to us requires using both lifts and escalators, and some signs are a little confusing. The line also has the possibly unique Halic station, built on a bridge between the Fatih and Golden Horn districts. The bridge spans a 460m width of water, and in the middle is 180m of rail platform accessible from both sides of the estuary.
We grabbed dinner just off the Taksim Square at a place called Kebap Dunyasi, where I got to try some outstanding food items in the lentil soup and cig kofte. L has mentioned that Turkish lentil soup is amazing , and this one definitely was, rich, and with a little mint, great flavour. I recommend checking out lentil soup in Turkiye, Cig Kofte are uncooked meatballs, traditional Turkish food consisting of mince, bulgar wheat, and spices, which are then kneaded by hand for a long time, which effectively cooks the meat. It’s then served with lettuce and lemon. Very tasty, and quite spicy, the lettuce wrapping gives them an extra bit of crunch, and they definitely work well with a generous drizzle of lemon juice. FYI if I do end up exploding from gastro on the way home, I’m blaming the lettuce.
Loreena McKennitt was playing at an outdoor theatre with a 4000 capacity. To be perfectly honest, I don’t know much more than one or two of her songs, and knew none of tonight’s setlist. She’s very much Celtic-inspired, and she and her band are multi-instrumentalists, so in addition to standard guitars, keyboards, bass, and drums, there was accordion, cello, violin, harp, bass recorder, bouzouki, and oud. The music was very atmospheric, even if the outside atmosphere drifted in at 10pm when Turkiye scored a goal at the Euros (Loreena McKennitt promised to keep the crowd updated with the score and she did). The demographics were interesting, as it seemed to be a lot of 20-40 year olds in attendance. I can report, with all honesty, that Turkish concert attendees are no less assholes than any other nationality I’ve encountered: they talk through the performance, spend a chunk of time either with their phones up high or using them, and can’t seem to sit still for two hours without ducking out for a cancer fix. Sigh.
As we headed back Turkiye scored another goal, leading to much cheering from every bar we passed as well as every car horn went off. By the time we got out of the Metro Austria had score a goal, so we passed a few tense folk glued to televisions. The final whistle went as we were buying some turkish delight to take home, and possibly in celebration a shop assistant gave me a square of the most delightful baklava as Turkiye won 2-1. The baklava was gooey with syrup, sprinkled with cocoa, and full of an amazing nutty filling. It’s a good thing I’ve been going easy on the baklava, as I could have eaten the whole tray. So good.
So that’s about it, tomorrow is locked in, will try to write my wrapping up posts (still haven’t done my overall summary of the Baltics) on the flights home. Just need to see if I can cram all the stuff into my suitcase.