... anyway, we had a good look around the stores for a few hours and came away with only a copy of The Istanbul Guide, a bi-monthly publication detailing many curent goings on in Istanbul. Not all mall visits are dedicated shopping trips! Besides we saw another part of the city. There are 3 or 4 other newish modern malls we have read about so we will likely use those as reasons to see even more of the city.
Tuesday it was back to the old Istanbul. We walked up to Taksim Square, took the funicular down to the Kabatas station on the Bosphorus waterfront where we transferred to tram T1 along the waterfront, across the Galata bridge into the old town where we got off at the Sultanahmet station. From there we walked back down the hill and got in line to enter the Hagia Sofia.
The line moved quite quickly during which time we declined many offers fom wannabe "guides", opting instead for the self-guided audio tour. When renting the audio guides the guy asked for personal identification to be left as collateral. The only id stuff we had on us were copies of our passports. Hmmmm ... a bit of a dilema for buddy renting the equipment! "Don't worry" we said "we're Canadians and we're honest, it's the law in Canada". He laughed and said "ok...I believe you" and off we went with audio equipment in hand.
This building/complex is truely awe inspiring. It is huge! Too bad, for us anyway, they are doing some major restoration work and half the main hall is a mass of scaffolding. Oh, well still lots to see, especially some of the excellent mosaics and tile works...
After a few hours we decided we had seen as much as we were going to see on this day. Maybe we'll come back again another day. We returned the audio stuff and got our passport copies back. See, we are honest! As we left the Hagia Sofia it was raining only ever so slightly but enough to bring out a hoard of enthusiastic umbrella hawkers. By the time we walked across the large plaza we were hit on by more of these guys than the number of raindrops that actually fell on us... we wandered around some side streets checking restaurant menus as we went, eventually settling on Semazen, in Sultanahmet, for a late lunch. Very nice.
After lunch we went into a store selling handbags made from old kilim carpets. Kris has been looking for a small bag of this type. This turned out to be the place!
Leaving there we decided we still had enough energy to go back to the Grand Bazaar to see if we could find the silversmithing workshop area that Rick Steves mentions in his Istanbul travel book. It was a bit of a turkey shoot (pun intended) as to whether or not we would find it as we didn't have the book with us but we gave it a go. After a number of left and right turns and the odd backtrack we found it...
... but unfortunately all but one of the silversmiths was closed. Another time.
When we bought our tickets to the Hagia Sofia we actually bought a 3 day Istanbul museum pass, so Wednesday we headed back to the old town side and skipped past the long line to get into the Topkapi Palace. This is a massive sprawling complex, too big to see in one go and our pass doesn't get us into the harem complex anyway so another visit is likely in order.
The individual pavilions are pretty cool but the real spectacular arts are in the tile work throughout the complex...
In the treasury collections (no pics allowed) the jewelry dispays are stunning. One throne is described as having over 25,000 pearls. We missed seeing the Topkapi Knife but are not sure if it was on display or not. Maybe next time.
A really neat thing to see is how the different coloured marble blocks over the portals were carved to interlock with each other...
Unfortunately the kitchens were closed to the public but our audio tour detailed that the kitchen could provide meals for as many as 10,000 people. The smokestacks arising from the kitchen complex do seem to attest to the volume of stuff that might come out of there...
And the view out over the Golden Horn is nothing to sneeze at either...
Thursday was the last of our museum pass days (they are only good for 72 hours), so we opted for the Chora Church Museum (also referred to as the Kariye Museum) out near the old city walls. This place is ranked as one of the top 30 must see museums in the world! OMG!!! It is simply stunning. The mosaics and frescoes are definitely the finest we have seen in our travels. As it seems to be our lot in life at this time, the nave and apse were closed for restoration work, but never mind. What was available was fabulous...
After spending more than a couple of hours craning our necks looking at the overhead mosaics and frescoes we decided it was time for a lunch (it was after all past 2:30) so went next door to the Kariye Hotel's Asitane restaurant. Man, the 4.5 star rating it gets from nearly 450 reviews on Tripadvisor does not lie. We can now say that we know what to do with a quince - stuff it and bake it...
... yes, stuffed with minced lamb, rice and nuts along with an assortment of yummy herbs and spices, and finished off with a pomegranate sauce swirl... it was delectable to say the least!
After lunch we walked over to the old city wall and climbed the 60 or so narrow, steep steps to the top where the view over the Golden Horn was pretty cool....
Also noticed up there were a very large number of broken beer bottles. Now, one has to wonder... you are on a wall that is, maybe, 15 feet wide, about 50 feet up, with no railings of any kind and the only way down is via very narrow, steep steps also with no railings... is that a good place to go and get yourself plastered??? Hmmm... perhaps this is an Istanbul version of the Darwin awards.
After climbing back down we made our way back to the metro tram line where we caught the T4 over to the Topkapi station (nowhere near the palace) then transferred to the T1 line back to the Sultanahmet area. From there we walked over to the Basilica Cistern. We weren't sure if our museum pass would get us in so at the ticket window, Brian asks the guy "is this good here?" and promptly flashed his TRANSIT pass... What a hoot! We all had a good laugh. Anyway our pass didn't pass muster either so we forked over the 20 TL for the two of us and went in. Pretty awesome...
That was it for the day and our museum pass. Was the pass worth it? It cost 85 TL. The 3 places we went into would have cost 65 TL so on that basis no. This pass is really only good for folks who have the energy to hit multiple places each day, and you pretty well have to do all of them to get a deal. We did get to skip a long line at Topkapi Palace and that has to be worth someting so we'll call it about even! A hint though... if you are going to buy one of these passes, start at Topkapi then you can buy the pass and the harem ticket at the same time otherwise you end up later waiting in line at Topkapi Palace just for the harem ticket.
We ended the day trying out Smyrna, a trendy bar just up the street from our apartment. Nice!
Friday we decided to visit the Carpet Museum. Atfer taking our usual transit route to old town we got off at the Sultanahmet stop and walked down the hill past the Hagia Sofia to over near the Topkapi Palace entrance where the Carpet Museum is located. On the way we stopped in at the Sultans tomb area behind the Hagia Sofia. There are separate tombs for a number of Sultans. We went into the one for Sultan Mehmet III. Beautiful structure but, with all due respect, the sarcophagi covers make it look like a miniature boy scout encampment, with the scout leader's tent having a turban hoisted above it...
Continuing on we find the Carpet Museum is closed. What??
Ok, second choice is the Mosaic Museum. This place is located in the Arasta Bazaar behind the Blue Mosque and is not particularly easy to find but worth being persistent in the search. The Arasta Bazaar is an alley way of numerous vendors some of which sell pretty impressive high end brand knockoffs. If you favor a fake Chanel handbag, for example, this might be the place to come but you'll still pay a fair bit for it.
Anyway, we eventually found the museum. It is actually The Great Palace Mosaic Museum with all of the displays being from the great palace excavated from near here during the 1930s to 1950s. In fact they are all from one massive courtyard floor of nearly 1,900 m2. They say that only about 1/8th was recoverable (being buried for centuries does take a toll), but what is there is very impressive...
Leaving the museum we walked back towards the tram line where we had previously seen a "Tourist Information" building. Being tourists, we went in to get some information (go figure) about the Carpet Museum. The conversation went something like this...
- Agent: Yes may I help you.
- Us: Hello, can you tell us what hours the carpet museum is open?
- Agent: It is in the Blue Mosque.
- Us: We know where it is, it is over near Topkapi Palace entrance.
- Agent: Yes,it has been closed for two weeks.
- Us: It was open yesterday when we went by there?
- Agent (After turning to speak with someone out of sight): Yes it is open.
- Us: Ok, but what hours is it open? We were there 2 hours ago and it was closed.
- Agent: When? ...When were you there?
- Us: Today just 2 hours ago!
- Agent: Yes it is open. Maybe at prayer.
Lunch time... we tried the Omar restaurant near the Basilica Cistern entrance. Had meatballs and chicken kebab. Meat and grilled pepper not bad. French fries and rice a bit too white... all in all mediocre at best.
We thought we would retry the Carpet Museum but by this time the temperature had dropped significantly and a chilly wind had come up. We weren't quite dressed for this. Wanting to avoid getting chilled we opted to head home for the rest of the afternoon.
Later we got a bit warmer dressed and went up a nearby street to Kahvedan for some wine and munchies. Quite nice but the glasses of wine were a bit on the small size for the price. Cheese baked in vine leaves was good.
Saturday, we awoke to a drizzly rainy day. Good day to walk down the hill to the relatively new Istanbul Modern Museum. Very nice. Easy to find, inside they have a cloakroom to ditch wet jackets, a restaurant with great views across the Bosphorus and some of the most stunning modern art you might see anywhere (no pics allowed). After exploring the various exhibits, for a couple of hours, we decided to try the museum restaurant for lunch. Entering the restaurant, we opted to wait for a window table rather than be seated farther towards the back. Only about a 10 minute wait and worth it. It was a bit foggy but we could still see across to old town, the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque...
By the time we finished a very nice lunch it was raining a bit harder so we decided to jump on the tram and go spend some more time wandering the alleys in the Grand Bazaar. Needless to say it was a tad crowded (sort of like any mall at home on a rainy saturday). On an earlier visit, Kris had seen a leather handbag that she might be interested in at the right price. When she looked at it before the guy's starting price was 425 TL and even went to 400 when Kris said she was "just looking" at that time. So, what's reasonable? Kris decides she is willing to go 300 max. We eventually found the place again and this time Kris showed a little more interest. We even went to the guy's back alley showroom! Eventually it came time to talk turkey (again pun intended) so Kris asks how much? Buddy says normal price is 1200 TL but "for you, I make good price of 850 TL". What? What happened to 400 or 425 even? Anyway to make what seemed like a long time much shorter, Kris started at 200 and went to 250, 275, and 300 and buddy went to 650, 500, and 450 and that's where it was left. Meanwhile in the background, Brian played the bad cop with mutters of "...honey that's too much..." or "we can't afford it". No disappointment, it was actually fun! We decided the original 400 must have been a week day price, not a saturday price. Maybe we'll try again during the week.
Later in the evening we went up to the bar at Otto where we chatted with the hostess. She told us they were expecting snow over the next few days! That is certainly not necessary! We also asked about changing the clock tonight but it turns out they don't change the clocks here until the end of March.
Sunday was another chilly, wet, blustery day so we decided to end the week the way we started it... another look at modern Istanbul. Off to a different modern mall we went. This time we took the metro from Taksim square to Levent where we could connect to the Kanyon Mall directly from the underground Levent metro station. This mall is part of an office/residential complex which opened in 2006. The 4 story mall is built to resemble the walls of an undulating canyon and it has a neat affect with the high rise buildings above...
... but, as anybody who has lived a winter in Calgary knows, tall buildings can create a wind tunnel. It wasn't that cold out but the wind going through the "canyon" made for a very chilly experience. That aside, this is a very upscale mall well worth a visit. We had a good look around, a decent lunch at this mall's version of The House Cafe (remember it from the Istinye Park Mall earlier in the week) then made our way over to the adjacent MetroCity Mall. What a difference! Some of it could have been due to the fact that MetroCity is totally indoors but it also seemed to be aimed more at the middle class... sort of akin to your average Canadian mall anchored by, say, Sears. More families with more children, generally much busier and more energetic and bustling than Kanyon (although we did manage to get a pic with few people in it)...
... but still some excellent stores particularly the supermarket Migros which has an astounding selection of goods. Migros is the first place we have been able to find sugar free chocolate in Istanbul.
Later, after a bit of a rest back at the apartment, we wandered up the street to Little Miss Pizza. Interesting, due to it's location on a small side street close to a mosque was not allowed to serve wine (or, more correctly, was not supposed to). A bar just down on the corner can serve wine/alcohol because it is on a main road ??? Anyway, we had an excellent pizza cotto along with a couple of cups of "coffee" (wink, wink, say no more, say no more), that just happened to taste a lot like chardonnay. Yes, coffee cups!
That's it for a good week...
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