Erdinc picked me up at 10 AM, which was a welcome relief from 6:30 AM yesterday. I love the slick Mercedes van with the smooth and classy driver (can something be slick, smooth, and classy all at once?). We drove to the pier to catch a 10:30 cruise along the Bosphorus. As Erdinc pointed out the reason for Istanbul’s size (about 12.5 million) and crucial importance in world history can be summarized by the real estate slogan “location, location, location”. The narrow passageway called the Bosphorus ultimately connects the Mediterranean with Russia, Romaina, Bulgaria, Georgia, and the Ukraine. To get to Istanbul from Italy you pass through Athens and the Adriatic Sea, then to the Sea of Marmara, which meets the Bosphorus at Istanbul.

Istanbul is where the annoying “A” is on the map. Athens is on the bottom in the center and you can see Rome on the left. The Crimean peninsula and the Ukraine are north of Istanbul on the other side of the Black Sea.

Leaving the Old Town area of Istanbul.

The seagull ate the tower just after I took the picture.

While we were on the boat, Erdinc gave me the quick overview of the very complicated Istanbul history. Before being called Istanbul, it was called Constantinople, after Constantine the Great. Here is a list of who has been in control.

 

  • Greeks, 7th century BCE to 5th century BCE
  • Persians, for 50 years in the 5th century BCE
  • Greeks again, 5th century BCE to 2nd century BCE
  • Romans, 2nd century BCE to 3rd century CE
  • Byzantine Empire, 325 CE to 1453
  • Ottoman Empire, 1453 to 1923
  • Turkey, 1923 to today

Each of these groups left a very strong impact on today’s Istanbul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Dolmabahce palace (top) and the Ortakoy mosque (bottom), beautiful buildings from just a couple of days ago in Turkish historical terms (mid-19th century)

 

They consider the Western part of Istanbul to be in Europe and the Eastern side to be in Asia. The dividing line is the Bosphorus that we were on. There are two bridges that cross the continents here.

 

 

The European side of the bridge

 

The Asian side of the bridge

 

Too cold for a swim

 

 

Servers brought foods from some of the towns after a stop of the boat. The town of Kanlica was famous for its yogurt. Not a fan of plain yogurt but I had to try it and it was good with a little sugar.

 

Restaurants on the Bosphorus

As soon as we got off the boat our driver was right there with the Mercedes van to whisk us away back to Istanbul through the crowded streets of the towns we had had passed on the boat, with a few stops on the way.

The boat we had been on in the front and the Black Sea gate in the back (the end of the Bosphorus)

The Rumeli fortress was built by the sultan Mehmet the Conqueror in four months only and is directly opposite another fort. They were built in 1452 in preparation for the final attack on Constantinople, which led to the downfall of the Christian Byzantine Empire by the Moslem Ottoman Empire. The fortress is located at the narrowest section of the Bosphorus Strait (about 600 meters – 1970 feet). Erdinc said that they put a chain between the two forts to stop ships and then shot at them from both sides.

The Rumeli Fortress from the boat

Erdinc said he would go with me to the top of the wall but he warned me that it was dangerous, then really discouraged me. He was absolutely right. It was a cold, rainy day and the stone walkways were quite slippery. My shoulder is still bad from the surgery last year and if I fell it might have been the end of my trip and maybe led to the cancellation of my upcoming trip to Korea, China, and India.

 

 

Fortress walls

 

Erdinc at the fortress theater

We had an amazing lunch on the waterfront, with appetizers, salad, sardines from the Black Sea, and Bluefish from the Bosphorus. I ate too much but it was worth it.

View from the restaurant

After we got back to Istanbul, we went to a series of attractions. Our driver weaved his way through traffic, found a place to let us off right where we wanted to go, and was waiting for us with a warm car as soon as we were ready. I mentioned to Erdinc that I had been to Israel and he added on to the tour a trip to the Jewish Museum. Apparently the Jewish community created this museum and the overwhelming message was that Turkey had treated its Jews well. For Jews the year 1492 is not remembered for “Columbus sailed the ocean blue” but as the year Spain kicked them out of the country. Many ended up in Turkey. There are 20,000 Jews still here, which is about 20,000 more than in most other Islamic countries. He said there used to be many more but he feels they voluntarily left for Israel or the US or other countries, not that they felt oppression. I’m including a bunch of pictures that state this. You have to look for the English part of each sign. You might need to double click on the picture to be able to read it.

 

I hate it when people send a mass email and say in the header something like “please delete if not interested”. It seems like we could figure that out on our own. I bring that up because I’m going to do something similar. If these displays from the Jewish Museum don’t interest you, just go ahead to the next part. You didn’t need me to say that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then were driven to a restaurant that had the best baclava in Istanbul according to Erdinc.

Turkish coffee and the best baklava in town

We then went to another of Erdinc’s amazing coterie of buddies. This time it was a friend that he hung out with whom when he was in London. He and his brother are the third generation that own a relatively large spice business. This is just their showroom and a small part of the overall business. I had a “meaning of life” conversation with the brother on the left below and he gave me some cold press almond oil and natural bath soap as a present. Great guy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the real highlights of Istanbul to me was the Spice Market. The building itself is beautiful architecturally, look at the ceiling and the floor. It used to be just for spice but now you can get almost anything there. I hope that Wal-Mart never comes to Istanbul and if it does, that people will continue to go to the Spice Market and places like this instead. Wal-Mart has killed off many of the local retailers and a great deal of the uniqueness of individual towns. While I’m at it, I’m shocked to see Starbucks here. Why anyone would go to a drab Starbucks in Indiana, PA over our handful of unique coffee shops is beyond me. Why anyone would go to Starbucks in Istanbul with hundreds of beautiful coffee shops is               (that empty space was supposed to stand for “beyond words”, but I’ve ruined it with these words right here).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beautiful floor and ceiling of the Spice Market

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scenes from the real all-purpose market (not Wal-Mart)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Give me this day my daily pomegranite juice (left). Turkish Viagra (right)

Not sure why the shop is recommended by Obama

We also went to a mosque but since I’ve forgotten which one it was, I’ll include it in the next day’s blog after I ask Erdinc. After they left me off at the hotel, I realized how tired and sleepy I was. I grazed my email and thought about writing the blog, then had a nice Chat on Apple iChat with Margaret. The hotel brought me a complimentary fruit basket and two beers. I suspect Erdinc had something to do with this. I decided to take a brief nap before going out to eat around 8. Next I knew it was 10:30 and I gave some not very serious thought to getting up. In no time it was 9 AM and time to get ready for the next day. The banana I had from the fruit basket turned out to be my dinner.

I can’t tell you how good it felt to oversleep. I had been undersleeping for close to 3 weeks. My ecosystem requires an occasional oversleep and it had been too long. Now I’m hopefully OK for my remaining 2 full days in Istanbul, 2 days in Cyprus, 2 days in Athens, and one long day home, at last.