Forty years ago (gulp!) was my first trip to Istanbul and I fell in love with the city then, it was so strange and everything about it was exotic to a California kid straight out of high school. There's been a few return visits since and this trip was one of the whirlwind type that in my business we call "fam trips". Four travel consultants, one Paris tour guide who is a mutual friend, and 3 packed days of touring in Istanbul - it took us almost as long to get there and back!
Mid-November and our weather was amazing, almost warm for our first full day and we had a lot of ground to cover. Staying at the Four Seasons Sultanahmet in the old part of the city made comfort easy to come by. Created from a century old Turkish prison, you'd never guess that now - the rooms are good sized, different layouts room to room with varying views of side streets, courtyard, some even had views of the Hagia Sophia - very light with high ceilings, warm colors, and wonderful art throughout. It has a welcoming almost residential feel on arrival.
We met our guide for this adventure, Esin, and started off with a vist to the Topkapi Palace , it's Harem and Museum. It was the center of the Ottoman government and court, the Turks ruled most of Europe and the Middle East from here. Inside the Harem section (which was where the extended family lived, not just all the women!) the marble and tile covered rooms and hallways are just beautiful. The museum is an amazing collection of jewels, gifts to the Sultans, almost too much to absorb. What surprised me was the crowds, particularly for November, is there a low season anymore? Have to put Topkapi on my Netflix list......
And easy walking distance, we next went to the Hagia Sophia, built by the Roman Emperor Justinian in the 6th century. It's the oldest domed cathedral in the world, people of Constantinople thought its dome was hung from the sky. It was a church for 9 centuries, a mosque for 6 centuries, and has been a museum since 1935. Inside is just awesome, it takes your breath away when you first enter - the space is just so huge.
Next stop was the Underground Cistern, another engineering marvel under Emperor Justinian. Built in 532, apparently the water was piped in and stored in these cisterns for use in the palace and the city itself. Scenes in the James Bond movie From Russia with Love were filmed here so now I have to go back and watch that one too!
Lunch at Hamdi Restaurant on an outdoor rooftop - views of the water and the Blue Mosque with delicious kebabs and mezze, the small plates that start the meal. I could just eat all the mezze dishes and be happily satisfied - salads, grilled veges, breads and dips, so many ways to cook eggplant.
That evening we went for dinner to a very different part of the city, in the Nisantasi area. It was about a 30 minute taxi ride and a world away from the old city - very chic and upscale, all the designer stores are here as well as boutique hotels like the Park Hyatt. Somewhere I've got the name of the restaurant (found it! called Kosebasi) as it was quite good and I'll recommend it when planning itineraries. And who knew there was good wine in Turkey?! So many terrific restaurants, not all expensive either and the hard part is deciding which one to try.
Day two and the only day of our trip that the Spice Bazaar and Grand Bazaar would be open so we had dedicated the day to shopping! First stop was the Spice market where not only can you buy spices by the bagful (and oh, the smells) but all kinds of cheese, dried fruits, nuts, olives, breads... in any city, the food markets are my favorite visits. I came home with enough saffron for the next 3 years. From there we headed into the Grand Bazaar - in business since 1461, there are over 3500 shops with everything from gold and silver jewelry to carpets, ceramics, leather - some high quality and some just tourist junk. It helps a lot to have a guide who knows who's who depending on what you're looking for. As shopping makes my head spin it was easiest just to go wherever everyone else was going and watch - although I did end up with the most lusciously soft gossamer thin pashmina to add to my collection. But that was only because we all decided a day later that we should have bought them and our amazing guide was able to find the store owner and have him come to the hotel wih bags of choices! Now there is the true test of a great guide.
For a more traditional meal, try Havuzlu inside the Bazaar - we had lunch there and I don't think it was simply shopping exhaustion that made the food so delicious.
During the day our luggage moved to the Four Seasons on the Bosphorus and we rejoined it at the end of the great shopping excursion. What a completely different hotel - contemporary, stylish, and the view, wow. The original palace building has the only rooms that directly face the water with fabulous floor to (high) ceiling windows. There are 2 wings on either side of the palace building which were built when this became a hotel, and the bulk of the rooms are here with side views. There's a beautiful spa here and outdoor heated pool - only guests at either hotel can use the facilities. I loved both hotels but for me, I preferred the history, character and intimacy of the Sultanahmet hotel. However most in my group thought they'd prefer to return to the Bosphorus and all of it's pleasures at the end of a day of touring, particularly in the heat and crowds of the summer.
The boat ride on the Bosphorus is a fun thing to do - but not at night like we did, way to chilly and you can see pretty lights but no idea what you're looking at! But we did end up at a terrific fish restaurant - a whole huge fish cooked enclosed in a salt crust and served flaming! It's fun trip to do during the day, you can see both the European and Asian skylines and shore, and the Golden Horn is full of water traffic so it's a very enjoyable hour and a half excursion.
For the last day we visited the old Hippodrome site and from there, the Blue Mosque. It's a working mosque but you can visit except during the five daily prayers. It's famous for it's blue tiles, called Iznik, but even more so because of it's Ottoman architecture. I think the Hagia Sophia is more stunning inside and the Blue Mosque more so from the outside, just a personal point of view. Our last visit was to the Dolmabahce Palace, a piece of Ottoman Baroque architecture which became the seat of power when the sultans moved from Topkapi in the 19th century. The one piece that stuck in my mind was a 4 ton crystal chandelier and the engineering that keeps the ceiling from collapsing into the grand ballroom.
Istanbul, a mosaic of cultures. The sounds of the muezzin call to prayer five times a day, the smell of roasting chestnuts from the sidewalk stands, the crush of traffic, women in headscarves walking by a Prada store, the new and the ancient. It's a fantastic city, a place one could return to over and over and continue to find something new to discover. I have to go back, again - there's still so much I haven't seen!
