Day 1 – November 13th
We touched down after a 2-hour flight from Israel at 7 pm. We had pre-purchased our Turkish visas online, so getting through immigration and customs was a breeze. Unfortunately, both airports in Istanbul are about 2 hours outside of the city via public transportation. Or if you take a taxi, they’re only an hour fifteen, but much more expensive. We tried to pick the most direct route, which meant we took a taxi to a metro stop, then rode a single metro line for an hour and a half into the city. We flew into the airport on the Asian side and went under the Mediterranean to emerge on the European side.
Exhausted, we finally made it to our hotel, the Nabu Hotel, which is an eclectic boutique hotel right in the Karaköy neighborhood. We walked past a series of great looking bars and restaurant – Ryan of course picked the foody section of the city. After dropping our stuff, we walked around looking for something quick to eat. We settled on street food at a restaurant called Izimir where we ate sheep intestine cut from a rotating spit. They mixed the meat with spices and vegetables and threw it in some French bread. Ryan absolutely loved it. We ate on our hotel patio enjoying the 60-degree weather and sounds of Istanbul nightlife.
Day 2 – November 14th
The next morning, we stopped by a café called Ops Cafe Karakoy to try Turkish tea and coffee. The tea was really good, not too different really than Lipton black tea, but is served steaming hot in a glass tulip cup, so there’s an art to holding it and drinking without burning yourself. The coffee is served in an espresso cup and has the consistency of coffee sludge, Elizabeth was not a fan. Ryan thought it was pretty good; he’s sure his brother R.J. would love it. There are cats everywhere in this city, lounging around on outdoor furniture and boxes. Occasionally staff will shoo them away, but they seem pretty well fed.
We continued to walk down the street and stopped for Durum at a street food establishment. We opted for one chicken and one beef. These are also meats on a spit, but cooked vertically instead of horizontally. Then they are shaved off and mixed with bell peppers, pickles, cilantro and French fries in a wrap. We walked towards the city center munching on our skinny burritos.
We walked across the Galata Bridge, which is famous for the fisherman crowding the upper deck all hours of the day and night and the numerous restaurants below. The entire edge of the bridge on both sides was covered with men and long fishing poles, hunting for what type of fish, we don’t know. There’s a great view of old Istanbul and its skyline dotted with mosque after towering mosque. We walked along the ferry port, passing rows of street vendors selling roasted chestnuts and corn on the cob.
Then we headed through the Eminönü neighborhood, which seemed to consist almost entirely of tourist shops, before stopping into a baklava bakery. Ryan loves baklava and was in heaven picking out a few to sample. Turkish people, and Ryan, love pistachios, pastry, and honey. We walked across the street to Gülhane Park to enjoy our dessert on a bench. We were so happy to stumble upon this park; it is a sprawling picturesque grove of shallow green hills and autumn trees shedding their leaves. It looks like a lot of schools even come here for recess. What a wonderful find.
We walked through the park and up to Sultanahmet, the main square with the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. The Blue Mosque is open to non-Muslims between prayer times, so we went there first. Men have to wear pants and cover their shoulders and women have to have long pants and shirts and cover their heads. They cater to tourists and provide scarves and large skirts to both men and women not properly dressed who want to visit. They are quite vigilant too; you have to go through a couple of checkpoints where staff make sure you aren’t showing too much skin. The mosque was pretty, but per usual, under construction. A lot of the interior was covered up, but you could still see portions of the adorned archways and blue paintings. Also in typical fashion, there are separate spaces for men and women to pray.
After looking around for a few minutes, we put our shoes back on and wandered the grounds. They had a series of informational boards explaining different aspects of the Muslim faith and compares/contrasts it to Christianity and Judaism. We learned a lot reading about the Quran and their ideal lifestyle for followers of the faith. We felt very welcomed at this mosque.
Next, we walked across the park to the Hagia Sophia museum. This building was built around 360 AD, initially as a Greek Orthodox Christian cathedral, then converted to a mosque, and now secularized and used as a museum. Ryan found an audio guide online, so we shared a pair of earphones and walked around the old church arm in arm. Depictions of animals or humans in paintings or statutes are not allowed in mosques, so a lot of the beautiful mosaic work was covered up during the Christian to Muslim transition – and is now revealed once again. It was great to see a building with Arabic and Muslim writing next to Christian mosaics. This church is ancient and we learned that a number of earthquakes have struck it over the years, some more damaging than others. We spent a few hours walking around and discovering the history of the mosaics and the building, before finally heading back to the hotel.
We had noticed something strange upon our arrival to Istanbul, but especially as we were walking around the main tourist spots: several men with bloody and bandaged heads. After some Googling we learned that Istanbul is the leader in hair transplant surgery and people travel from all over the Middle East to have the procedure done. They remove the good follicles from the back of your head and move them to the top. People then make a weekend of it, seeing the sites and recovering; it was not the most pleasant wound to see.
We caught the tram and lounged in bed before getting hungry. Our TV is always set to a music video channel, so we get sucked in watching music videos for at least 20 minutes every time we go home. For dinner that night we ate down the road from our hotel at a hookah bar. They enticed us in with a delicious-looking stuffed burger. Elizabeth ate the burger, with meat wrapped in salami, wrapped in cheese, wrapped in pizza dough, sprinkled with sesame seeds, while Ryan ate a version of jägerschnitzel with incredible French fries. It was so delicious for bar food. After our late dinner we went straight to bed.
Day 3 – November 15th
The call to prayer woke us up around 6:30 in the morning. Don’t know how we’d missed it the morning before, as it’s blasted from several nearby mosque speaker systems. We managed to fall back to sleep and left the house for breakfast/lunch at Köşebaşı Karaköy. It was a bit of a nicer place, in the lobby of a hotel. They brought out a dozen small plates to ask if we wanted any starters. We choose a few cheeses and spicy tomato paste dishes to eat with delicious warm bread before they brought our main courses. Which consisted of a Turkish pizza and kebabs. You eat the pizza by putting lettuce and tomatoes on top and rolling it up. The spicy lamb kebabs came with cooked pepper and tomato. After eating more than we thought we could, we were fully stuffed and satisfied.
We dragged our full bellies back across the bridge and through the park to the Topkapi Palace. We walked into the huge palace grounds not yet appreciating how big it was. We walked through various rooms and displays, one showing dozens of expensive, delicate old clocks and another showing ornate armor and weapons, from almost medieval age to turn of the century. We’ve never seen such finely decorated swords and rifle butts and couldn’t imagine any of this equipment being used in battle. Next, we wound our way through an area with great views over the Mediterranean/Bosphorus and the other sections of Istanbul. Ryan’s highlight was the circumcision room, which just looked like any other room, but that’s where they performed the princely circumcisions. Lastly, we saw an exhibit consisting only of old cookware. We skipped a lot of exhibits and rooms and were still there for hours. We got our money’s worth. Then we hopped back on the tram to Karaköy.
That night we walked towards the Galata district for dinner and drinks. Ryan wanted to eat more lamb intestine sandwich, so we found another shop and sat along the street people watching. Since we were in the area, we decided to walk into the bar district of the neighborhood by the tall Galata Tower that was light up in a blue light. We settled on a bar called the Tower Pub, enjoying popcorn, beer, and Elizabeth losing at chess 5 times in a row. We called it after midnight and walked the steep cat-filled streets home.
Day 4 – November 16th
The next morning, we went to Mum’s Café for brunch. We got lucky and nabbed a table right on the busy street. We sipped our coffee and tea and enjoyed a Turkish breakfast. Elizabeth got menemen, a Turkish egg dish with tomatoes, green pepper and cheese. It was fabulous. Ryan got an eggs benedict with beef bacon, and we wrapped it all up with a cinnamon roll. What a great way to start a day.
We had one museum left on our museum pass so we walked again over the bridge of fishermen. This time we walked further along the water. We stopped at a lookout point that showed the Bosphorus Bridge over the Bosphorus Strait: the bridge connecting the European side of Istanbul to the Asian side.
Next, we walked through our favorite park again Gülhane which was now packed with children and families since it was Saturday. Our last museum was the Archeological Museum and it wasn’t very crowded. The first room was all Egyptian and Mesopotamian things. We saw a few mummies and lots of hieroglyphics – getting us ready and excited for Egypt in just a few days. They also had old sculptures thrown in a garden that looked old and important. Our final building held old pots and plates, but each room had beautiful blue mosaic tiles decorating the floor, walls, and ceiling.
Exhausted, we hopped back on the train towards our hotel to take a little rest. That night for dinner we ate Lebanese and Turkish food at a restaurant called Tahin. We drank more Turkish tea and started with spicy potato French fries and a mixed platter with chicken, Turkish dumplings, and more fried things. Then we ended with a four-hummus sample platter, which were all tasty, but we couldn’t really tell which hummus was which.
We decided to get some after dinner drinks and stopped by a bar called BUN&BAR right below our hotel. We drank wine and beer and wanted some dessert so we ordered the fruit pail. Elizabeth thought it would be a little fruit tray, but we got a whole apple and pear, nectarine, grapes, pineapple, oranges, clementine, etc. they also gave us free popcorn so it was a strange flavor mix.
Day 5 – November 17th
The next morning, we headed to church called Sent Antuan Kilisesi. We’d found mass in English at 10 am, so Elizabeth was excited. We hadn’t been to an English service since we left the U.K. The church was on top of a huge hill, behind a myriad of winding alleyways and narrow streets, so we were pretty sweaty when we finally got there after getting turned around a few times. We found seats in plastic chairs along the side of the church. The place was packed and had some interesting demographics. The priest was Indian, the choir was all Asian women, and 90% of the congregation was African males. We guess there is work here for African males and this church is their community away from home since they have an English service. Unfortunately, we could still barely understand the priest as it echoed a lot in the large church.
The church was located in another neighborhood of Istanbul called Beyoglu. We walked up and down the street which was lined with stores and restaurants. We tried to find a few new outfits but all the clothes were for winter weather and we were heading south. Eventually, we stopped in a bar to have a beer and figure out what to do with our afternoon. We got some onion rings as appetizers, but they left a lot to be desired. They were chopped onions mixed with breading and deep fried. We decided to get some more durum and walk go over to the Grand Bazaar to do some shopping. We shared one chicken and one beef durum, but unfortunately they weren’t as tasty as other ones we’d had.
We had a decent amount of money left on our transportation card so we took the funicular down the hill, not upset about skipping the walk down, then caught the metro towards the main city. Sadly, upon arrival we realized the Grand Bazaar isn’t open, Ryan was secretly relieved to not be harassed and have to haggle. We popped in a few nearby shops then rode the metro back towards our house. Not wanting to go back to our room, we found a little coffee shop to sip for an hour or so on espresso and a chai tea latte.
Finally, it was time for another drink so we went to a bar right below our hotel called Berlin Line which we believe had been pumping party jams up through our floor until 3 or 4 am both Friday and Saturday night. Elizabeth tried another Turkish wine and Ryan a beer. They had cheesy fries on the menu so Ryan stooped to Elizabeth’s level and ordered them. They were absolutely amazing. She couldn’t have asked for anything better in her whole life. After a few more drinks we decided to end our health-conscious cheesy fry dinner with a trip to Pango the mini pancake kiosk. We shared mini pancakes covered in chocolate, strawberries, bananas and ice cream. It was Elizabeth’s dream meal. We had a long day of travel tomorrow, so we called it a somewhat early night.
Day 6 – November 18th
We checked out of our hotel and made the long journey to the Istanbul airport. Luckily, we got to the bus when we did because they only had two spots left. Driving out of Istanbul it got very smoky (or foggy?), apparently there have been a lot of wildfires plaguing Turkey this year. When we arrived at the airport and had a ridiculously smooth check-in and security process. Ryan was so excited because we got to go in the Turkish Air Lounge thanks to our Star Alliance Gold status. This was, hands down, the fanciest airport lounge we’d ever been in. It had a piano that played itself, countless food counters with freshly made food, drinks, coffee, relaxation rooms, a movie theater with popcorn, dessert tables, and very comfortable furniture. Elizabeth was worried we’d miss our flight having to drag Ryan out. All too soon, we left paradise and boarded our flight to Cairo, we wished we’d had more time in Turkey and could have ventured out of Istanbul, hopefully we’ll be back.
Things we’ve learned in Turkey:
- Men sell scratch off lottery tickets by on foot from bar to bar.
- Pepper on French fries tastes amazing.
- When Turkey’s tourist industry took a hit due to terrorism and geopolitical issues, the hair transplant tourism sector was unaffected.
- We never learned how to pronounce thank you, it’s teşekkür ederim.
Ryan and Elizabeth Goss 