I had one remaining “buffer” day in Istanbul, and since it didn’t appear I would need to go back to the customer site this day either, I decided to take a chance and visit a different continent.

This is less dramatic than it sounds, as the Asian side of Istanbul is a 15 minute ferry ride from the European side. And a beautiful ride it is, too.

The particular neighborhood I decided to explore is Kadiköy, which is easy to confuse with Karaköy, the Genoese neighborhood on the European side. At least – I found it super easy to confuse them. And by “found” I mean “find”, since I had to expressly look it up while I was writing this to make sure I had it correct. (Also to find an “ö” to cut and paste in here.)

Kadikoy has its touristy sections – there is a cruise ship port on this side as well – but in general, it’s a lot calmer, and the northern section of the neighborhood where I started out had a vibe I would probably describe as “hipster.”

Coffee shops every ten feet, art galleries, a (sadly closed) comic book store, and lots of thrift shops. A nicely refreshing change of pace from the insanity of the European side.

I didn’t really *DO* much in Kadiköy. I walked the length of the neighborhood several times. The center of the area is this bull statue, which was made in Paris in the 19th century, captured by the Germans, gifted to the Ottomans, abandoned after the end of World War 1, moved to a Hilton in the 1950s, taken to Kadiköy city hall in the 1970s, and finally moved to its current location in 1987, where it serves as an easy meeting point for confused cruise ship escapees.

I pursued a few geocaches, but my usual approach in a foreign city is to spend no more than five minutes looking once I get to the site – it’s fine to use caches as a way to take you to places you might not have otherwise seen, but once I get to the place, I want to SEE it, and not spend half an hour looking at the underside of park benches.

And I did see some very nice places.

(Isn’t this a nice picture?  I’m kinda proud of this one, and wish I were a painter so I could have a go at it.  On the other hand, if you get me this on a jigsaw puzzle I will straight up murder you.)

I had some döner for lunch, (still getting some mileage out of that “ö”) and later ice cream, and visited a few shops to buy presents for Leigh. But I planned my route poorly, and the presents and the ice cream involved a SILLY amount of additional walking. By the time I got back to the ferry terminal at about 4, I was dragging quite a bit. But just to perk up my spirits, there were a pair of musicians playing folk music on the ferry, and they were apparently familiar enough tunes that other passengers were singing along.

Given how tired I was, I decided to just sit in the train station back on the European side for a bit and think about what else I wanted to see on my last evening in Istanbul. I realized that one more bit of historiana that I hadn’t looked at yet was the column of Constantine. More walking, but the thing was put up in the 300s – how could I NOT go see it?

The Wikipedia article informs me that the column was erected in 328. It also informs me that the column is “popular as a place to perch with local pigeons,” which is perhaps somewhat un-encyclopedic, but I ain’t gonna edit it.

Finally, I wanted to go to a restaurant recommended by my friend Walt, who regular readers of this blog (Hi mom!) will remember as my expert on all things Balkan and adjacent. He recommended a fish restaurant in an old neighborhood called Kumkapi.

The neighborhood was great, although I was definitely there a bit early to see it at its most alive. Tiny streets crashing in to plazas where the tables from the sidewalk cafes did battle to hold the most advantageous territory. Unfortunately, I got the sense that the restaurant was not quite the same as it was when Walt had last visited – the name on the menus was different than the name on the awnings, for one thing.

Still – the food was still great. One of my favorite culinary discoveries this trip was a humble dip called “atom” consisting of chiles and yogurt. Every time I ordered it, the waiter was at great pains to explain to me how spicy it was, and seemed shocked that that was, in fact, a selling point as far as I was concerned.

But also – it’s chiles and yogurt. It’s got the dairy built right in. It is absolutely delicious, but on a scale of one to Thai food, it is about a three in terms of spiciness.

After inadvertently destroying one of the restaurant’s chairs, it was time to head back to the hotel. Istanbul was amazing, and I would absolutely come back here again some day.

I had allowed two more days in Istanbul just in case any followup with the client was needed.  However, it did not appear that that was going to be required.

Rather – the client promised to follow up with me! One of the folks at the company I was visiting promised to meet me the following afternoon to show me another great Turkish meal and another of the big historical sites I hadn’t made it into on Sunday.

I had the morning open, however, and I decided to start by going to visit the Theodosian walls.

The city of Constantinople was established by the emperor Constantine in the 300s, when he moved the primary capital of the Roman empire.  In the 400s, during the reign of Theodosius a set of incredibly formidable walls was erected to protect the city. How formidable?  Well, quite a bit of them are still standing today.

Perhaps more impressively, the walls kept the city safe for nearly a millennium.  Only the 4th Crusade in 1204 and the Ottomans in 1453 were able to take the city by force.

Without these walls, the Byzantine empire wouldn’t have stood for as long as it did as the gateway between east and west, and European and middle eastern history would both likely have been very different.

Oh, and they were a block from my hotel.

Walking along the walls in the morning thinking about how long they had been completely impregnable was a really sobering way to start the day.

From there, I took the Metro to the north side of the Golden Horn to Taksim Square.  Regarded as the center of the city and the main hub of the train network, it also contains a monument to the founders of modern Turkey,

The square is connected to the old Genoese quarter, now called Karaköy, by a touristy shopping street with a quaint little tram line running up the center.

I’m glad I was here fairly early in the morning, because I’m 100% certain it was going to be batshit crowded later.  At the bottom of the street is the Galata tower, which is a 7 story stone tower erected in 1348.  The district at the time was a Genoese outpost, which the Byzantines PROBABLY didn’t want building things like towers and walls, but no longer really had the mojo to prevent.

Still, their loss is my gain, as the view from the top was great.

And I’m sure nothing bad happened as a result of the Byzantines becoming basically ineffectual even as close as just across the river from their capital.

After climbing back down, I explored more of the district, and eventually ended up at the Kılıç Ali Pasha Mosque.  What’s amazing is that even though this Mosque was designed by one of the most famous architects in Ottoman history, and was located right next to the cruise ship port, I nonetheless had it almost entirely to myself.

And that made all the difference.  While the Blue and Sultanahmet mosques may have been larger, the ability to appreciate this one quietly, and not surrounded by hordes of instagrammers, made my experience completely different.

At this point it was time to meet up with my friend from the client and go have Turkish meatballs.  We went back to Sultanahmet, which is the main historical / tourist district on the south side of the Golden Horn, and I discovered the advantage of a local guide.  Where there were literally dozens of kebap restaurants in the vicinity of the Hagia Sophia, my friend was able to walk right up to the correct one, and tell me the history of the family that had run it for something like nine generations.

He also knew about the secret parking lot behind the Blue Mosque.

Finally, he knew how to game the online ordering system and get Turkish resident prices for one of the other really impressive sites in the neighborhood, the Basilica Cistern. Constructed by the emperor Justinian as a water reservoir, (no matter what they said in “From Russia With Love”) it’s a spectacular underground space with vaulted ceilings and ornamental columns.

And how did they fill all these cisterns?  Why, via an aqueduct, of course!

This is the Aqueduct of Valens.  It was built in the year 373.  We drove under it.  I can’t even with this city.

Finally, I was taken to a brewery to try a local beer.  It was an excellent Kolsch, and we hung out in a nice cool beer garden to drink it.

After I was returned to my hotel, I had an experience that I am absolutely kicking myself for not getting video of.

I returned to the rooftop restaurant for dinner (and once again had it completely to myself)  It has a lovely view over the city, and at roughly 8:30, all of the mosques started broadcasting their call to prayer.  Now, the call to prayer isn’t a recording, and it isn’t the same from mosque to mosque.  Rather, it’s an amazing cacophony, with each mosque’s caller making their own plea for the faithful over generally quite powerful loudspeakers all at once.  All of which blended together to blanket the city in sound.

The effect of which was slightly spoiled or possibly enhanced by additional layer of the bar’s sound system, which was playing a cover of “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” by Eiffel 65.

This trip to Istanbul was actually a BUISNESS trip, as I was meeting with a potential customer for my company.  I am NOT the normal customer service person, but Belgium was close enough to “in the neighborhood,” that they decided to send me.  They sent me and not other Daniel, because other Daniel is actually a lot better at the “installation” part of the job.

I won’t bore you (or break confidentiality) by posting any pictures of my visit to their laboratory, but after the business of the morning had concluded, they took me out to lunch, and you are DEFINITELY getting pictures of that.

We started with a selection of appetizers – dips, bread, salads sausage.  All of this was just as amazing as it looks.  And then – the meats:

I want to emphasize that my hosts were absolutely generous throughout all of this – they were constantly loading more food onto my plate, and making sure I was trying all of the interesting bits.  The hospitality really was incredible – if you have a chance to be taken to lunch in Turkey by locals, do it.  I was lucky enough to be taken out TWICE.  (See tomorrow’s post for more details.)

Finally, dessert:

Filo pastry, honey, and pistachios, so a lot in common with baklava, but thinner and more subtle.  Also strong tea and sherbet, which in this case means cherry juice with lemon and mint. A fitting end to a staggering meal.

After lunch, I was returned to my hotel to type up my notes, but then I had the afternoon free to go see more stuff.  So stuff I saw!

In particular, I wanted to go visit the Grand Bazaar.  After the prior day’s experience at the Spice, or Egyptian, Bazaar, I wasn’t optimistic about the actual stores, but I very much wanted to see the architecture.

On the way there, I snapped this picture of the entrance to the Istanbul University.

Quite an imposing entrance, that.  Definitely fancier than anything at MY undergrad.  The first part of the bazaar I explored was a street with booksellers, and that was lovely – quiet, shady, and with some amazing Arabic calligraphy on display.

The booksellers’ street was located slightly apart from the rest of the bazaar. As I approached the MAIN building, I was suddenly surrounded by fake handbags, fake perfume, and a surprising number of people trying to sell me socks, of all things.  THIS was about what I was expecting.

Still, the architecture of the main bazaar, once you got past the sock merchants, really was spectacular. These corridors went on forever.

But after exploring the whole building, I wasn’t even REMOTELY interested in buying anything.  Instead, I wandered off in search of a nearby geocache. After I got to the coordinates, I read the description, which said something like “This geocache is near one of the most famous mosques in all of Istanbul.”

Wait, what?  Never mind the plastic tube in the hole in the wall – I want to see that.

This is the Süleymaniye Mosque, the one I could see from my hotel room.  In addition to being spectacular on the inside (and far less crowded than the Blue Mosque), it also boasts an amazing view over the Golden Horn.

I exited the mosque by the back streets around the university, and had a nice walk through a student neighborhood.  Hard to believe these quieter streets with people drinking coffee and studying were only a few blocks from the batshittery of the bazaar.

Not having a better plan, I just kept walking all the way down to my transfer station on the metro, which was easily another half an hour in the Istanbul heat.  By the time I got back to the hotel, I was absolutely exhausted, but somehow still full from lunch, so I had a nice appetizer plate in the hotel restaurant and called it a day.

I arrived in Istanbul on Saturday evening, and my client meeting wasn’t until Monday, so I had all day Sunday to explore the city.  I had also allowed two more days for potential followup meetings, and my flight left on Thursday morning.  Did I spend Tuesday and Wednesday in a nuclear pharmacy?  Stay tuned…

But for Sunday, I knew the big tourist sites were going to get crowded, so I needed to get moving early, and pick one site to do first before the crowds arrived.  And there was really only one possible choice.

The Hagia Sophia was built by the emperor Justinian I in the 530s.  Although it is currently used as a mosque, the building predates Islam itself.  It’s coming up on fifteen hundred years old.

And they just let you go in and walk around.

Now to be clear, they don’t let you walk everywhere. Quick history of the building: It was a Catholic church for the first 500 years of it’s existence until the Great Schism separated the Eastern Orthodox faith from Catholicism.

It remained Orthodox from then until the Fourth Crusade showed up to steal the bronze horses and otherwise generally pillage stuff. Back to Catholicism for a bit until the Byzantines managed to retake the city. However, they couldn’t hold on to it, and when the empire was defeated by the Ottomans in 1453, the Hagia Sophia became a mosque.

Among other things, this transformation required putting the mihrab, or prayer alcove, off-center, since Istanbul is close enough to the holy lands that Jerusalem and Mecca have a detectable difference in direction.

The building remained a mosque until 1935, when it became a museum.  It was converted BACK to a mosque in 2018.  This latest transformation is a bit of a bummer from a tourist perspective, since it means we are confined to the second floor balcony.

But the second floor balcony is HUGE, and we still get to walk around this fifteen hundred year old building.

Truly a stunningly memorable experience.

After leaving the mosque, I walked down the street to the museum that was included in my ticket.  That was… less stunning.  The second floor had some nice historical artifacts, like this golden arm.  (Eat your heart out, Frank Sinatra.)

But to get to them, we first had to walk through a goofy-ass multimedia presentation on the third floor.  Every room had a projection and “exciting” music, and we were given headsets with narration in our language of choice.  But the music was so loud, you literally could not hear the narration over it.

It was fascinating seeing Christian artifacts described with the same dispassionate neutrality applied to non-Christian artifacts in western museums.

The Hagia Sophia museum is just across the hippodrome from the actual Blue Mosque, so I got in line to see that.  It is certainly nice, architecturally, but the crowds were starting to detract from the effect.

Moving on, it wasn’t quite time for lunch yet, so I wandered off to see what else I could see.  I found a small cistern that charged way too much for admission, and also had a DIFFERENT goofy-ass light show playing on a loop.  I would have rather just let them turn the lights on so I could SEE the ancient architecture.

By the way, this is NOT the famous “Basilica Cistern.”  Rather, this is the cistern of Theodosius.

Right. Coffee time.

I’m not coming to Istanbul and NOT getting Turkish coffee, and this place seemed pretty nice – it was down the end of a long stone walkthrough.  The container in the middle held Turkish Delight (although NOT served by a pale woman in a sled), and the cup on the right is sherbet, which is NOT an ice cream in this part of the world.

Went back to the square, ticked off some simple pictures for Geocaching, and then I decided it WAS time for lunch.  I found some great reviews of a nice place nearby, but when I got there, it was closed for a private function.  One street over, however, I found a perfectly nice fish restaurant, so I got a fish.

I also got an audience.

This little beggar sat there the ENTIRE duration of my lunch hoping I would trip and feed them. I did not.

Coming back up to the main square again, there were a few possibilities for other major attractions, (such as the Basilica Cistern and the Topkapi palace) but, as expected, they had all gotten super crowded.  Instead, I went to the quite interesting Archaeology museum.

Here’s an exhibit showing the various layers of Troy, with artifacts extracted from each one.

Here’s Artemis, the patron goddess of ARTMS, my employer.

And finally, here’s me taking a selfie in front of a sculpture that looks like it’s taking a selfie.  Remember THAT running joke?  No, of course you don’t.

It was late afternoon by this point, so I started walking back towards the Golden Horn in hopes of visiting the spice bazaar and then going and finding some food.

The spice bazaar is a large enclosed shopping structure.  The building is fascinating and historic, but as far as I can tell, the vendors are effectively a) all identical and b) all crap.

There’s also a little pet and garden area tucked in to one corner of the exterior.  It’s fun seeing pet food sold in exactly the same way as sumac powder.

To finish the day, I crossed the Golden Horn again, and went to an excellent rooftop restaurant called Tershane Karaköy.  What was so excellent about it?  Well, THIS was my view during dinner.

And the food was pretty damn good too.

Phew – that was a long day, wasn’t it?

During the week from Monday to Friday, my coworker and I did our job thing at an industrial park in a tiny town in Belgium.  There are pictures, but the pictures are of things like my dosimeter readings and cyclotron pinouts, and I assure you, neither are of the slightest interest.  I may post some pictures of Nivelles, the town where I was staying, but all together, they’ll probably make one post right at the end of the stay.

Let’s therefore jump ahead to Saturday, the 21st, and my first day in Turkey.  First off, I’d like to point out that Turkish Air served me a whole ass meal on a relatively short 3.5 hour flight from Brussels to Istanbul.  It was really good, too.

On arrival in Istanbul, a nice person from the company I would be visiting picked me up from the (ridiculously enormous) Istanbul airport and took me to my hotel.

Now, I had selected this hotel because a) it was relatively near the customer and b) it was on the “approved” list in the expense reporting software. But it turned out to a) be a really nice hotel of the “uniformed bellhop refuses to let you touch your own luggage at any point” variety and b) 100 meters from the Theodosian walls. (More on the walls in a later entry.)

Got up to my room and was struck by the view.  Also immediately misidentified the largest building visible from my window.

The large mosque on the horizon is not the Blue Mosque, built by the Sultan Ahmet I between 1609 and 1617.  Don’t be absurd.  It is clearly the Süleymaniye Mosque, built by Suleiman the Magnificent from 1550 to 1557.  I don’t see how any reasonable person could have gotten that wrong.

Also holy crap was the view from my room amazing.

Since it was now dinner time, and I didn’t plan on doing any complicated sight seeing, I decided to take the metro to the waterfront and see if I could locate a fish sandwich, or Balık ekmek.  This particular variety of Istanbul street food had been mentioned on several travel videos we watched before arriving.

The first interesting thing is that the metro station where I disembarked, Haliç, is actually in the middle of a bridge across the Golden Horn.  Definitely not where I expected to find myself on debarking the train.

I wasn’t complaining, though.  And sure enough, basically as soon as I got off the bridge, I found a nice person on a boat willing to sell me a fish sandwich.  It was delicious, and I have no idea why I look so grouchy in this picture.  Not great at selfies, I guess.

Oh, that’s also a super famous tower in the background.  I’ll climb that later.

Sandwich consumed, I just walked along the waterfront enjoying the ambiance, the view, and the sunset.  Along with precisely 35,231 other people.  Istanbul is a BIG and populous city.

But you know what?  Everyone out enjoying a nice summer evening had a remarkably similar vibe in Istanbul than it did in Belgium two nights earlier, or in Vancouver the week before.  Which is pretty cool when you think about it.

I mean figuratively, of course.  Literally it was hot.  Not Tokyo in August hot, but still hot.

Here’s one more sunset shot from the north side of the Golden Horn, because why not?