Five out of Seven

View of Old Town Istanbul from ferry

While in Asia, we took a ferry trip up the Bosphorus Strait to have lunch at a fishing village, located on the Asian side of Turkey just before the Strait opens to the Black Sea. In one day, we got to see the Black Sea and set foot on the Asian continent. With that, I can now check off continent number five out of seven on my visited list. Unless you are European and consider America one continent. Then my statistic is even better at five out of six. And if you are French and taught that Antartica is not a continent, then I'm home free. Five out five and done. I can stop traveling...(never!).

Our trip of the Bosphorus was a chance to relax, put our feet up, enjoy the brilliantly colored water, and even watch dolphins cavorting about - quite an idyllic break from our walking. The ferry meandered up the Strait, stopping at a few villages, then a longer stop at Andolu Kavagi. The entire town was about one block long and consisted mostly of restaurants serving the tourists who want to go to Asia. I have no problem being one of the masses in this case. As we pulled up to the dock, I was struck by a colorful fishing boat also docked and full of men sewing repairs on a net. So picturesque, which just goes to show how perspective changes everything. For the men, I'm sure they did not feel picturesque. They probably felt hot, sweaty, and tired. Or maybe they enjoyed net repair day at the dock with the fellas.

While eating lunch at our waterside table, we watched two young boys fishing off of an a moored boat and swimming back and forth to the dock. They seemed to be fishing for fun since they then used their catch to torment some hungry, desperate kitties advancing with determination (eventually, they gave in and gave some fish over, thankfully, as I was finding the whole situation a bit sad). The town itself was a bit boring after lunch, although had we mustered the energy to walk to the castle about 30 minutes away, then I'm sure we would have had some lovely views...but it was so darn hot and the path did not appear to have any shade. Returning to Istanbul, we again enjoyed the Turkish architecture of waterfront homes, and for the afternoon, visited the hamam - a relaxing day from start to finish.

I Lied

I lied about my favorite activity in Istanbul being the Carpet Show. My favorite was the hamam (Turkish bath) visit. My friend and I were determined to fit in a hamam, and we'd read an article in Travel & Leisure about an old bath complex from the 1500s that had recently been restored  to its original function: The Ayasophya Hurrem Sultan Hamam. The picture looked gorgeous and the description listed sounded wonderful. We knew a hamam involved a washing/skin scrubbing and/or a massage and that hamams typically have a cold room, tepid room, and hot room. That was the extent of our knowledge. One late afternoon, we decided that the time was upon us, so we headed down to our lovely hotel manager with the name and address of this particular hamam. He informed us that this hamam required a reservation and promptly called for us, spoke at length giving our names, then hung up and said, "You must leave now, you have a reservation in 15 minutes." The hamam was just a couple of blocks from the hotel, so we grabbed our bags and headed out.

Upon arrival, we entered into a high ceilinged lobby with a fountain in the center, low couches along the center, sunken area, and wooden lockers and changing rooms behind carved screens. Everything was pure luxury. Since both a hot, sauna like room and a massage were out for me, I'd intended to just pay whatever fee there was and spend my time in the tepid room. But the front desk ladies had reserved for both us a slot that included washing and massage, and they assured me that I could participate. My friend and I were handed a thin towel (like the one I mentioned in the Grand Bazaar post) and a plastic bag filled with shampoo, conditioner, lotion, and scrubbing. We were directed to lockers to strip down all the way, wrap up in the towel, and then to meet a lady at the door to the back rooms. (This hamam was fully segregated - not a chance would I have been in my birthday suit in a mixed room!).

The lady guided us through the tepid room into the hot room, which had a humongous, marble slab in the center, beneath a glass dome letting in light. On the sides of the room were marble alcoves with gold faucets and buckets. We were each seated at a faucet, and the lady began pouring hot water over us, then instructed us to continue on our own. Just sitting in that decadent space with hot water to pour rather than a bathtub was luxurious. Then we each had a lady approach us. We were taken back to the tepid room, which was lined with a large, marble bench and more faucets. There, we had the top three layers or so of skin scrubbed off of us. My masseuse had me look down at all the skin she was scrubbing off, and it was not a pretty sight. That scrubbing down is one of the best experiences of this entire pregnancy. My skin has just been sooooo itch. My friend was taken back into the hot room for her massage, but my masseuse was ever so careful with me. She suggested that she provide a massage in the tepid room, and reassured me that the massage would be very gentle, and was she ever.  But first...the soap bubble cover. She filled a bucket with water and soap that smelled like Jasmine (but we later found out it was called Judas Tree), wrung a cloth into the soap, then flapped it about until a bunch of tiny soap bubbles formed on it, and those she wrung out all over me - much like a bubble bath without the bathtub. This continued until I was just one giant soap bubble lying atop a marble slab. Then the massage began, and as promised, she was very gentle, and she asked me every couple of minutes if I was okay. From starting in the hot room at the faucets until the very end, every time I had to move, she grabbed onto my arm in a vise grip that ensured if I stumbled, she was not about to let me go down. At the end, she had me wrap in a clean towel and escorted me back out into the cold room/lobby, where she served fresh and delicious lemonade.

From start to finish, the hamam experience was the utter lap of luxury. I'm not one for massages. I like the spa as much as the next girl, but I like body wraps and facials. NO massage. The hamam was completely different and instead, was a bit like a return to infancy, where someone is in charge of everything from bathing to wrapping you up in a towel. It was a chance to relax and let go completely, allowing other people to be in charge of my every move. A treat, indeed.

Because photos were absolutely forbidden (for obvious reasons), you'll just have to use the link above to see how impressive this hamam is!

Talking Turkey

Spice Market

My friend and I did manage to fit in a bit of sightseeing amongst our Grand Bazaar obsession. We walked around the Old Town, had an all too brief visit to the Spice Market (just as fascinating as it sounds), and hit the top spots of the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and Topkapi Palace.

Interior of the Blue Mosque

Many of the mosques are open to visitors as long as it's not prayer time. We had a fantastic habit of arriving at the mosque just as the Closed sign was being set out, so we ended up visiting only a couple.The Blue Mosque is actually the Sultan Ahmed Mosque...but there are loads of blue tiles decorating the interior, so it's more commonly known as the Blue Mosque. All over Istanbul, the tile work is simply stunning. Mosque interiors are no exception. Since living in Italy, we're quite familiar with the protocol of covering knees and shoulders and had dressed accordingly. In the Blue Mosque, however, we had to cover up completely with scarves we had in our purses as well as loaner scarves - we had loaner scarves tied around our waists that fell to our feet, scarves tied around our necks to cover our arms all the way to the wrists and scarves over the head as well. While the coverings worn by some Muslim women are quite beautiful, we looked like peasant women in from the fields for a day in the Big City. It was wall to wall crowds and stifling hot, so we spent all of about 8 minutes taking in the beautiful interior before escaping to the fresh air.

Hagia Sophia

Interior of Hagia Sophia

The Hagia Sophia, built around 350 (although the current structure was built in the 500s), was an Orthodox basilica for 900 years. In the 1200s, it became a Catholic cathedral, then went back to being Orthodox until the mid-1400s, when it became a mosque and was in use for the next 500 years or so. In the 1930s, the Hagia Sophia was turned into a museum, which is what it is today. Although it's not a museum as we'd think of one, but basically just an empty building one can walk around and enjoy the decorations. When it was converted to a mosque, it became the model of architecture for many other mosques, which I found to be a fascinating tidbit. And makes me wonder how the cathedral architecture of the 1200s and on in Europe diverged from these earlier, Christian churches.

We also visited the Cistern...actually one of hundreds of cisterns that are underneath the city, but this one is one of the largest. If you've read my post on the Piscine Mirabile, a cistern not too far from our house and serving the ancient, Roman cities in our area, then Istanbul's cistern looked much the same, only about four times bigger. There are walkways that held us above the water covering the floor (in which there are fish!) and led to the Medusa heads. In the back of the cistern are two Medusa heads turned on the side and upside down, respectively, and holding up columns. There is no definitive reason as to why the Medusa heads are there and why they are not right side up, but today, they make for interesting photos.

The Cistern

Absolutely amazing tile work everywhere we looked

And our final tourist site was a visit to Topkapi Palace, where mainly, we wanted to go to the Harem. I found out, much to my surprise, that the Harem is not what we think it is. While the Harem is where the women of the Palace lived, as well as the Sultan himself and the children of the palace, the Sultan did not have "access" to all of the concubines. In fact, for the most part, his mother ruled over the Harem. She and his Senior Wife picked his other wives or concubines, and the Sultan was allowed to have no more than five women with whom he could have relations. Since getting and then holding onto power was key, imagine the women the Mother and Senior Wife would pick...and what a backstabbing place to live the Harem must have been. We focused on the Harem, and the incredible tile work that covers every wall, and then hurried through the rest of the palace...and then returned the Grand Bazaar. That may sound shallow, but I've written in numerous posts about how my travel focus has changed. And for my friend, to an extent, as well. We get to see things like churches and palaces and castles all the time, and while each one is still special and still exciting to have the opportunity to visit, the pressure is gone to explore every bit of it and really make sure we're wringing out every last drop of the visit. We can visit a top attraction, take a look see, and head on, still feeling that we enjoyed the site. And for us, the Grand Bazaar was a much more exotic and unique attraction. Which is why you got a whole post on the Grand Bazaar, while all this other stuff is lumped together.

Carpet Show

View of the Blue Mosque and Bosphorus Strait from our hotel's roof terrace

How many husbands would say to their pregnant wives, "I don't want to go to Istanbul. You should just go by yourself." I can think of only one...mine. But as it turns out, a girlfriend had also wanted to go to Istanbul, the timing worked, and we had a great ladies' trip with lots and lots of shopping in the Grand Bazaar, which both of our husbands would have HATED! Naples has a direct flight to Istanbul, so we can get there in about two hours of flight time. And guess what Turkish Air gives its passengers in that two hours - a printed menu with food choices for the full meal they serve to you. And you get a free, checked bag. How quickly have I forgotten how pleasant flying used to be. Turkish Air just set the stage for the rest of the our vacation. I was expecting Istanbul to be super exotic, out of this world different. Instead, we found a clean, efficient, beautiful city filled with pleasant people. Walking the streets was like visiting any other large, nice city, except this one was filled with the calls of the muezzin five times a day.

A Grand Bazaar Portal

Our hotel, Hotel Nena, was right in the Old Town, just a couple of blocks from the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque, and a phenomenal view from the roof terrace, which doubled as our breakfast room and held the best breakfast buffet I've had at any hotel, ever. My friend and I quickly agreed that our first stop on Day One should be the Grand Bazaar, just in case we needed some extra time there. And upon entering the portal, we fell into some sort of Ali Baba time warp in which time both sped up and slowed down. As we wandered the alleys, explored the nooks and crannies, found a "hidden" courtyard for a sit down lunch, stopped for Turkish coffee breaks, and yes, even attended "Carpet Show," we stumbled out of the exit that afternoon having spent over seven hours inside. Seven hours! Time twists on itself inside, just as we twisted in and around the maze of streets and shops.

By the early 1600s, the shops and alleys comprising the Grand Bazaar had been covered, making it one of the oldest covered markets in the world. It has over 60 streets and I've read conflicting accounts of the actual number of shops, but the range is from 3000-4000. Much of the Grand Bazaar today is touristy (with daily visitors in the hundreds of thousands) and sells cheap, low quality goods at inflated prices. We had to search for the good stuff, but we found it! Our lovely hotel manager had offered to tell us where to get the stuff we wanted at lower prices elsewhere in Istanbul, but part of the allure of the city is the Grand Bazaar and the magic that the name conjures. When I use my Turkish towel at the beach (a thin, lightweight, cotton towel rather than our typical, terry cloth towels), I am transported back into the time warp. What did we buy...enameled, copper earrings and silver pitchers and copper teapots and pillowcases studded with old kilim pieces and harem (genie) pants and Turkish towels and kilim pillowcases and gorgeous scarves...and since 80% of visitors to Istanbul return home with a carpet, we felt compelled to bow to peer pressure.

"Carpet Show" (our name) was one of our most entertaining events all week. We had in hand the name of a shop tucked away off the main streets and considered very reputable with his offerings. My friend was interested in buying a rug, I was not. And so began Carpet Show. But first, of course, we were provided with tea. The first carpet brought out was for show only - a modern, Turkish carpet knock-off created in another country and sold by unscrupulous dealers as a real, Turkish carpet. This was to "train our eyes" to see the difference - we studied the colors, the workmanship, and so on. Then came our options. Most carpets were a minimum of 35 years old and sourced from various tribes around the country in which they were dowry rugs - woven for a special gift upon marriage and thereafter, used only for very special occasions and usually as something like a table covering rather than a floor rug. The shop assistants laid out rug after rug after rug. We exclaimed, we looked at the map to see the regions of origin, we studied the colors and the knotting on the back and the technique used. My friend found a rug she loved, and then...despite the fact that I was NOT buying a rug...the shop assistants brought out a rug I fell in love with - a Noah's Ark rug (covered with animals) on a black background and woven by a tribe from Mount Ararat. How could I resist! So as not to be impulsive, we both agreed that we should wait until the end of our trip and make sure we were not under some sort of Grand Bazaar induced haze. And to check with our husbands since the rugs are not exactly inexpensive. The great thing about waiting was that at the end of the week, when we returned for our rugs, we got treated to a second "Carpet Show," just for fun. Then the owner of the shop took us to his museum shop with some incredible pieces of clothing and rugs and even allowed my friend to try on a very old, bridal jacket.

Our lunch courtyard

And here is why the trip to Istanbul being a ladies' trip worked out. Nathan had recently gone to Bahrain and purchased two rugs, so he'd just had Carpet Show of his own. When I returned from Istanbul raving about Carpet Show and how much my friend and I loved it, his response was, "Are you kidding! I hated it! I couldn't wait to get out of the store." At that moment, I knew that "Maybe you should just go by yourself," had been one of the best things he's said to me...this year, at least.

All In a Day

In one day, we sailed the Bosphorus Strait to the Black Sea, ate lunch in Asia, and had dinner overlooking the Sea of Marmara. Istanbul is wonderful.