Beautifully Massive Istanbul

Yep! We embarked on yet another trip… short but as you will read it offered many unexpected surprises in a good way. Travelling again in the usual comfy hand luggage, we seemed have another long wait in Italy, something that sounded like a passport check, rubber stamping and a driver who picked us up if we understood correctly by the name of Hamdi.

Hamdi turned out to be from Istanbul… where’s that? Europe? Asia? In fact, it is in both… let’s call it Eurasia!

Think about the biggest thing you can imagine… think hard… did you come up with something? Well nevermind, because this city will make whatever you thought about look like, not only a drop in te ocean, but even maybe a speck of sand in the desert. It’s… MASSIVE! 

It took us over an hour to drive from the hotel to the city centre… and yes the hotel was also in Istanbul. It took us roughly another hour from the Ataturk Airport… and guess what? The airport is in Istanbul too!

A massive city, home to many millions of people, young and old, friendly and fond of their country and colourful culture. Beautiful mosques adorn each prominent and less prominent street, alley, square and place. The sounds of ‘Allahu akbar’ at sunrise could be heard from minarets not so far.

Down in the city, traffic was quite annoying and speaking English is not the daily piece of cake for any Turk in the street. 
But down in Taksim Square and the whereabouts, on Friday night the streets are kept alive by the countless number of people on the streets, bars with live ethnic music, street sellers selling from corn-on-the-cob to roasted chestnuts, to spices and fruit, fresh or dries, to fish and mussels, to needless say, kebabs of any shape and taste.

We fell in love with this city. Akua and I managed to find a table in Nevizade Street… very beautiful… yet very busy … and shared a local dark beer… Efes Dark… tasty and really worth the try!

At the hotel we dipped in the Jacuzzi bath, slid down the water slides in the pool, swam in the fresh Marmara Sea by the hotel, and dried ourselves in the sauna. We didn’t quite get the point of the Hammam but, we will chec about that when we come back. Yes we will return! 
And that’s not all yet. We went to the city again, this time in broad daylight. Lovely. Never saw something like it. Hagia Sophia… once a Catholic sanctuary… turned Muslim mosque… now a big museum of an inter-religious nature without any showcases. A masterpiece where in one corner you see scriptures from the Holy Quran… while in another the Holy Mother holding Baby Jesus.

  

Just across the road… the Sultan Ahmed Mosque... better known as the Blue Mosque. Here we had to take off our shoes… must be a very holy place! We saw people standing, then kneeling, then crouching down head to the floor, facing one beautifully adorned wall. We were told it’s the direction of Mecca… wherever that is, it must have a special meaning at least for those people there. The inside of the mosque is all carefully decorated in blue tiny tiles, someone was calling it mosaic… and a bit of smelly yet nice soft carpet with blue tulips. It was our first time in a mosque… but quite a special mosque indeed!

 

From there we walked across the Hypodrome where apparently once stood a place for horse-cart racing. Today, only two columns stand there in the middle… and people sitting and chillaxin’.

Then we got ourselves on a big bus and off to a boat… a very nice and exclusive boat actually. That boat would sail us up and down on the Bosphorus where West meets East… where Europe lies on one side, and Asia on the other… still in Istanbul! Bridges connect the two banks, mosques, luxury houses and other important buildings decorate the magnificent skyline.

 

Sadly it was already time to go back to the airport… but we’ll be back… for sure… cos this city has left us both fascinated and yet had not enough time to see and truly experience all…