All the clichés about Istanbul may be true, but none of them quite captures the essence of a city that catches your heart and blows it open, writes SHEILA KILLIAN
THE FIRST THING to know about Istanbul is that all those clichés about East meeting West, the ancient colliding with the modern, are all true. The second is that none of them quite capture the place.
The next thing to understand is the geography. The big beautiful river is the Bosphorus, flowing down from the Black Sea, dividing Europe from Asia. The Golden Horn looks like a river, but really it’s is an inlet of the Bosphorus on the European side. All this water carves up three main areas of interest to visitors.
The Old City including Sultanahment and the Bazaar quarter was once the centre of the world, the seat of power of three empires, and it still has some of the most fabulous buildings, relics and treasures in Europe. Beyoglu, across the Golden Horn is often called the new town, though it’s been a centre of commerce for 2,000 years. Then across the river there’s Asia, such an easy boat ride that it’s hard to resist.
Sultanahmet is a good place to stay, where most hotels are a short interesting walk from the bazaars, the Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque and the Haghia Sophia. It’s morning when I visit the Grand Bazaar, so not yet chaotic, but already crowds are pouring under the arch from the heat and dazzle of the city to the cooler, colonnaded space within. First comes the gold area, smelling of Windolene as merchants polish their already gleaming glass displays.
Locals stir sugar into tulip-shaped glasses of steaming tea served by vendors from elaborate silver trays. Tourists press by, taking photographs in front of the warren of covered alleyways, hesitantly touching carpets or crafts. Everything is for sale at half the asking price – cabinets of gold, cheaper beads hanging from open racks, blue glass eyes layered everywhere in baskets like oysters.
A large group of Japanese visitors looks bewildered, wondering where to spend their money. They move slowly, like fish around a baited hook. The traders stand and watch, fingering worry beads, sharing a few words with each other. They don’t smile. They smoke, and watch, and wait. Overhead, fans lurch and spin.
There are very few locals shopping in the covered Grand Bazaar. You find them outside in the tiny specialist shops clustered around the walls: an alleyway of bridal shops, a row of coat stalls, shop after shop selling elaborate sultan costumes for young boys, worn for a coming-of-age ceremony, a whole street selling nothing but shoes. Prices are even more elastic here, and there is better value.
Nearby is the Spice Bazaar where mint is piled high like lawn clippings, and spices come in all shades from the deep red of African sand to the pale grey of an Irish beach. There is haggling in a dozen languages and incredible smells of coffee, lavender and cumin. This is the best place for local souvenirs, leather and glass, fruit teas and of course Turkish delight. And just outside you can buy the latest cellphone, or at least something that looks very like it, and knock-off designer belts for a few lira.
The Topkapi Palace is worth at least half a day and is best in the early morning when the courtyards are quiet except for subdued doves and the swish and bump of a broom on the paving stones. It smells of flowers and dust. The rooms are full of treasure. An Ottoman throne cover of moss-coloured velvet glitters with gold wire, opals, pearls and rubies. There is jade encrusted with emeralds, swords with hilts that are feminine with flat, pink rubies, a dagger with three huge emeralds, shiny as glass, ringed with diamonds.
A 52-carat diamond in one room seems impressive until you see the 86-carat one in the next, looking curiously dull in a flat setting. A glass box in a corner is filled with cut emeralds the size of eggs, casual as a child’s bucket of seashells. One treasure eclipses another until it seems nothing will ever be remarkable again.
And then comes the Pavilion of the Holy Mantle. The crowd is thinner here, and the hypnotic, repetitive chant of an Imam fills the cool marble darkness. The atmosphere is hushed and reverent. Women cover their heads. We file past some of the holiest relics of Islam: hairs from the beard of the Prophet enclosed in a glass vial trimmed with gold, his sword in a plain black leather scabbard, the hilt slightly worn. A young Turk stares intently at it for a long time, and moves away looking dazed. Nothing in the Aladdin’s cave of the preceding rooms feels as much like treasure.
There is a great deal more to Istanbul than the old city, but you could happily spend days in this square mile or so. The Haghia Sophia is a wonder – a Christian church built in the 6th century, converted first to a mosque in the 15th, then to a museum in the 20th. Its huddled domes and minarets set the template for hundreds of years of religious architecture. Across the gardens it’s mirrored by the far younger Blue Mosque with its beautiful minarets and vast blue interior space. You can visit carpet shops, and spend hours drinking apple tea and haggling over knots per inch. You can take a genuine Turkish bath in the 450-year-old Cemberlitas.
There are rows of restaurants open to the street, and Turkish food is fresh and delicious. Local specialities include a stuffed aubergine dish known as Imam Bayildi, or “The Imam Fainted”, fantastic rich coffee, spicy salads and a strange elastic ice-cream made with orchids.
Street vendors sell delicious barbecued sweetcorn, and down at the Galata Bridge you can buy lunch with a difference from one of the wooden boats moored on the water’s edge. Fish are caught on one side of the boat, filleted and fried on board, and sold to passersby on the street side in a white breadroll with bottles of fresh lemon juice to season it.
Across the Galata Bridge, Beyoglu is a fast forward through history to 19th-century buildings on wide streets, and hip graffiti-covered bars and restaurants in alleys so narrow you can easily watch TV in the bar across the street as you eat. There are specialist music shops, upmarket designer wear, and the 60m Galata Tower for a stunning view of the city and the Golden Horn.
And, of course, you can’t come to a city where East meets West without taking the ferry across the Bosphorus to Asia, at €0.75 surely the cheapest intercontinental crossing in the world. The evening we cross, the moon rises behind the minarets that punctuate the skyline of the city, making the water gleam all around our boat. The chants of Muezzins from different mosques are like a call and response over the city.
We're halfway across, caught between two continents, and all those clichés are coming thick and fast, but nothing fits. Except maybe Seamus Heaney's Postscript:
Useless to think
you’ll park and capture it
More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there,
A hurry through which
known and strange things
pass
Istanbul is all the clichés and more. And as Heaney might say, it will surely catch your heart off-guard, and blow it open.
Turkish Airlines (turkishairlines.com) flies from Dublin to Istanbul. Pegasus Airlines (flypgs.com) flies from London Stansted to Sabiha Gokcen, 50km from Istanbul.
Where to stay, eat and go in the city
5 places to stay
The Four Seasons. Tevkifhane Sokak No 1, Sultanahmet, 00-90-212-402-3000, fourseasons.com/istanbul. This hotel cannot be beaten for luxury and sea views. Hard to believe it was once an Ottoman prison.
Taxim Suites. Cumuriyet cad No 31 Taksim, 00-90-212-254-7777, taximsuites.com. Luxury apartments in central location.
Hotel Amira. Kucuk Ayasofya Mah Mustafapasa Sok No 79, Sultanahmet, 00-90-212-516-1640, hotelamira.com. In the old city with great views of the Bosphorus, and friendly service. The Blue House Hotel. Dalbasti Sokak No 14, Sultanahmet, 00-90-212-638-9010, bluehouse.com.tr. Tiny blue hotel right beside the Blue Mosque in a quiet street with restaurants nearby. Small rooms, ask for one with a view.
Darussaade Hotel. Akbiyik Cad No 96, Sultanahmet, 00-90-212-518-3636, darussaade.com. Small but very comfortable with extremely friendly staff and a great breakfast.
5 places to eat
Imbat Restaurant. Orient Express Hotel, Hudavendigar Street No 34, Eminonu, 00-90-212-520-7161, imbatrestaurant.com. Rooftop restaurant where some tables have a fabulous view over the river, so come early!
Gatala Bridge. For a unique lunch, have an outdoor snack from one of the boats at the Galata Bridge – fish fried straight off the hook and served outdoors with fresh lemon juice and salt.
Aloran Restaurant. Akbiyik Caddesi Adliye Sokak No 11, Cankurtaran, 00-90-212-458-8528.
Great place to sit outdoors, friendly staff and tasty food. Find it just near the Four Seasons hotel in the old quarter.
The Meat House. Can Kurtaran Mah Seyithasan Sok 22, Sultanahmet, 00-90-212-458-6863. Situated
in the old quarter, this restaurant serves far more than meat. Great fresh Turkish cuisine, basic and inexpensive but immaculate.
Asitane Restaurant. Kariye Camii Sokak No 6, Edirnekapi, 00-90-212-653-7997, asitanerestaurant.com. For something different, this restaurant serves a recreation of Ottoman cuisine with really interesting spices.
5 things to do
Visit the Topkapi Palace in Sultanahment and lose yourself in hundreds of years of history. The harem is a small extra on admission, and well worth an hour to explore.
Take a boat trip on the Bosphorus, either a cheap local ferry or one of the many dinner boats offering cruises. The skyline is beautiful, and you get a great sense of the city.
Haggle in the Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar for leather goods, carpets, jewellery and spices, or just wander through the stalls, soaking up the atmosphere.
After all that shopping, get renewed with a real Turkish bath in one of the old historic bath houses in the old city.
Visit the Haghia Sophia and the Blue Mosque and stop to spend time in the gardens in between where locals come to relax in the evenings.
Hot spot
Refik Restaurant (Asmali Mescit Mah. Sofyali Sk No 7-12, 00-90-212-243-2834) in busy Beyoglu has a lively atmosphere in a street filled with bars and restaurants, and it serves great meze.
Shop spot
The Grand Bazaar and Spice Bazaar are easily the most fun, but for bargains, be like the locals spend your Turkish lira in the alleyways just outside.