Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Istanbul was as amazing as ever. I really like this city, it's so lively, is build around lots of water and has so many sides, it truly has charm!
We arrived to Istanbul late in Saturday evening, and from the Metro otogar station we got a free transfer to Taxim Square where we were planning on finding a cheap accommodation. Not probably the best timing, arriving at Taxim Sq late on saturday night dragging huge bags... After a bit of walk towards the Galata Tower we found Hotel Efes (yeah name promises good things...) with a room for 2 for 40€ per night, not a bad deal at all when considering it was a room without a floor-to-floor carpet (damn dusty carpets that make me all red eyed and sneezy) and it was on the top floor so supposedly had less noise from the streep. Well we were wrong on that one, but we managed to sleep well all the nights anyway. And the hotel had an elevator, I guess it's a standard in Istanbul, but after dragging the bags up the stairs both in Hama and in Aleppo, we were happy about the small things!
Sunday we spent wandering around and looking at the sights. We ate the hotel breakfast that was the worst on the whole trip: white bread, butter, jam and tea. That's it! Well after some freshlysqueezed orange juice on the walk towards Galata Tower we were enough woken up to do some shopping at a bookstore only for me to forget my new Margaret Atwood (yeah my Canadian friends pick on me for liking her books) at another small cute clothing shop where I bought two pretty dresses. And that darn store was never open when i passed it the next days to go collect my new travel companion. Anyway, we passed Galata Tower deciding we can get about the same view with a price of a cup of coffee at any of the hundreds of roof terrace places and save the outrages fee for something else. The fees for the sights in Istanbul are outrageous in general, 10€ for Topkapi Palace and 8€ more to see the harem, 10€ more to Aya Sofia and only 5€ to see the cistern, the underground water reservoir. Well the Harem was worth a visit, at least once, to see the beautiful living quarters of the sultan, the royal family and his consorts and concubines. Inside the palace there was also on display lots of religious artefacts and treasury, which was interesting. Especially the exhibition of the sultans clothes from different times caught my attention. There was also some huge diamonds on display, one of which is 88 carats and the story tells it was found at a dump by a traveling sales man who sold it for 2 spoons thinking it was worthless... I kinda wish he never found out!
You can actually almost visit the Topkapi Palace for free by looking at it's well illustrated Wikipedia site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topkapı_Palace
After eating overly priced lunch after our overly priced sightseeing, we counted that we didn't have enough time for Aya Sofia that day, so we continued towards the Cistern, the underground water reservoir that was in place to ensure clean water is available for the citizens of this great city in case of drought or hostile attacks. The huge underwater hall with hundreds of pilars was beautifully lit and it was interesting to read about the history of the place, but in the end it was barely worth the entry fee. But, been there done that, now I know, I bet there is a great website giving you a decent virtual tour of even this place for free. I've heard though that concerts and similar are sometimes organized there, and for that purpose the eerie setting must be perfect!
The day was sunny and warm even though a bit colder than what I was used to in Jordan, but I made sure to wear the absolute minimum to ensure the absolute maximum exposure to sun now that we were in a less conservative area in the world: how could I go home with a farmers tan and claim i'd been around the warmest and most sunny places on earth? Therefore, when we went to the great Blue/Sultan Ahmet Mosque I got to cover up fully. Even on the second visit, and after some other impressive mosques, I must admit that this is the most beautiful!
After all this sightseeing we thought we deserved some pampering, and if one thing, the Turks can this: Hamaam! So we found Sultanahmet Hamaam and stepped in for some relaxing. My scrubbing, washing, bathing and massage were excellent, I got almost double of the 20 minutes massage that was promised to us. This was the bonus of being a girl, and there being no other girls in line that time. Well, Måns was not as lucky, but got probably 10 minutes of massage, which made him quite pissed, because when we entered there was a man complaining about his too short treatment to the manager, and warning us that we are not getting what we pay for, to which the manager promised us that that had been a single case of ill-tempered customer who wasn't satisfied with anything and told us not to worry. So there i was gloating about my relaxed state and wonderful treatment and he was boiling even after talking with the manager who in the end admitted that they were taking in too many male customers to be able to give everyone the 20min massage. I hope they fix that, cause otherwise the place was good, and the price was ok (60 TL for the scrub+soapmassage+oil massage), especially for girls :)
We were hungry like wolves, especially after I led us the wrong way back to Eminonu and Galata bridge (erm...) so we got to take a tram and finally got to where we wanted to be. And then it was time to let the restaurant sharks haggle us the best deal and get us as customers. We found another fancy-ish restaurant to satisfy our growling bellies, one of the fish restaurants on the Galata Bridge. After a delicious dinner with my first glass of wine in 6 weeks I was good for bed, so we managed somehow to climb up to Beyoglu and to our hotel.
Monday morning we decided to skip the crappy hotel breakfast and bought some turkish pastries and drinks to go from a cafeteria to eat them on the boat we were taking to Prince's Islands. We opted out for a nice sunny bench near the Galata Tower, which was good as we noticed when we got to Karaköy that the ferry is no more going from there but from Katabas. So we take a tram there and actually were perfectly in time for a ferry. We landed on Heybeliada, the second largest of the islands. Only service vehicles are allowed on the islands, so the horse carriage taxis were waiting for the tourists at the harbour. We obviously wanted to walk around, and found our way to the nature park with a little stony beach. Considering that you pay 4€ to get to this beach (2LT for entrance to the park and 5 more for the beach) this place was definitely not for small children or sand maniacs, as the sand was full of shards of either glass or shells, and it was a stone beach when it came to waterline making it hard to get into the water. We still managed to swim and had the beach for ourselves for almost an hour before some more people came. It was a real nice day in the sun, reading a book and playing yatzy (which I won almost every time harharhar) and swimming. Last day of tanning before going back to the rainy North....
After returning to Katabas, we took another ferry to Kadiköy for a dinner on the Asian side. After walking around a bit we stumbled into a restaurant just 8 a clock serving the Ramadan fast-breaking dinner, and because they had such nice design porcelain, we chose this restaurant, sat on the only available table on their roof terrace and took the menu that was served for everyone. No-one spoke english but that didn't matter, we got our food, it was delicious and we were happy! Afterwards we walked a bit more around, enjoying the more relaxed atmosphere on this side of the Bosporus and promising each other we'll find a hotel on the Asian side the next time. On the way back to the ferry Måns got me a bouquet of roses :)
To celebrate the last evening in Turkey we had thought of having shishas, but as there was no place offering them near the Galata Tower where found some other interesting pubs, we chose a spanish place and drank sangria and enjoyed the warm evening.
Next morning Tuesday, was our travel-day to Finland, we had a flight leaving at 15 so we had decided to have a luxury breakfast at one of the 5 star hotels roof terraces. Hotel Adanas in Sultanahmet was a great choice, their breakfast was superb and the views spectacular. Afterwards Måns went to see Aya Sofia while I sorted some internetstuff and did some last minute shopping, for example finally made it to the MANGO outlet right next to our hotel that was always just opening or already closed when we were passing by, and in just 20 minutes I managed to buy a new blazer, a dress and a top all less than half price.... I was happy! Måns was not as happy when I showed up at the hotel to pack the very minute we had agreed to be leaving the hotel. Well 10 minutes here or there, and we actually managed to make it to the flight bus on time, although I sweat more than i had sweat in Petra during the 15min walk to Taxim Square and to the Havas office from where the bus was leaving, because the pulling handle of my trolley bag was broken so i had to half duck to be able to pull it without it banging on my legs....
But Istanbul, watch out: I'm coming back!
- comments