Walking Across Istanbul

I spent the last 3 days in Turkey walking across Istanbul (literally) and exploring old Turkish traditions and new Turkish traditions.

The city itself with all its history has a lot to offer, especially if you want to understand the Turkish culture and some of their handed down traditions. So, a walk through the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and Topkapi palace gives you a good feel for how people lived in this area from as early the 1500’s. The Blue Mosque is still a working mosque and from what I saw tradition hasn't changed much over time as far as prayers are concerned.

Çemberlitas is the old Turkish bath… after all that walking; this was more than welcome at the end of the day. There’s so much hype today around Spa treatments; well here it just seemed like the natural thing to do (for centuries).

Nargile (or Hookah) is very very common in this region. There are tea gardens (and if like me you’re visualizing tea bushes and open spaces), a tea garden really is a place where they serve Chai. And there are some quaint Nargile places in these tea gardens which are typically housed in some ancient building. My favorite had to be the one at the back of the cemetery, and not just because they made an excellent Gözleme (potato and cheese crepe)! Looking around, it feels like Nargile is one age old tradition that’s survived very well; pictures on the wall depict men sitting around after work, talking and enjoying their Nargile and the place itself was filled with men with their laptops and iphones enjoying their Nargile! (And, I have to say facial expressions sure haven’t changed over the years)

Shopping at the grand bazaar is like walking into a 100 year old building, well technically the building itself is over a 100 years old, and then looking at everything from handmade in Turkey to I've seen that in Chinatown to hmmm, feels like something from a regular mall! Maybe lamps and carpets were sold here from the beginning of time, but it sure was interesting to see a make-up store like MAC and Godiva amongst everything else!

An afternoon walk from Kabatas station to Ortakoy to sit by the pier and eat Kumpir (baked potato with several toppings!) and stuffed waffles meant walking past palaces (the Dolmabache and the Ciragon) and Five star hotels (like the Four Seasons and Kempinski). Kumpir and waffles, no matter what you say are Turkish traditions of today; the area is famous for it and everyone was headed in that direction to do exactly the same thing we were. We picked the perfect time to be walking back through Beşiktaş that day as the team from that area, yes "Beşiktaş" had soccer match with a team called Trabzonspor and it was just about to start. The streets were filled with black and white t-shirts drinking beer, eating meatball sandwiches and singing; drunk singing or singing a team song, I wouldn't know but the locals certainly did as they all joined in!

My team will agree that I've become a little addicted to Turkish coffee over the past month and this felt like my last chance to drink as much as I possibly could… so I went to the really old places like Sultanahmet Köftecisi (Estd 1920) and Hafiz Mustafa (Estd 1864), the newer cafes attached to small inns catering to the ever growing tourist population, the street vendors and the larger chains like the Turkish Khave Dunyasi and the very International Starbucks. Turkish coffee is Turkish coffee and I loved everyplace that served it!