Two weeks ago Friday I left Ankara for the first time since February, 2020. I can’t recall any time in my life when I stayed in one place for so long. We went to Istanbul, for a weekend tour organized by an old friend of ours. The places to be visited were familiar – the Archaeology Museum, Hagia Sophia, the Hippodrome, the Sülemaniye, for example – but the thought of taking a trip, any trip, even to a city where we had lived was exciting, but tinged with a bit of anxiety.
We took the high-speed train,
leaving Ankara at 1:00 pm. Arriving just
before 6:00 pm at what can hardly be called a train station (especially for
those of us who remember the glorious Haydar Paşa station), we uploaded money
onto our Istanbul Cards (leftovers from a trip in 2019) and boarded the
Marmaray metro line for the passage under the Bosporus. At the Sirkeci train station, we changed to
the tramway heading up to Sultanahmet, to avoid having to climb the hill. And then we walked downhill to our hotel, near
the seashore. People, people, people . .
. everywhere, in the metro and on the streets, people of all sorts.
We had dinner on the rooftop terrace
of the hotel, with a great view of the sea in one direction and, in the other, uphill,
of the Sultanahmet Mosque (the Blue Mosque).
A Pakistani wedding dinner party was occupying half the terrace. The bride and groom were enclosed in a
flower-lined bower. Oddly, there was no
music or dancing, which would be staples at a Turkish wedding, but photos were clearly
of major importance, with one group of well-to-do guests after the other posing
near the married couple.
The next morning we set out on foot
for the Archaeology Museum: uphill, and through the check point of the first,
outer gate of the Topkapı Palace.
The Museum is grand and has great collections.
The façade has been cleaned
of soot and grime in recent years and looks great.
Outdoors, in the garden, I am
fascinated by a big head of Medusa.
Marie-Henriette is contemplating
giant porphyry sarcophagi that once contained the remains of Byzantine royalty.
Inside, the Greek and Roman
sculpture galleries have been renovated since my last visit: a major
upgrade. I enjoyed the huge statue of
the Roman emperor Hadrian, from Crete,
not to mention an over-the-top
statue of Tyche (Fortuna) from Düzce.
But the late antique sculpture from
Aphrodisias includes some masterpieces.
From the Museum we walked to the
Rüstem Paşa Mosque, passing by the Grand Post Office (1905-1909), also nicely
cleaned of grime and soot
with an intriguing fixer-upper of
the same vintage, across the street.
The Rüstem Paşa Mosque (1561), tucked away in a market district, is famous for its tiles, inside and out.
Inside, the front area is reserved for men who wish to pray (praying women have their own place, fenced off, at the back).
Tourists, like us, must stay in the rear.
One man came in with his little boy, who happily ate his simit while his dad prayed.
Elsewhere, a man was taking a nap, snoring
away.
After visiting the mosque, we walked to the Golden Horn and boarded a boat, for a two-hour Bosporus cruise.
The weather turned cloudy and blustery. The boat had a supply of blankets, which I and many others took advantage of. Nonetheless, a trip on the Bosporus is always a pleasure.
[blog post to be continued]
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