New year in Istanbul!

Istanbul is a city I’ve wanted to visit for a long time now. So I was quite pleased when we found a reasonably-priced deal on lastminute.com for a long weekend in Istanbul. The flight with Turkish airways was pretty good as well – with some proper food being served, and there was even an in-flight movie. What luxury! We arrived pretty late in Istanbul, it was nearly bed-time by the time we arrived at our hotel, rather perfectly located in Sultanahmet (the old part of Istanbul). So keen were we to visit Istanbul that we went for a nightly walk before hitting the sack – walking down to take in two of the classic monuments of Istanbul – the blue mosque and the Hagia Sofia. We were not disappointed – and quite a few photos were taken, I can assure you.

The weather forecast for our stay was unfortunately rather grim, but the weather was supposed to be decent on Friday. So we decided to take the opportunity to do the mandatory Bosporus cruise on that day. It is definitely one of the things one has to do to fully appreciate what Istanbul is all about, and just how darn big it is. The cruise starts at Emınönü, a pretty scenic spot by the new mosque, with great views towards Galata (the modern, European part of Istanbul). The cruise takes us past Galata (yes, as in the football team), and past the chic suburbs Besiktas (yes, as in the other football team) and Ortaköy, just at the foot of the imposing Bosporus bridge. From there, the cruise took us past I don’t know how many mansions, one more impressive than the other, dating back from the Ottoman era (the fact that it was the ruling empire in this part of the world for quite a few centuries is demonstrated quite well on this cruise…).

A couple of bridges later, we arrived at the end of the Bosphorus straits, at the mouth of the black sea, at Anadolu Kavagi. The little town makes good use of its location, in that it’s absolutely overrun by fish restaurants and touristy shops, we quickly escaped and climbed up to the ruined castle at the top of the little hill – which affods some nice views towards the black sea (mysteriously shrouded in mist). After a rather delicious fish lunch, followed by some nice Turkish pastries, it was time to take the boat back to Istanbul (this time we were facing the Asian side of the Bosphorus, so we were treated to yet more impressive mansions and country estates)…

In the evening, we decided to have a walk in Galata, the new part of town. The walk across the Galata bridge at dusk is quite a scenic experience as well – with great views towards old Istanbul, with the impressive mosques presenting their silhouettes against the sky. Galata makes quite a contrast compared to the old part of Istanbul. One could almost be in Europe, in fact, especially on the main pedestrian shopping street, İstiklâl Caddesi. After a bit of Turkish lukum and pastry shopping, we walked as far as Taksim square (the main square of Istanbul), and then made our way back to the old town. We decided to have dinner in a rather well-known place specializing in kebabs, and I can tell you the stuff they serve there is just a bit classier than the stuff you eat after a few pints of beer in Europe….

The next day, we decided to tackle the two absolute must attractions of Istanbul, the blue mosque and the Hagia Sophia. We started with the blue mosque, and were eventually granted entry, after a rather long wait. The blue mosque, it has to be said, is one of the most impressive pieces of architecture I’ve seen from the outside – majestic, but at the same time graceful. In contrast, the interior is almost disappointing, ascetic. Well, mosques in general are less ornamental than churches… Still, the huge and airy interior is quite a sight to behold as well.

We then walked over to the nearby Hagia Sophia. It's one of those places where you can really feel the flow of history - the place was originally consecrated as a church in 360, and continued to serve as on until the fall of Costantinople in 1453. From that point onwards, it was used as a mosque until 1931, when it became a museum, as it continues to be to this day. The Hagia Sophia, it has to be said, isn’t the most graceful building on the planet seen from the outside (although it is definately impressive). It looks kind of squat, and lacks the grace of the blue mosque. The sumptuous interiour, on the other hand, is absolutely stunning. Definitely one of the most beautiful churches I’ve visited.

Those two sights out the way, we made our way to the grand bazaar. It is, of course, one of the biggest ones of its kind in the world. I read in my guidebook that the value of the jewellery on offer in one of the “streets” that cross the covered market, has a value of half the GDP of Turkey. There are about 4000 “shops” in there – you get the picture? So yes, you can buy pretty much anything you want there. Given its size, and reputation, I found the place surprisingly “civilized” and “sanitized”. That’s both a good and a bad thing – on the one hand people are much less insistent than say in Marrakesh or Cairo, but on the other hand the place just feels almost, I dunno, Western ? But I think on balance, shopping there is a more pleasurable experience.

Tonight was, as you may have worked out, dear reader, New Year’s eve! So to celebrate that, after some deliberation, we decided to head to Ortaköy, one of those chic suburbs we’d taken in during our cruise. It’s a kind of trendy little part of Istanbul, with plenty of nice bars and restaurants. All in all, a pretty nice place to welcome 2012. After a nice meal (best of all, surrounded by Turkish people, rather than tourists), we had a couple of drinks (the first one being – purely by accident – and alcohol-free beer, yuck!), made our new year’s kiss, took in the fireworks, and then started the looong way back. There was no chance at all to take a taxi, but thankfully there was a night bus, which crawled along at a snail’s pace until it eventually reached Taksim square. From there we walked all the way back to the hotel, dodging drunken Turks stumbling around the streets (kinda reminded me of New Year in Finland, actually!)

The next day, my head was in better shape than it often is on New Year’s Day ;) So, even though we did have a bit of a lie-in, we hit the sightseeing trek relatively early. There are plenty of things to see in Istanbul, to say the least, but the one we didn’t want to miss was the Topkapi palace. Before checking out the palace, though, we decided to check out the Roman-era Basilica Cistern. Now that cistern is what I call an impressive piece of engineering. This huge water cistern was built in the 6th century, and is still going strong. It can hold an impressive 80,000 cubic metres of water. To summarize - it's one of the most impressive Roman-built structures I've seen. Somebody else was impressed too - it was used a location for "From Russia with Love".


The Topkapi palace was the primary residence of the Ottoman sultans for about 400 years. It’s quite a place, I have to say. The most impressive part is possible the rather spacious harem (there is, after all, 400 rooms – the sultans sure had fun eh?). The treasure is rather impressive as well, to say the least – it houses, amongst other things: some rather impressive jewellery, some possessions of the prophet Mohammed (like the beard that was shaved off him after his death, a tooth, and his sword) and least but not least, the staff of Moses. You get the picture? Impressive palace.

We spent the rest of the day walking around the old town, checking out a couple of more mosques (one of them was like a miniature version of Hagia Sophia), and a bit of shopping, just taking in the rather special atmosphere of Sultanahmet. We finished the day by having some rather tasty Turkish meatballs in one of the local eateries.

We still had a few hours to visit Istanbul on Monday morning, before catching our flight. What’s best, is that the sun finally decided to come out, after a couple of decidedly dodgy days weather-wise! So, we spent two rather delightful hours rediscovering Istanbul under a bright blue sky. Damn, what a photogenic city Istanbul is! We ticked off one more must-see touristy attraction off the list by - the Galata tower. It dates back to the 14th century, and occupied quite a majestic location, overlooking both the Bosporus and the Golden Horn. Quite a nice way to end our visit!

And that brought an end to a rather wonderful weekend. We also realized that a weekend just isn’t enough to give justice to this magnificent city (I would rank it among the greatest European cities I’ve visited, like London, Paris and Florence…). So, I think we are quite likely to come back – perhaps when the weather is a bit better!