Istanbul - Exciting, crowded, delicious

I'm writing this on an overnight bus while watching a Demi Moore David Duchovny film dubbed in Turkish - I'm not yet fluent but surely after watching this I will be. We ended our fifth day in Turkey by going to the Istanbul bus station and boarding the bus to Cappadoccia at 9 pm. While it's not exactly flying first class, travelling by bus is actually so far pretty comfortable, with tea, coffee and snacks served to us periodically by the bus attendant, though I may feel differently at 3 am when the lights come on for our third stop of the night. The kids were also happy to learn Turkish by watching movies, this journey they again tried to choose screens over sleep but at midnight sleep finally won out.

As we expected from friends' rave reviews, Istanbul is an amazing place. I knew it was big (almost half of Canada's population packed in its borders) but hadn't quite appreciated its immensity until I experienced it. One of the main pedestrian thoroughfares of central Istanbul, the Istiklal Cadessi is packed from early in the morning until late at night. Periodically the throngs are forced to part by motorcycles, delivery trucks or the historic tram coming down the middle, but the gap created by such incursions quickly fills back in.

Our hotel apartment was at the foot of the Galata Bridge and in close proximity to another bridge, both span the Bosphorous river and both of which we traversed on foot many times, hard to decide whether the view from the bridges was more beautiful at dusk

or at night during the full moon (picture taken during an evening Paul and I had to ourselves thanks to Kate and Wim being on night duty back at the apartment)

The neighbourhood we awoke in each morning was a mini version of the Grand and Spice Bazaars, both just a ten minute walk from our doorstep. Being in a poorer district and just outside of the more popular bazaars meant we could get our morning pomegranate juice freshly squeezed off carts piled high with pomegranates and oranges, our donars grilled over hot coals as we waited, and pide (similar to pizza) dough rolled out and cooked in a wood fired oven in front of us, all at half the price of what it would be in other areas (and an even smaller fraction of what it would cost in Toronto). Besides these and other Turkish delicacies, the amount available to buy in Istanbul is staggering. There are of course the obvious Turkish goods - carpets, clothing, jewellery, coffee - but also a seemingly endless selection of diverse objects for sale in dense concentrations of like merchants.

One street was packed with perhaps fifty stores selling musical instruments, a back alley by the waterfront had vendors selling huge boat anchors and chains, another area had stalls and stalls of bicycles arrayed along a 200 metre stretch. We are spared from the temptation of shopping knowing that we'll have to carry anything we buy around on our backs or our bicycles for the next five months.

On our first day Paul and I and the kids went to the Blue Mosque, entering after the mid-day prayers were done. Some friendly local students approached us to interview us (they wanted to take a picture to prove they spoke to us) for their English class 

and told us when we could enter without disturbing the mid-day prayers. We had already heard the calls to prayer echo through the city, it's an incredible sound to hear and it's audible as long as one is within radius of a mosque. 

Our second evening in Istanbul we were lucky to be joined by Kate, Wim, Lyra and Theo for a continuation of the family visit we started in Brussels. The kids enjoy cavorting with their cousins 

and walking and talking together. Tom and Theo are an unstoppable force on the streets, usually running at full speed though they do have the occasional contemplative stroll as well.

So the next day we all got up reasonably early and went with Kate and her family to the Basilica Cistern.

It was a favourite of the kids 

in large part because of the ghostly carp swimming around in the ancient water reservoir.

Our third day we visited the magnificent Hagia Sophia.

... but I'm ashamed to say after that I was museumed out. It's not that these places aren't spectacular, I just find that after standing in each line for 30 minutes to an hour, paying substantial entrance fees for the family and being surrounded by multitudes of other tourists elbow to elbow, (not to mention trying to keep the kids from toppling important historical relics or offending religious pilgrims by carousing through sacred places!) I can't always appreciate their majesty and importance. So on our final day of round one in Istanbul I took the morning off and opted not to join the others in visiting the Topkapi Palace but instead relaxed at our apartment with Tom and Theo, who played GoGo's, Uno and bad guys while I put together some picnic food and packed up our belongings in preparation for our departure.

More to my speed was our time spent wandering the crowded streets 

and narrow alleys, 

getting to know the city through direct exploration. Each day needs to have something for all of us in order to keep the peace. The winning formula for Istanbul seems to have been to alternate sight-seeing and long walks with playground visits,

games of catch with the travel football

and end of the day ice cream (two flavours minimum) to power the kids for the walk back to the apartment. Fortunately the playgrounds have their own attractions for the adults as well. Gulane Park had a dozen or more white storks nesting high in the trees and gorgeous tulips in bloom, 

and Paul and I could enjoy views of the incredible backdrop while the kids played in the park above Taksim Square. It was a long walk uphill to Galata Tower

so the kids were in need of their double scoops of ice cream by the time they'd finished the journey - the scenic view at the top not quite enough of a reward for them even if it was for us!

I also loved our ferry journeys along the Bosphorous. 

The first ferry journey was just a short jaunt but we saw dolphins which made the kids' day of course. The second day's boat trip was a longer tour of the Bosphorous, basically a trip up and down the river, made even more enjoyable by sipping Turkish coffee and salep (a warm milky pudding drink) as we gazed as the palaces and fortresses along the shore.