Istanbul. I love you.

I’ve recently had a thank you letter from my liver. In a country that is 98% Muslim there is very little opportunity to drink wine with dinner. We have been avoiding the tourist restaurants where alcohol is sold, and eating in mostly Turkish only establishments. The language issue is a problem as virtually no one except the tourist hospitality trade and the carpet sellers speaks English. We are finding the point smile and tummy rub seems to get a decent sort of menu.

After a few days in our apartment by the sea, our hosts told us that the apartment we had booked was ready, so we packed up our bags (our belongings seem to be growing) and moved to our new apartment. It is quaint and old with some very curious plumbing and electrics, but all part of the great adventure.

We have had several breakfasts by the Manmara sea in a plush, council run restaurant with linen and cloth napkins and attentive (and quite attractive) Turkish waiters. Almost all the wait staff in Turkey appear to be men. The restaurant is on a finger of land with the sea wall and the sea on one side and a garden on the other. The menu is simple. Breakfast is 3 cheeses, salami, a boiled egg, tomatoes, cucumbers and a huge basket of fresh bread, butter, honey and Nutella spread. All this while the local cats sit piteously at your table and meow.

One afternoon we spent an hour or so sitting at the hippodrome with a young teacher from Anatolia. He was on school holidays and up from his country town and keen to practice his English. He was the first person in his family to have an academic job. He told us that the peasants where he lives do not value education at all, so there is no support for homework or even attendance. He said wages are very low, families are encouraged to have as many children as possible so that there will be someone to look after the elderly parents. His parents had an arranged marriage. His mother was 14 years old and his father was 32 years old when they married. I have his email address and will contact him. A lovely man.

We went to the huge of Santa Sophie. Originally a Christian church, made into a mosque with the addition of two minarets and now a museum. We wandered through looking at beautiful crypts with green coffins of the sultan’s daughters and wife. It was cool and quiet despite the huge crowds. We walked up sloping stone passageways to reach the upper story of the church and stood for a while looking down into the body of the church. It was an awesome experience.

Now all these mosques and palaces and churches needed a water supply and we went to visit the cisterns. This is a huge underground reservoir where water from the forest 16 miles away was brought by aqueducts into the city. Amazing, quiet and cool and large ghostly fish swimming quietly in the silent waters.

 Our last day in Turkey we went to the old bazaar. It was everything you have heard about or imagined and more. It is spread over 58 streets but all covered in and divided into sections like gold jewellery and lighting and leather. One could spend days in there just wandering. Not a place to go if if you don’t like crowds, heat and bargaining. Jim surprised me by doing a very good deal on a couple of leather coats. Outside were every type of street hawker including a man making coloured toffee sweets.

Off to Spain and  sad to be leaving Turkey. We would definitely come back