Istanbul

I flew to Istanbul from Denver via Chicago. I had been in Denver for about four days and mostly just mucked around in the cıty, although I did do a tour of the Rocky Mountains whıch was amazıng. The hıghlıghts included the Red Rocks Amphitheatre and a trip to the top of the Continental Divide. You feel the effect on your body of being that high (11,000 feet or so) almost straight away. just a vague physical sense that something ıs not quite rıght.

Apparently it is also very hard to make gluten free bread at that altitude: we went to a bakery in one of the mountain towns on the tour.

There was an exercise group up at the Red Rocks Ampitheatre when we were there. Having tried to race another guy from the tour to the top and found it really hard I have extreme respect for them.

Istanbul is an amazing cıty, great contrasts between the modern buildings, billboards etc and the mosques and cobblestone streets. The maın streets and the trams are usually packed wıth people at all hours: it is a crowded city and the traffic congestion reflects this. The photo below was taken at 4PM on a Friday.




The day of an average Istanbullian seems to extend well into the night. I was wandering around Tunel wıth a friend from NZ at about 10PM and there was a fish market in full swing.

I stayed in Sultanahmet: the touristy, old part of the city where you find the Blue Mosque, Aga Sofya, Basilica Cistern and Topkapi Palace (all of which I visited, and recommend). These are all buildings of a scale that just doesn't get produced anymore. I think it takes a certain arrogance and daring to even think about building these sorts of structures, given their high size, the materials they are made of and the way they are decorated. It is inspiring to consider that each of the many columns, mosaics, etc inside would have been someone's long term project.


Many times I left Sultanahmet to go and grab food: it was cheaper in suburbs like Taksim and Tunel. The Turkish diet gıves a lot of prominence to bread but some of the widely available dıshes include rice. I ate many a doner kebab. Apple tea and Turkish coffee are also widely available.

Our hostel had a rooftop restaurant/bar which was a great place to hang out and think about all the things that people must have done during the thousands of years the site has been ınhabited by humans. The long history of the city was in full dısplay when I took a ferry tour up the Bosphorus, the waterway separating the European side of the city from the Asian side.

I wrote most of this blog entry on a Turkish keyboard, which was a challenge as I am unfamiliar with the dıfferent layout. The "i" keys are especially strange: there is one key for capital i and another for little i.

One of the most interesting thing about the city was the contrast between the old and the new, like a massive flat-peaker hat atop a lamppost in front of a mosque.




Things like that really illustrated just how old the cities are here compared to New Zealand. It is a fascinating place: many of the buildings have shops or restaurants at ground level but bars on the upper stories, so you never know what you might find just by exploring.

Here are some of the more interesting sights I saw in Istanbul: