Istanbul

“If the Earth were a single state, Istanbul would be its capital.”

- Napoleon Bonaparte

       

   So it was that we ended back in Istanbul for the final couple days of our tour of Turkey.  There is so much to see in Istanbul that it’s overwhelming if you’re the kind of person to get overwhelmed.  Our party began by seeing Topkapi Palace, followed by the Hagia Sophia, followed by the Cistern, followed by the Blue Mosque, followed by the Grand Bizarre, followed by yet another family dinner, followed by what could pass for sleep if questioned by a Navy Seal commanding officer, followed by the Pierre Loti café, followed by the Spice Bizarre, followed by a visit to the top of the Sapphire building.  It was a furious pace for two days.  I was used to it by now. 

            Getting into Topkapi Palace proved to be a tricky thing; it teased us every step along the way.  First, with its unlimited supply of courtyards that we had to tramp through in order to get to the main grounds; second, with how everybody in Turkey and all of

Europe and Asia decided to see the palace the same day that we did.  Hacking through the people gathered in front of the main gate reminded me of doing the same thing when hiking through the jungles of Cambodia and Thailand; though this time there were no monkeys to dodge, only Europeans.  Once we got through, space opened up, but only briefly.  That is to say, we had about five minutes of room around us before we hit the lines that had formed outside of the museums.  Inside the museums were all sorts of odds and ends from Istanbul’s past glory days.  There were gifts from all manner of dignitaries around the world that had been given to various Sultans over the years; from diamonds the size of eagle eggs to turquoise bracelets and pearl necklaces.  The man that would wear such things in public must have been the highest breed of blowhard in the Middle East, and an unattractive blow hard at that.  The jewelry – though magnificent and worth more than 100 times what I could save in a lifetime – was as ugly as a sick elephant.  The tourists of course were gawking at all of the pieces.  They would comment here and there about how beautiful and delicate and charming and extravagant and precious and immaculate they were.  Tourists gawk at anything behind a display case.  I could put my bath towel behind one and claim it was used for washing a king, and they would gawk at it with their mouths dropped to the floor for hours.  Tourists remain as foolish as the day they were invented.

After Topkapi Palace, we visited the Hagia Sophia.  It was a church that was converted to a mosque that was converted to a museum.  It is the most interesting building in the world.  It is the only place I have been where Christian angels share the same roof as Muslim prophets; and where writings from the New Testament and the holy Quran are found together as easily as looking at the walls and ceilings.  It is said to have been the biggest cathedral in the world for hundreds of years, and I believe it, too.  The inside opens up and echoes every sound made a thousand times over; even more so after the mosque’s dome was added, I presume.  Greeks, Romans, Ottomans, Turks; I only wonder who will rent it out next; and whether they will keep it as a museum or change it again.  It took us an hour to see it and then we were out in the streets of Istanbul once more.

            By and by, we walked to a conspicuous place and were told to wait.  After some time, a line started to form and we realized, yet again, that we would be participants in its length.  I was told we were to see an ancient cistern.  I didn’t know what a cistern was, but it sounded uneventful, and if I had ever learned about it in grade school, it was evident now that I did not recall the lesson; chances are I had fallen asleep during it.  Apparently it is just a place that holds water for another place; usually a city.  Well then, no wonder I had fallen asleep.  We waited in the line for a half an hour and then saw what we had waited for.  It was underground, this cistern, and so we had to walk down some stairs to get there; and once we were there, we could not see much on account of the darkness.  The only lights came from the pillars which came straight up and out of the water.  There were boardwalks over the water zigzagging through the underground labyrinth.  We walked on these and took note of how intricate the cistern’s design was, and how much it was relied on during its peak importance.  Generations of Ottoman’s and Turk’s could flush their toilets as freely as they had need to.  They could drink and bathe as much as time would allow, too.  I was much impressed by these things.  The cistern turned out to be one of my favorite destinations on the whole tour of Istanbul.  Had I known what it was beforehand, perhaps I would have missed it altogether, but seeing it up close was a sure reward.

        

    The Blue Mosque was next for us.  Outside in front of the mosque we waited to enter by a particularly colorful arrangement of flowers.  It was one of the five times a day that was reserved for prayer; so, as they prayed, we got lost among the flowers.  That the Blue Mosque is a magnificent building to look at is no secret.  The minarets rise from the four corners like javelins, and the terraced domes roll over one another as if they were a part of the very earth.  It is true that the finest buildings in the world follow the maxim that less is more; and that being unique is better than being big – the Blue Mosque is no exception.  It is a sad thing, then, that the inside of the Blue Mosque is so ordinary and underwhelming.  Sure, walking on carpet in only socks is nice, and the detail of the hand painted blue wall tiles is quite something, but all in all it was an exercise in anti-climatic tourism.  We saw many people still praying and many who were still reading the Holy Quran, which lent to the ambience, but the sense of being lost in a foreign room went away as quickly as the line outside after the call to prayer.  I was left standing in the room not knowing what to do next, and the whole time wanting to go back outside to my flower patch and forget that I had ever entered.  Though I have been to Muslim countries before and seen many mosques, this was the first one I was allowed inside.  Perhaps had the outside architecture not been so beautiful the inside architecture might have done something for me.  I felt almost tricked, like when I found out that Santa Claus was not real, or that Eric Clapton was British.

            At length, we went around the rest of the city mostly shopping.  We shopped on Istiklal Street, at the Grand Bizarre, at the Spice Bizarre, and here and there wherever else interested us.  There is no shortage of shops in Istanbul.  Indeed, there are too many, even.  Every time you turn around there is another place where you can buy clothes, souvenirs, trinkets, odds and ends, and of course – Turkish delights.  Had I been alone, I would have walked by as if I hadn’t noticed their existence, but as I was not alone – and was with several women – we stopped frequently to engage in the mind drudging activity of shopping.  I elect to forget the details of those long hours spent inside the shops, and instead pretend as if I had gone fishing or taken a nap.  It is better this way.  The sooner I forget the sooner I can move on; this is the only way to get over tragedy, at least that’s what I’ve been told.

          Lastly, we went to the Sapphire Building.  We took an elevator to the top, looked around, saw some other buildings, some city streets, some moving cars, and left; thus ended our tour of Turkey.

The Old World

“There are two types of education… one should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live.”

-         John Adams

Ephesus is said to have been one of the largest cities of the ancient Roman Empire.  Our guide told us this, in fact.  He told us it was the third largest among them.  Let’s assume, then, that it was the fifth or sixth largest among them.  No matter its former population – 250,000 according to our guide – its intricacies were fascinating, and its beauty was quite something.  We spent most of the morning walking through the ancient roads and looking at all the ancient sculptures and columns abound.  We saw the residential section full of houses, the library which could have been mistaken for a palace, the bath houses where aristocrats would take their baths together and socialize, the jail, the government buildings, the recreation halls, the market street, and of course the stadium.  It was not difficult to imagine what the city might have been like if it were around today.  The white marble has not faded much, but polished under the sun it would have been mesmerizingly bright and impressive.  A traveling diplomat would have surely been stunned upon arriving from the Aegean Sea and stepping off his ship at the port and making his way to the city center.  If he could keep his eyes off the hustle and bustle of the streets and look out to the mountain sides where the colors purple and yellow dominated every flower patch, he might even think he was in paradise.  Let’s forget how many slaves died building the city, and how many beggars must have been at its outskirts unable to get in.  If we do this, the city remains untouched by negativity.  After we had seen everything Ephesus had to offer, we had lunch and then left.

            The house of the Virgin Mary is located 5 miles from Ephesus on the top of a mountain; this is where we went next.  It cannot be verified, but it is assumed that the Virgin Mary was brought here by John the Apostle towards the end of her life.  The house itself was not discovered until the 1800’s following a vision by a Roman Catholic nun far away.  As we were on our way to the site, our guide managed to slip his voice into a crack in our conversation and widen it up so much that we were all presently paying attention to him as he began to throw out one questionable fact after the other; he was the kind of man who did this often, and so was a professional at it.  He saw himself as a stage performer while most of us saw him as a man blocking the windows.  There were several occasions where he would even keep us from taking a nap by mentioning the detailed steps to how pomegranate juice is squeezed.  As it was, we were on our way up the mountain and pretending to listen to him talk about the Virgin Mary, when suddenly the skies opened up and hail began to barrage our van with tremendous power and accuracy.  Not a single hailstone was wasted it seemed, for every last one of them made contact with our van and produced a deafening thunder of sound and vibration.  It got to the point where our guide had to stop his ramblings because we could not hear a word he was saying.  If there was a skeptic as to who lived in the house atop that mountain before, surely they were believers now.  And if ever mercy has been given, it was by her to us at this very moment.  We were all thankful.

            After Ephesus and Izmir, our group took a flight to Antalya.  It is one of the southern most cities in all of Western Turkey and known by many Europeans as a getaway vacation spot.  To most Americans it has never been heard of.  They may think of it as the Bahamas or Jamaica in the sense that is a place where a couple would have a wedding and perhaps even stay for the honeymoon.  The city is purely Mediterranean and couldn’t be mistaken as being anywhere else if seen on a picture or a post card; from the style of the buildings to their red tiled roofs, and from the brightly colored plants to the aqua colored water.  There are even snow capped peaks in the distance for good measure.  Our group took a boat tour under the sea side cliffs in order that we see all of this from the water.  It looked the same but with a cool sea breeze adding to it.  It would have looked like the coast of Italy or Greece if not for the mosques.  We took our time on the water and swam in the Mediterranean for some time before heading back to the docks.  I couldn’t help but think all the while that this was a city begging to be part of Europe.  It sure felt that it could be.

I should mention the food as well.  Now would be a good time for that considering how much we ate in Antalya, and also considering the beautiful places we did it in; but I ought to think it would take up too much space for now, and that I would not be able to do it justice, so it shall be saved for a later time.  It is back to Istanbul for us now.