I happened to have less work this weekend which allowed me to take a second Istanbul excursion for sightseeing. I decided to go with Verena and Anna. Verena is from Germany and Anna is from the Ukraine. We all met in Taksim Square by the Burger King (a big meeting point for everyone in Istanbul). Then we began to walk on a side street of Taksim (the one to the left of Istiklal Caddesi) to see some of the less traveled neighborhoods. We saw a couple of famous breakfast places and the German hospital , but not anything too spectacular. It was just a neat neighborhood to walk around in and kind of get a feel for Istanbul and stuff.
In this quarter of Istanbul, many countries have their own hospital. I guess for whatever reason the Europeans don’t trust Turkish healthcare. It is a strange concept because in America we do not have private hospitals owned by other countries.
We continued our walk down the hill and made it to Kabataş. After Kabataş we got on the bus and headed for Eminönü. There, we changed buses and rode all the way to Fener. We were hoping to find the Jewish quarter of the city (Verena asked me to come along as their official Jewish expert). Much to our dismay, the Jewish quarter was harder to find than we thought. Instead we found a Bulgarian church made of cast steel. We went inside and it was really pretty, but quite a bit different. Anna could read the Bulgarian and translated it (she didn’t know she could read Bulgarian but apparently it is very close to Russian). We then had lunch and continued walking around visiting a couple more churches.
One site in the area that I really wanted to see was the Mosque of Sultan Selim II. It was a mosque on a large hill overlooking the Golden Horn allowing a wonderful view of the historic district of Istanbul (similar but not exactly the same as the view from Eyup). Upon reaching the top after a 30 minute climb, we were incredibly disappointed to discover that the mosque was closed and under construction.
Remember before when I said for whatever reason I am very lucky and Turkish people generally like me (for what reason I don’t know)? Well this is another story of such luck. The construction guy at the mosque informed us that it was closed, but upon seeing our sad faces, offered to show us around anyway. He lead us inside the complex to the grave of the Sultan, his wife, and his child. Then he took us to the manzara (Turkish for area with a nice view) where we could see the great view of Istanbul. At the view another Turkish person came over to him and started asking questions. Although I could not understand what they were saying, the guy that approached did not seem happy with our presence. Our “tour guide” waved him off and we continued walking around the complex. He showed us the courtyard and then a smaller room. There was construction equipment all over the place (like the current inside of the Aya Sofia) and so we could not enter too far but were able to see before and after areas of reconstruction. Then we walked into the main courtyard of the mosque and into the main room of it. We did not have to remove our shoes because there was no carpet on the ground. I felt like somewhat of a rebel by being inside a mosque with my shoes on. Although construction equipment was again everywhere, one could still admire the beautiful stain glass windows of the mosque and the mosaics on the wall. We spent a few minutes inside admiring it. Our tour guide told us he wanted us to come back and visit and then we left.
We then saw the Greek Patriarchiate. There was a service going on at the time so we were able to see inside even though it was supposed to have already closed. After checking it out we went to Taksim and had a tea. Verena and I played some backgammon (I seem like a real Turk with the tea and backgammon don’t I?) Then we returned back home, having successfully seen a new part of Istanbul.
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