Hope you had a great birthday Von!
We had a quiet morning with not a lot to put in the blog, so I thought I’d tell you a bit about our hotel. At breakfast on our first morning here Deb had photos of many famous people on the wall behind her – Earnest Hemmingway, Ian Fleming, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Agatha Christie, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, and many more.
It is the oldest European hotel in Turkiye, and it was built to host passengers of The Orient Express. Room 101 in the hotel is preserved as a museum, it was where Mustafa Kemal Ataturk regularly stayed, he was a founding father of modern Turkiye and many critical decisions were made in the hotel room. The room contains many artefacts connected to him and is open to the public.
We took a stroll out for an hour and a half. Dropped off our washing, hit an atm, visited the Catholic church we saw on our 2nd day here, played some Ingress and walked a few back streets.
The church was very quiet, unlike the first time we visited. There were maybe 8 people around. Deb got some nice photos and an arty video of candles burning. The church was very “clean” in the way it was decorated, subdued. It has some magnificent stained-glass windows. Deb managed to get a photo of the outside of the church with no people in it!
On our way back to our hotel we passed a very nice bookshop, we went in and had a look around, it seems it was an award winning shop. Just up the road from there was another beautiful building. As we were taking photos of it a guard came up, and in polite broken English, told us we could not take photos of the American Embassy/Consulate. Lucky I had already taken one 5 minutes before!
Our hotel was just up the road. We went into the high-tea lounge area, where Deb got some more nice photos, and then walked up to Room 101 to have a look through it. Mustafa definitely had a better room than us . It was a small suite turned into a museum of the man’s life and times. All the signs was in Turkish, so we looked at all the pictures and displays and tried to interpret what was being said. Seems he was a very influential man of the people who helped bring about democracy to Turkiye.
Our tour started at midday, we met Ozan in the foyer for an afternoon riding public transport and exploring the food culture of Istanbul.
We walked up to the historic back streets of Karakoy, a backdrop to modern Istanbul “hidden” just north of the modern Istiklal St. We walked through a seafood shop area and were offered a sample of deep fried anchovy to try, very tasty.
Continuing on we visited a speciality Hummus Restaurant, Ortaya, where we tried some freshly cooked balloon bread with butter and goats cheese followed by a creamy light hummus with tomato, red pepper, cumin and a few other spices. Its definitely the best hummus I have ever had, so light, fresh and tasty. Moving on in our exploration of the local foods we arrived at Nizam, a Turkish pizza restaurant. Here we tried their Doktor Nizam Pide. A pide topped with fresh tomatoes, green peppers, small tender pieces of beef, onion and a little cheese. Delicious, the pide (pronounce “peel day) which we get at home, was so light and tasty.
With a good amount of food in our bellies it was time to catch a ferry to take our food adventures to another level.
To make the most of our day we decided to walk, rather than get the underground tram we rode yesterday. As we reached the end of Istiklil St we stopped and tried a Icli Kofte, a deep fried casing of a fine bulgur mixture, filled with mince, onions and spice stuffing. We decided it was a superior, smaller Turkish equivalent to our Chikko Roll. On we walked from Istiklal St down the hill through many narrow interesting streets, passed the Galata Kulesi and down to the waterfront.
There we hopped onto a ferry and crossed over the Bosphorus to Kadikoy, the second stop on a very scenic ride.
From the ferry we could see the area we explored on Wednesday, the Blue Mosque, the Hagia Sophia and the Topkapi Palace. It was interesting to see them all relative to each other.
We have had lots of interesting and often humorous conversations with Ozan over the last few days as we all got to know each other a bit. While on the ferry we checked the home AFL Football finals score, the Adelaide v Hawthorn game was live while we rode the ferry. Unfortunately Adelaide lost 67 -101, a disappointing end to a good season. This led to us finding out from Ozan that Turkiye and Greece were playing in a European Cup Basketball match (possibly a final) at 9pm tonight, so have a game to watch. Ozan also told us that the people who settled the Asian side of the Bosphorus were called “The Blind People”, questioned on this he said with a cheeky smile, it was obvious that they must have been blind, why else would they have picked that side to settle on!!!
Kadikoy is known for its incredible fish and produce markets as well as boutique sweet shops. Our food exploration was not let down by this area. We started our journey in this area with a tasting of Pickle Juice! Yes, it is a thing, I have only just learnt! I tried and passed on it, Deb, likes pickles, finished the drink and then ate the dill pickle from the glass. Our next tasting was a fish wrap. Juicy Mackerel flesh wrapped in a wafer thin flatbread with a little salad. I don’t like strong fish, but this was very nice. Deb enjoyed it as well. While we ate we enjoyed all the lively antics of the fishmongers in the shop across the narrow lane from us, loud and proud with whole fish being throw one way and fillets being thrown back, and lots of theatre in between.
A bit further along the same lane we stopped to try stuffed Zucchini flowers and Dolmades (stuffed vine leaves). For me the Zucchini flowers won, i found the pickle of the vine leaves a bit too much, but then again, Deb enjoyed both.
Next we went to Tatardakin, a doner restaurant. We shared a Doner Lokantsi. Our server brought out a plate of what looked like just a pile of flat bread and a bowl of salad. We sat there a bit until Ozan said to help ourselves. We both took a flatbread the shaved meat was revealed. To eat it the Turkish way, you simply put the meat onto the flatbread, roll it up and then enjoy it. The salad is eaten as a side. The flatbread is so thin that the meat becomes the dominant flavour, it was very good.
We then strolled around taking in the markets, shops and people until we arrived outside a “famous” Chocolate shop. We both had a look inside and came out empty handed. The shop has a strong scent of Turkish Delight/ Rosewater.
To finish our time here we stopped for a beer and stuffed mussels at Mercen Restaurant. Had was a local Pilsner, Efes, a crisp light brew, that went perfectly with the tasty mussels. The mussels were eaten straight from the shell, using one half the shell to scoop out the contents of the other, add a little fresh lemon, then eat. Very yummy!
We were both exceptionally full by this time and the time was quickly disappearing, so we decided not to go to the Spice market or have desert. We got the ferry back to where we started. On the way we saw a small pod of quite large dolphins very close to the ferry. Was an unexpected delight. Then we caught the tunnel tram up the hill and walked a short distance back to our hotel .(a 14,000 step day)
The end of another great day with Ozan, this was our last tour with him and so it was time to say goodbye. He has been a very good guide, and it was very good to form a friendship with him.
Late update: Turkey beat Greece in the semi-final of the Europe cup Basketball 94-68, we watched it on local TV.
