I have wanted to go to Istanbul, Turkey since June of 1990. I remember exactly when this desire was born, this mad need to check it off of one of those mental “1001 Places You Must See Before You Die” lists. I was on the tour with the Brown University Chorus in June 1990 traipsing through the USSR, Baltic States, Scandinavia, and ending in Amsterdam. It was the last stop on our tour (our posters in Russia screamed, “Brown Bears in Red Square!") and a kind of funky choir hosted us in Amsterdam. The couple with whom I stayed (can’t remember their names at all, but the woman’s look screamed 1980s Punk with her flaming, crip-cropped hair) had just returned from a six-week tour of Turkey. They regaled my roomie Scott and me with tales of their Turkish adventures, great photos, and a trip to a Turkish restaurant. While I left Amsterdam very excited from our 3-week adventure in Northern Europe, I couldn’t wait to go to Turkey.
It took me 18 years!
Over the years I tried to get a trip to Turkey off the ground, but it always fizzled. I came close in 2005 when I hoped to have several days included in Turkey in our Greece trip from Hackley. But the State Department had a mild warning about possible terrorist threats at that time and it did not seem prudent to escort 40 students into any kind of potential near-danger. So I have waited patiently for 18 years to go to Turkey.
Earlier this year I started to plan this trip since one of my young colleagues, the inimitable and thrilling Chris, had a boyfriend working in Ankara (Turkey’s capital) and they often met for romantic getaways in Istanbul. Istanbul is only a 2 hour flight from Amman, so it is certainly ripe for a 48 hour in-between the school weeks destination.
Chris and I set it up with her boyfriend Erik, and I recruited my first great friend at KA Elizabeth to join us for our adventure. Elizabeth, as the faithful blog-readers will remember, is the friend who encouraged me up the 800 steps on the donkey at Petra last August on the infamous donkey ride, and flew with me to Budapest to visit the divine Sharon for Thanksgiving.
But back to Istanbul! I guess Istanbul has long fascinated me since it literally is the crossroads of civilization, where Europe meets Asia—where West meets East. Of course for over 1000 years it was the glorious Constantinople, capital of two grand empires. In 1453 the Ottomans took over and ruled through the end of World War I. (By the way, you may notice the verb I used in the last sentence—I said “took over” which relieves me of having to choose one of the dicier nouns in explaining the monumental event that took place in 1453. You see, as a western historian I have always considered 1453 to be the “fall” of Constantinople, but my wonderful Jordanian colleague Fatina grew up considering it as the “conquest” of Constantinople. Hmmm…the lovely theme of point of view raises its head again in semantics…) Even though Ankara is the capital of the newly created entity called Turkey, Istanbul remains the historic and cultural center of this country.
We leave Amman on the nasty 3:30 a.m. flight, but the beauty of that is we arrive at the airport, whiz through customs and land on our hotel’s doorstep by 7:15 a.m. and I am ready to attack the city (I suppose in a city that has seen so much warfare over the centuries, I should have used another verb…). Our rooms are ready for us, but who needs to rest when Istanbul is at your feet!
This city is huge! They say it is between 15-17 million, sprawls over an enormous area on both sides of the Bosphorus Strait, splitting the city in half and causing it to literally straddle two continents. (I just can’t get over how fun that is to ponder!) You can drive over this one bridge and in seconds travel from Europe to Asia! Love it! But in spite of how big all this sounds, much of grand old Istanbul is nestled into a cozy Old Town area (Sultanahmet), a compact and welcoming district where our hotel is and most of the historic sights.
Since it is a Friday, a day of prayer for Muslims, we decide to visit the Blue Mosque first, just in case it is closed later for prayer. A sultan named Ahmet succeeded to the throne in 1604 at the age of 14, and decided to build one of the most gorgeous mosques in the world. It is called the Blue Mosque because of the cool, rich hues dominating the interior of the mosque. It is flanked by six prayer towers (minarets) instead of the usual four so Ahmet could flaunt his wealth. I learned that the clerics in Mecca were so jealous of this mosque that they soon built seven minarets around the mosque in their holy city just so Ahmed’s new mosque would not upstage theirs. The dome is enormous, and with the painted floral and geometric patterns, low-hanging haunting chandeliers, and rich, artful Arabic calligraphy, a moving experience. Interestingly, this mosque represents the pinnacle of Ottoman architecture—and marks the beginning of the empire’s decline. The construction exhausted the treasury, and soon the Ottoman empire would endure the joke-y appellation of “sick man of Europe” for the next 375 years (you know how those wacky historians are…once they designate you a sick man…well…I don’t have to tell you…)
Next we made our way down below Istanbul to the fairly recently-opened cistern of Constantinople. This 6th century underground rain forest of pillars in this vast, subterranean reservoir once stored water for the fast-growing capital city. Cool and unusual…
But our next stop is really the grand-daddy of sights in Istanbul: the Hagia Sophia. For centuries it was known simply as “The Great Church” since for a millennium it was the biggest church in Christendom. Built in the 6th century by the Bill-and-Hillary Power Couple of the Ancient World, Justinian and Theodora, it is impressive—but much more. Yes, walking through the centuries-old church-then mosque-now museum is awe-inspiring, but since it is a major icon in the canon of Art History, I couldn’t help but feel I was traveling with a roster of the best and brightest from days of AP Art History at Hackley. I reveled in the engineering of the 1450 year-old dome, treasured the centuries -old mosaics, marveled in the sheer size of the place (there was a scaffold there inside the building that is the height of a 20-story building!) but I walked around with my cosmic gradebook, enjoying the spiritual presence of Nicki and Alyssa and Harrison and Jonathan and Taraneh and Kate and Sean and Kenrick and Katharine and Stefan and Gillian and Zoi and Anna and James and—pretty much all 240 students who took AP Art History from me at Hackley…Sigh…
After lunch we sauntered through Topkapi Palace, for centuries the palace where the great sultans hung their turbans and corralled their harems. Room after room of stunning tiled walls and ceilings, Chinese porcelain and tulip gardens (sometime I will have to have a lesson on how the Dutch took their first tulip bulbs from Constantinople and created their own tulip bonanza after the sultans…whoops, I think we just had that lesson) gave way to the Imperial Treasury, you know just several roomfuls of fist-sized diamonds, rubies and emeralds. Then we went to the Holy Relics room where the names of the exhibits send chills down your spines. We don’t need to have a debate about the veracity of relics here and now, but just to let you know what they claim to possess: Joseph’s turban, John the Baptist’s skull, David’s sword, a cooking pot from Abraham, a walking stick of Moses, and a footprint from Mohammad. An imam reads from the Quran 24 hours a day—and has been doing that 24/7, they say, since the 16th century.
As we strolled back out through the palace you just marvel at the summertime beauty of Istanbul—the lovely Bosphorus waters, the roses in the gardens, the wonderful air, and the lanes of grass.
The next morning we tackled the Grand Bazaar—4,000 shops and traders bursting with everything you can imagine. Istanbul claims it was the first mall created in World History. Chris was on the look-out for a rug, a souvenir of this last trip with her boyfriend (and oh yeah, us too) in Istanbul. They say the Bazaar has lost some of its “Oriental” ambience, but it still had that great character that makes for a great morning of shopping as prowling. I also walked out with a new rug too—one with a motif of the Tree of Life.
As the sands sift through our hourglass of time, Elizabeth and I race over to (race? As I think about it we had a leisurely lunch at a place with the immortal name of Chocolate World!) Dolmabahce Palace, the last hurrah of the wheezing Ottoman Empire. In a final attempt to rejuvenate the declining image of the empire, a 19th century Sultan built this ostentatious and modern palace to replace the old Topkapi palace. Thankfully for the hundreds of daily tourists, the Turkish government has maintained the rococo grandeur of this jewel on the Bosphorus. It was used as a juicy photo-op during the 2004 NATO summit so they say. The Imperial Hall can accommodate 2,500 people and the world’s largest crystal chandelier hangs from the dome that is soaring some 118 into air.
We ended up going to a bohemian district that has a Times-Square feel to walk through, grab a couple of Turkish White Castle-style hamburgers, and sit in a café 8 stories up called 360 Degrees. There we ended our exploration of the city.
The trip was wonderful. My last international trip of the school year, with two of my greatest friends of the year to whom I must bid adieu in the next week, visiting some grand sights, breakfasting in my hotel in the shadow of the Hagia Sophia…just a charming weekend.
I leave eager to study more about Turkey—how did they make that successful transition from run-down Ottoman doormat to a sleek, important, secular Islamic state (although I read an article in the paper there about the laws banning one from speaking anything against Turkey or Turkish-ness) and the impresario, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who almost singlehandedly created modern-day Turkey. Books will be bought, ideas imbibed…
Am I going back? You betcha! My visa is good for 90 days, just in time for a visit in early September right at the beginning of a new school year. This time I won’t wait 18 years to get there.
A great trip. As we took off in the plane at midnight from Istanbul, little did we know that that quick little piece of cheesecake purchased in the Food Court at the airport would virtually shut us down for the next few days!
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