ISTANBUL, TURKEY:, Guest Post by Kathryn Mohrman

Istanbul, Turkey.  Hagia Sofia at Sunset

My friend, Kathryn Mohrman, an avid and excellent photographer, visited Turkey earlier this year when she was on her way to Ethiopia.  She has graciously agreed to share some of her photos and impressions of her visit to Turkey. Kathryn is a professor at Arizona State University and travels widely for her job as director of several projects with partner universities in China and Vietnam. You can see photos from her trip to Lalibela, Ethiopia, at her 2/17/14 post on this blog.  I have known Kathryn since we were students together at Grinnell College in Iowa. Here is her report of part of her trip to Istanbul.

Around Christmas and New Year's, 2013, I traveled to Istanbul to see the only city in the world that straddles two continents.

Olives, tomatoes, and cheese are standard items for a Turkish breakfast

Breakfast in my hotel.  I became especially fond of soft yoghurt with local honey (the small dish on the left).

The most impressive structures in Istanbul are the mosques.  The Hagia Sophia was originally built as a Byzantine Christian cathedral  in the 6th century, converted to a mosque in the 15th century, and is now a museum. It is huge!  The great dome is 184 feet above the floor of Hagia Sophia. The medallions around the nave are the names of important prophets. The small structure near the center of the photo (where the altar would be in a Christian church) is the mihrab, the niche indicating the direction of Mecca, and thus the direction to face for prayer.

Blue Mosque

About four blocks from my hotel, on the opposite side of Sultanahmet Square from the Hagia Sophia, is the Blue Mosque.  It gets its name from the predominantly blue Itzik tiles in the interior.

Tahrir Square

Early on I went to Tahrir Square, site of significant protests not too long ago.  It was peaceful when I was there, but I noticed a significant police presence (lots of police cars and soldiers in the background).  Tahrir Square is rather small--I was expecting something larger given the importance of the place in recent history.

Trams go throughout Istanbul

This is the main street running downhill from Tahrir Square toward the Golden Horn

Inside the Grand Bazaar

Istanbul is known for its covered markets, and the Grand Bazaar is THE grand bazaar.  I found it overwhelming.  After an hour or so, I fled.

Rustum Pasha Mosque

I also walked around open-air markets that were frequented by local people. But I found mosques to be more peaceful, even with lots of tourists. On the day I took a food tour of Istanbul (see my post for 7/3) we stopped at Rustum Pasha mosque, known for its wonderful tile work.  Unlike the situation in larger mosques, we could walk throughout the mosque when there were no services.

Entrance to Topkapi Palace

Topkapi Palace, former residence of the rulers, is a must-see.

Whirling Dervishes

I also attended a whirling dervish religious ceremony.  I'm not a particularly religious person but I found the ceremony to be very spiritual.

ROOM WITH A VIEW: Two Year Anniversary of The Intrepid Tourist

Isle of Mull (Inner Hebrides, Scotland)--view from the front door of our country hotel, Tiroran House.

Two years ago, I launched The Intrepid Tourist as an outlet for my accumulated writing and ongoing thoughts from a lifetime of travel.  I didn't know if anyone else would be interested in my posts, but, somewhat to my surprise, the blog has logged more than 28,000 views since it began in April 2011.  Thanks to all of you have been reading my posts!  For this second anniversary I would like to share a few views from my hotel rooms as I have traveled to various places.  I almost always take a photo of the view from my room, both as a document of where I've been, and a reminder that the travel experience is not just the official sights, but also the more personal view.

View of the Dubai skyline with the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world, seen from our hotel near the airport.

In the old days of film cameras, the room views were a way of starting off or finishing a roll of film.  Now, with a digital camera, the view from the room just becomes part of the overall photo album.  Sometimes the view is a spectacular vista, in other cases it may be a glimpse of local life, an unusual perspective, or a momentary event.

On my recent trip to Turkey, my hotel was on a narrow residential street. Each morning as light began to dawn, I was awakened by the call to prayer at the nearby mosque. Later, as I leaned over the small balcony on my third floor street-side room I could see my neighbors, the ubiquitous cats, and the view of the harbor beyond the end of the street. 

View toward the water down Kumbaraci Street, in the Beyglu neighborhood of Istanbul

Occasionally the most interesting view is aerial, sometimes looking down onto an interior courtyard.  On a trip to Barcelona several years ago we stayed in a large, high-rise hotel.  As we looked down into the atrium the umbrellas in the bar area loomed like giant mushrooms.

Looking down onto the bar area of Hotel Rey Juan Carlos in Barcelona.

Sometimes the most interesting view is at night. When I visited Chicago a year ago and looked out of my room one evening, I was struck by the geometric shapes of the buildings framed against the misty night sky.

Night view of Chicago skyscrapers from my room at Hotel 71.

I look forward to more travel in the future and to adding to my photo collection of rooms with a view.  I will continue posting reports and hope that you will continue reading them.  My list of places to go and things to see keeps growing!

Letter from Istanbul

Dome of the Hagia Sofia, Istanbul, Turkey

In May, I went to Istanbul for a writer's workshop.  One of our writing exercises was to use the form of a letter, written to a real or imaginary person, as a way to focus our thoughts and to personalize our writing.  I chose to write to the memory of my fourth grade teacher.

Dear Mrs. Guiney,

            I write to you from Istanbul, where I sit with a group of writers, mostly from the U.S., but some from Turkey too. We are here to see the city–the great domed Hagia Sofia; shops filled with spices, sweets, kebabs, carpets, jewelry; boats on the Bosphorus; the hotel where Agatha Christie wrote her book Murder on the Orient Express; a performance of the mysterious dance of the whirling dervishes, and more–and then try to put our impressions into words.  Each day is punctuated with the calls to prayer broadcast from skinny minarets aside crescent topped mosques. In the streets, trams clang along metal rails from one part of the city to another. Overhead, raucous gulls wheel in the sky and the smell of the sea makes the air slightly damp. Never did I think as I sat in your fourth grade class nearly sixty years ago in Northeast Minneapolis that one day I would be on a trip half-way around the world to the city that is the meeting point of East and West. (It is a ten hour difference between here and my home in Los Angeles. As we finish our dinner each night in Istanbul, my friends and family in California are just starting their day.)

            My dream of traveling and seeing the world began in your class when you handed out the books we would use to study world geography. I remember turning the shiny pages filled with pictures of people and places so different from our world in Minnesota. The first chapter featured the Belgian Congo and was illustrated with black and white photos of dark-skinned women pounding manioc with wooden poles in large containers. I loved the new words and ideas–what was manioc? What did it taste like? Did they eat it every day? Why was the country called the Belgian Congo? Belgium was a country in Europe!

            I also loved the maps in the geography book with their rivers and mountains and wide oceans. In Minnesota, where we lived, we had the Mississippi River, which you could cross to go to St. Paul, but at age ten I had never seen mountains or oceans. Here in Istanbul, we walk downhill from our hotel near the Galata Tower to the bridge across the Golden Horn, an arm of water separating our newer part of Istanbul from the old quarter, with its many mosques, museums, and markets. From the bridge, lined with fishermen, we can look out into the Sea of Marmara, filled with ferries, fishing boats, cargo ships, ocean liners, yachts, and party boats turned into restaurants. At night, the sea sparkles with the lights of all this water traffic in the process of moving goods and people to and from the Black Sea in the north to the Mediterranean in the south and beyond. We are staying on the European side of Istanbul, but just a short ferry ride away lies the Asian part of the city, where we went one day for lunch and to explore the market stalls.

            I think you would love Turkey as much as I do with all its sights and sounds and bustling commerce. It is a photographer’s paradise. I have taken hundreds of photos, which, when I get home, will help me remember the wealth of things we saw. I have always loved to take pictures and got my first camera for my tenth birthday. It was a Brownie box camera. I remember that I had to open it carefully to insert the roll of film, making sure to keep the film rolled tight to prevent it from being exposed to the light. You probably don’t remember, but I took it to school on the last day before summer vacation.  

           I have a picture of you, Mrs. Guiney, taken on the school playground. You are wearing a plaid dress and have your head slightly cocked, perhaps because you are looking into the sun. The picture is a little blurry, because I must have jiggled the camera, but I can see that you are smiling. You were always one of my favorite teachers and you encouraged me to read and dream. Thank you.

            Your former fourth grade student,

            Caroline Scheaffer Arnold

Note:  For information about the workshop that inspired this piece, go to my May 23rd post on my Art and Books blog.  Other posts about Turkey on this blog were posted on June 28 and July 2 and August 6.
Podcast from workshop:  On the final night of our workshop, our group read aloud our "postcards home" from Istanbul, a fitting end to diverse and full five days.  To listen to the podcast, click here.  
Writing Istanbul Online Book:  For a wonderful compilation of photos and writing from 14 members of the Writing Istanbul group, go to this online magazine Writing Istanbul at Issuu.com.

ISTANBUL: A Food Lover's Delight

Pomegranates

There are many reasons to go to Turkey, but one of them is the food. The shops and markets are full of fresh fruit and vegetables, fish caught in the Marmara Sea, spices, grains, olives, pastries, baklava, Turkish Delight, and more.  Carts in the street sell fresh bread, roasted chestnuts, corn, sweets and other snacks.  Fresh orange juice, squeezed as you watch at street-side stands, is sweet and refreshing.  In May, I spent five days in Istanbul with a group of writers. (See my post at CarolineArnoldArt.blogspot.com for May 23 .) Every day during our stay we went to a different restaurant and sampled new and delicious foods.

Simitci cart on Itskial Street

Each morning, in the lounge/eating area of our hotel in Beyoglu, we had a simple breakfast-- pieces of what our host called Turkish pretzels (Simitci), bread stuffed with cheese, olives or salami, and served with coffee or tea.  For anyone who wanted more, the main shopping street, Itskial, at the top of the hill, had numerous restaurants, all with breakfast buffets of meat, cheese, tomatoes, olives, cucumber, hard boiled eggs, soup, bread and more (typically costing 10 Turkish lira, or about six U.S. dollars.)

On our first evening, after our visit to the Museum of Innocence (see my post of May 28), we ate at a  restaurant near Taksim Square called Kardesler, Kebap Salonu (Kebab Salon).  I was at a table next to the kitchen and watched them make the lahmacun (a pizza-like bread dough topped with meat, cheese or vegetables, and cooked on paddles in a hot brick oven.)  We drank ayran, a salty yoghurt drink, a bit of a strange taste at first, but refreshing with the rich food.  We also sampled an icli kofte, a stuffed meatball inside a coating of bulgur wheat.

Datli Maya restaurant

On the second morning of our stay, our group had breakfast at the coffee shop up the street, Alayli Cafe, crowding into the tiny space where we ate fresh bread with honey and jam, cheese, olives, tomatoes, cucumber, fruit and a thin omelet.
Lunch was at Datli Maya, a tiny health food restaurant in Cucurcuma featuring a large stone oven, where we filled the few tables in the upstairs room overlooking the street.  The meal began with nettle soup followed by various lahmacuns and a sweet Halvah dessert.

Baklava

On our third day, we took the tram to Sultanahmet, in the old part of Istanbul, to see the Hagia Sophia and Underground Cistern, and ate lunch at one of the many cafeteria style restaurants designed for hungry tourists. (It’s easier to point at what you want than to pick from a menu. I got peppers stuffed with lamb, tomatoes and spices.)  Afterward, we went up the street a short ways to the Literary Café, “Edebiyatcilar Kiraathanesi” to meet Turkish writer Jale Sancak and sample an amazing variety of pastries and coffees.  I never realized how many kinds of baklava there could be! 

Lunch on our fourth day was on the Asian side of Istanbul.  We took the ferry to Kadikoy and, after wandering through the small market, filled with everything from fresh food to carpets, clothing, and household items, we met at Ciya Restaurant, famous for its Anatolian dishes.

Olive stall at Kadikoy Market

Our last day in Istanbul was a trip to the Grand Bazaar where, after shopping and getting lost in the maze of the huge complex, we met for lunch at Havuzlu Restaurant, which features Turkish dishes.  And finally, for our last meal together, that evening we went to Peymane, in the Tophane neighborhood, not far from our hotel.  Of all the restaurants during our stay, this was the most upscale and the perfect finale to the trip. Peymane – La Cucina brings together two seemingly disparate cuisines under one roof: the ocakbas tradition of Turkish cuisine (a meat restaurant with an open grill in the middle) by Peymane and Italian cuisine by La Cucina.  Housed in a 5-story historical building, the restaurant includes an indoor-seating area, a garden, and a bar. We had choice of lamb or salmon for the main course.  I had salmon and it was excellent.
There are many reasons to go to Turkey, but for a wonderful variety of new and delicious foods, it is definitely a food lovers delight.

Fish stall at Karakoy market

For a wonderful compilation of photos and writing about Istanbul and Turkey from 14 members of the Writing Istanbul workshop, go to the online magazine Writing Istanbul at Issuu.com

If you want to read more about food in Istanbul along with a list of restaurants, check out this article in the Sunday travel section (August 4, 2013) of the LA Times by food critic Irene Virbila.

ISTANBUL: Museum of Innocence, Mevlevi Lodge, Pera Museum, Modern Art Museum

Whirling Dervish Dance Floor, Mevlevi Lodge, Istanbul

In late May, I spent ten days in Turkey, which as my seat mate on the plane to Istanbul suggested, was not nearly long enough! My purpose in going was to participate in a writing workshop in Istanbul, which included daily excursions throughout the city. (More about those in future posts.)  We stayed in an area called Beyoglu, a hilly neighborhood full of shops, cafes, museums and hotels, and topped by the Galata tower, which offers a 360 view of all of Istanbul from the viewing area on the top.  Istanbul has dozens of museums.  Here are four in Beyoglu that I visited.

Museum of Innocence 

Museum of Innocence

On our first evening in Istanbul, our group set out to walk to the Museum of Innocence, located in the Çukurcuma neighborhood of Beyoglu, not far from our hotel. The museum, which opened in April 2012, is a construct of the book of the same name by Nobel-Laureate Orhan Pamuk.  It displays a collection of objects evocative of everyday life and culture of Istanbul during the period in which the novel is set. The book, published in 2008, is a long and detailed account of the obsessive love that Kemal Basmaci, a wealthy businessman, bears for Fusun, a lower class shop girl 12 years his junior. In the story, Kemal assembles a collection of objects as a monument to the two women in his life, Fusun and his fiance.  In the process of writing the story, Pamuk scoured antique shops in Istanbul, collecting objects both as mementos of the events of the story (with the plan to assemble them in a museum), but also, in some cases, to inspire the action.  So, the objects both drove the story and reflect the story.

Orhan Pamuk in Museum of Innocence

There are 83 chapters in the book, each with its own exhibit. The exhibits are on three floors.  At some level the museum is a giant doll’s house.  Some exhibits are assemblages of small objects, not unlike the boxes made by Joseph Cornell in the 40's and 50's.  In one instance, the objects are mounted in an old printing press type tray.  Others are like tiny theaters with red velvet curtains, sometimes open, sometimes closed. (Apparently some chapters are still in progress and the curtains will later be opened.)  Luckily, the title of each box is in both Turkish and English, as are quotes on the wall. Each one is provocative.  “It was the happiest moment of my life though I didn’t know it.”  This quote is from the beginning of the book but is a theme that reappears throughout the story.  Two people in our group were reading the book and helped explain the meaning of the exhibits.  In one chapter Kemal keeps seeing the ghost of his lover all over Istanbul.  In the exhibit for that chapter, we see small black and white photos of various places in Istanbul depicting crowds of people, one of whom is a woman dressed in red. In another chapter, Fusun loses an earring.  In that case, one of the objects is a single earring.  On the top level of the museum is a display of Pamuk’s handwritten manuscript for the book and sketches of his plans for the display cases.  In many ways, the museum reminded me of the Kafka Museum in Prague, with its intellectual and philosophical overlay of ideas and reality.  There is the fiction of the museum in the book intersecting with the fiction/reality of the author’s actual museum.

Mevlevi Lodge

Courtyard and cemetery in Mevlevi Lodge

 Istanbul is a city that assaults the senses with the intensity of its colors, sounds, tastes, and smells, and the mix of water and land on two continents.  For a peaceful interlude, a visit to the Mevlevi Lodge, an 18th century Sufi monastery, is a welcome change. Located just off busy Istiklal street, this beautiful garden, cemetery, lodge, and small museum are open to the public.  On the day I visited almost no one else was there except for the ubiquitous cats, which are everywhere in Istanbul.

Drawing of Whirling Dervishes in Mevlevi Muse

Originally, Sufis were disciples of the poet Rumi, who lived in Konya in central Anatolia in the 13th century. The Sufi sect is famous for its whirling dervishes.  The museum has large wooden dance floor where whirling dervishes perform on Sundays.  A number of other places in Istanbul also have performances of dervishes and I went to one of these.  The performances are solemn events–no clapping is allowed–and mesmerizing, as the dancers slowly twirl to somber music in their long white skirts in their ritual dance.  In the side rooms of the Mevlevi museum there were displays of calligraphy and paper marbling.  I recently read the book The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak, a good introduction Rumi and Sufi beliefs.

  
Pera Museum

One day I visited the Pera Museum, located not far from the famous and elegant Pera Hotel where Agatha Christie stayed while writing Murder on the Orient Express.  The Pera Museum’s permanent collections feature Anatolian weights and measures and ceramics, but the main attraction was a visiting exhibit on the upper three floors of the museum, showing paintings and prints by Goya.  The rooms were crowded with groups of school children and other visitors.  One wall displayed prints from his dream sequence with bizarre images of animals and humans.  Another series showed children playing; another showed his bullfight series.  Two large oil paintings of royal figures in the main room seemed surprisingly modern with their realistic and unflattering expressions.

Modern Art Museum
At the end of my stay, I went to the Modern Art Museum, located in an industrial style building along the waterfront.  In one gallery, there were contemporary pieces, including a number of videos, not necessarily by Turkish artists. One of my favorites was the projection of swaying trees in luminescent green onto the walls of a dark room.  If one moved close to the wall, one’s shadow became part of the art.  In another gallery, one could follow the development of Turkish art in the modern era, which follows trends seen elsewhere in Europe and the U.S.  A photography gallery on the ground floor has wonderful black and white photos of Turkish rural life. The museum restaurant on the waterfront side of the building has a spectacular view.

You can read about the Istanbul writing workshop that motivated this trip in my May 23 post at www.carolinearnoldart.blogspot.com.
For a wonderful compilation of photos and writing from 14 members of the Writing Istanbul group, go to this online magazine Writing Istanbul at Issuu.com