More observations on Turkey

Istanbul was an intriguing city. On the one hand – you can see just about all the “touristy” stuff in about five days. On the other hand – it had all the marks of a city you could hunker down in and ” prowl” for a couple of weeks or more.

In particular-I go this feeling when we were up in the Taksim district-which I found to be a lot like Roppongi, only with wider streets and less bars. But my radar still told me there was some nightlife to be had-I just wasn’t in a position to explore it. When you consider that you are in a Muslim country, that alone is something of a surprise.

This is what Taksim looked like at night:

Another thing I was pleasantly surprised at was the relatively modern public transportation system-the trams are still pretty new and they have expanded the number of lines apparently. If one got an Istanbul card and loaded it up with about 30TL, that would get you around pretty well for the weekend:

One thing you can never forget in Turkey though-is that while the people are pretty good-you are in a Muslim country, and that means they don’t look at the world the same way as you wish they would. This was driven home to me at the airport when we arrived-when I had to get a visa on arrival and the S,O,-with her Japanese passport-did not. Most Europeans has to get visas too. Somehow I can’t help but think that is a jab at the EU for not letting Turkey in after all the years of trying. Given the travails the Euro-maybe they are better off.

Another place that drove it home was on the last day, when we went out to the old city walls of Constantinople out at Topkapi Park. The Turks have built a big modern museum with a 360 degree panorama dome that shows the scene of the battle in very artistic terms.

Here is a 360 degree tour of what it looked like. Panorama 1453 – 3D Virtual Tour. ( Click on the inset square to see it full screen-its pretty cool).I like many others had not realized-most of the fighting happened to the west of the city. The old walls tell the tale to a great degree-so too do the panels in the museum. But be prepared for a cultural shock, the Byzantine are the bad guys in this picture. The Pope doesn’t get such rave reviews either. It s definitely told from the Ottoman point of view-and I can’t help but wonder if it somehow tied to the rise of Islamic parties in Turkey’s democracy ( which I do not regard as a good thing).

P.S. If you want a nice view of the city go here-its a cool 3d full screen view if you click on the inset.

Our last day we went up in that tower-which is known as Galata Tower-built in the 1330’s by the Genoans. The view of the Golden Horn (and the rest of the city is spectacular.

One final point-everybody makes such a big deal about the Grand Bazaar. I must be getting old because I think if you have seen one-you have pretty much seen them all-plusI don’t have a real taste for literally getting verbally assaulted to go in someone’s store. I know the deal is to get you inside and verbally pound you into buying something-but I don’t like. I did get a kick out of the merchants who would see the S.O. and immediately say, “Ni hao; Ko-Nichi wa; or Ayaseyo” figuring they at least had a 33 percent chance of being right. I think the S.O. was surprised too that so many correctly guessed she was Japanese. Here in Germany-as in Shopping Mall she got mistaken for a Korean. You can guess how that goes over with her.