Istanbul

Istanbul is one of those places I have wanted to visit for as long as I can remember. 

Is this because of the song by They Might Be Giants? ("Istanbul was Constantinople now its Istanbul not Constantinople, why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks")

Or was it the scene from A Room with a View where Lucy tells everyone she's going to Constantinople ("Athens, I mean," she says), but insists it has nothing to do with George Emerson?

Maybe it was neither of these things. Maybe it's the fact that whether I read about Byzantium, the Ottomans, World War I, or a myriad of other periods in history, Constantinople/Istanbul is in the center of the action. 

After all that build up, you'd think I would have dozens and dozens of photos and amazing stories to share. But I don't.

In 2012 we planned a four-day trip to Istanbul, but then, for reasons involving Pia's love of cruises, we switched gears and decided to go to Ephesus instead. In 2012, I had a camera and took decent photos for this blog. Now it's 2021 and between masks and hand sanitizer, I have no space for a camera, so you're getting photos from my mobile phone. The best thing I can say about these photos is that they represent my own experiences. 

The next best thing I can say is that there's Pinterest, and Pinterest is full of gorgeous shots of Istanbul and the experiences of strangers. So you can go there, or keep scrolling through my ho-hum shots below. 

The view of the Golden Horn with Haiga Sophia, the Blue Mosque and the Mosque of Suliman across the water.

Scenes of the streets around our apartment in the morning. The rain made for the perfect excuse to spend lots of time in cafes, and at the barber shop so Mihai and Lucian could get a hair cut and a shave.

We went to the Grand Bizarre which ended up being both over, and underwhelming, at the same time.

 

For about a mile leading up to the entrance, the narrow streets are full of stalls selling cheap, disposable trinkets and textiles. If it was a handful of stalls, it would have been one thing, but it was a mile of them, densely compacted. I had the same feeling I get when I'm in a megamall in the U.S, which is to say, it was sort of depressing to see so much inauthentic, hastily made, meaningless stuff. 

My hope was that once we passed through the gate to the Grand Bizarre, the quality of the wares would improve. Sadly, it was more of the same. 

In the end, we bought some loose-leaf tea and then went back across the bridge for a much needed rest with a much-needed, and excellent cup of coffee. 

Istanbul has nearly 30 different districts, it's massive. We were only there for 3 days, so obviously most of it went unexplored due not only to our time frame, but (as usually happens at the end of a long trip) because our energy was flagging. 

So we spent the last day sitting in restaurants and eating excellent food and not taking too many photos because we were preoccupied with eating. It wasn't a bad trade off.

One day I'd like to go back to Istanbul and walk the streets when I've got energy, a good camera, and I'm not preoccupied with all of the changes that await us when we return to the States. 

This coming year, depending on what happens with covid, the Ionescus will probably be limiting their travel adventures to places within the U.S-namely-Oregon and Colorado. 

I suppose it's fitting to end this with Istanbul, since the Istanbul/Constantinople is all about history and the big events of the past, and now it's time to look forward, at what adventures lie ahead.