Above and Below the City

We got a leisurely start to our Saturday, walking down the hill to buy pastries for breakfast. We selected three: Achma, a tender roll flecked with black sesame seeds that looked like a kaiser roll but had the texture of the inside of a croissant; plain pogaca, which tasted like a cross between a scone and a croissant: and a pogaca filled with mild cheese. We divided all three and I ate mine with a glass of strong Turkish tea.

Charming houses in Arnavütkoy along the route down the hill from Sue's place to the Bosphorus. Sue and I both agreed we would enjoy living in the little orange house in the lower photo.

The roads are paved with cobblestones in a pretty pattern, and are filled with well-fed stray cats.

Cobblestone street leading down the hill to the Bosphorus

Fishermen and yachts line the coast road in Arnavütkoy

Gingerbread houses in Arnavütkoy

About 11:30 we went back down the hill to catch the bus to Ortaköy, a neighborhood a little closer to downtown, where a lively market was in full swing. We browsed the stalls, and I bought a couple of inexpensive but glitzy necklaces and some Turkish fused glass plates. This was the neighborhood where the baked potato vendors, all selling the same potatoes with the same toppings, vie for your business. Sue had not tried one in the three years she has lived here, so we headed to one, asking what some of the toppings were.

The potato vendors mash up the spud in the skin and then add your choice of toppings. Front row, left to right are pickled red cabbage, sliced green olives, and seasoned couscous salad. In the back row, hot dog pieces, Russian salad, and spicy red sauce.

Toppings in the front row on this pic: far left, green peas and middle, sliced black olives. I asked what the the white stuff with the flowers was, and the vendor said, "decoration." In the back row, spicy red sauce, yogurt with mint, mayonnaise colored pink with red cabbage, and sliced mushrooms.

Dressed spud, ready to be eaten. The thing was huge and came with two forks.

I settled on butter, cheese, “Russian salad,” yogurt, and mayo with pickled red cabbage. Sue chose butter, cheese, and mint yogurt. We sat on a nearby bench to eat our potatoes. With the first forkful, I realized that Russian salad contains chunks of boiled potato, so I was eating a potato topped with...potato. Still, it was delicious—and filling. We each managed to eat about half our potato.

Next we caught a bus downtown, and transferred to a tram that took us to the area of the old city on the Golden Horn around Hagia Sofia. Build in 532 A.D., it was the largest Christian church in the world for about a thousand years until the Muslims captured it and turned it into a mosque. It is now a museum, breathtaking in scale. The church's long history was evident as we climbed the stone-paved ramp to get to the upper floor. The stones were rounded and polished, worn smooth by the millions of feet that had shuffled up this walkway. 

Throughout the church, the marble floors were unevenly worn, the more resistant dark veins standing out above the softer white material.

The walls of the church were saffron yellow, with painted decorations, panels of fancy colored marble and granite, and sparkling mosaics. Light poured in the upper windows, making the interior glow.

Many parts of the church were covered with fancy marble that had been cut and arranged into patterns

View from the upper gallery of the Hagia Sofia. The large plaques with Arabic writing were added by the Ottomans after they took the city. I liked this angle, because you can see the back of one of the plaques on the left side. They look like a movie set made out of plywood.

Glittering mosaics were scattered throughout the church

We also visited the Cistern, a huge underground reservoir held up by hundreds of stone columns that dates from the sixth century.

The Cistern was originally hidden from the conquering Ottomans who discovered it after about 100 years, when people were found to be collecting water and fish by lowering buckets through holes in their floors!

We read that the columns holding up the ceiling were scavenged from other ruins, and at the back of the cistern you can see two Medusa heads, one upside down and one on its side.

The place is dark, cool, and mysterious, a welcome break from the heat, sunshine, and crowds on the surface.

Our last cultural visit of the day was the Blue Mosque. Although it was huge, with a high dome and lovely geometric and floral designs, it looked small compared with the enormous Hagia Sofia. 

We removed shoes before entering and I draped my black cardigan over my head. Sue said I looked devout in my makeshift headgear.

We crammed ourselves onto the tram to get back across the bridge and then caught a taxi to Sue's neighborhood. From there we walked up the hill and stopped for dinner at a tiny cafe a few blocks below her apartment. The kitchen occupies the bottom floor of a small building at a bend in the road, and the tables are set up on the sidewalk across the street. The proprietor cooks the food on a grill and then runs across the road to serve it to his customers.

We could watch the owner working at the grill, preparing our food. People stopped by to talk to him through his open storefront as he worked, and neighborhood dogs ambled down the street.

The first course was a salad of white beans, pickled beets, onions, parsley, and lettuce with vinaigrette. It was wonderful!

I had kofte (spiced meat) with rice, grilled tomatoes, and salad. The green pepper was so spicy that eating it gave me the hiccups.

Sue had the grilled chicken version of my dinner. She gave me a bite, the chicken was to die for. Sue was smart and didn't try the mean little green pepper.

As we ate our dinner looking out over the twinkling lights lining the Bosphorus, the evening call to prayer began, and the singing from minarets on two sides washed over us. For me, this simple occasion—delicious food from a kind neighbor, eaten by the light of a street lamp with an old friend—captured the spirit and atmosphere of this city.