Hey team,
Four days in Istanbul was a rousing start to our adventure.
It’s a truly unique place, a melting pot of many different cultures baked into one busting metropolis of 16 million people. I couldn’t even begin to comprehend just how vast it is. But put simply, it’s a city of well-taken-care-of cats, tea drinkers crouching over games of backgammon, of mosques and gigantic Turkish flags on the horizon. If Istanbul was a movie, its soundtrack would be the Islamic call to prayer that crackles through the megaphones on mosque minarets five times a day. Its a busy city, and a little bit chaotic. The streets are clogged with cars so people take to scooters, roaring up the footpath and the wrong way down one way streets. You have to keep your wits about you in this city, but I like that. It feels exciting.
The land of giant flags
Istanbul straddles two continents with one foot in Europe and the other in Asia. A tunnel below the Bosporus and a series of ferries over it connects the two halves. The ‘old town’ resides on the Golden Horn of the European side. This area contains most of the main tourist attractions, including the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sofia, the Basillica Cistern and Topkapi Palace. Unsurprisingly, its a pretty expensive place to stay and eat, so we stayed at Lola Backpacker’s Hostel just across the bridge in Beyoğlu. We were right next to the Galata Tower, another tourist hotspot, which despite increasing the prices of restaurants, made for a very useful landmark. However, If we were to visit again we would not stay in this area. While the central location was convenient, the high levels of tourism severely affected the vibe. Understandably, the locals seemed to be getting sick of foreigners, and we felt perceived as cash cows. Ben and Sam particularly seemed to despise the cat calling of merchants trying to get us to spend money in their shops.
Tourists doing touristy things
The Asian side, on the other foot, was much more pleasant in this regard. It was a good omen when we sat down on the 20-minute ferry ride and saw dolphins! The locals were friendlier, the shops had unique goods, and the cafes and restaurants were more reasonably priced. I believe the hostels are cheaper over this side too.
Speaking of price, Istanbul was not quite the affordable haven I remember it to be when I last visited in 2014. Since 2018, Turkiye has been battling an inflation crisis, which peaked in 2022 at an astounding 88.5%, almost doubling prices. Now, inflation rates are sitting 64.8%. It’s clear the economy struggling, and it makes sense to offload some of that pressure on to foreign buyers like us. But unfortunatley, this meant that the cost of entry for most of the major attractions were prohibitively expensive, from $50 (Hagia Sofia) to $90 (Topaki Palace). Even to go up the Galata tower for a view of the city is $57. In the end, we decided not to do these things, and instead stick to the free Blue Mosque and the super underrated Çamlica Mosque. To be honest, it was a bit gutting to miss out, but I think it was wise to not blow to the month’s budget in the first few days.
If you visit Istanbul, I highly recommend Istanbul’s biggest and newest mosque, Çamlica. It’s situated on a hill, about a half hour bus ride from the Asian port of Kadiköy but so worth the trip. Where all the mosques on the Golden Horn were expensive and packed with tourists, this mosque was free and had barely anyone inside. It was quite a different experience. I covered my hair, took my shoes off, and was free to roam beneath the frescoed ceilings and stained glass windows in virtual silence. I loved the tranquility. We spent so much time in awe of the building that we didn’t get a chance to visit the connecting art gallery or library. We did, however, have tea at the next door cafe and take in the astounding view of Istanbul – surely much better than the Galata tower would have provided! Çamlica mosque didn’t have quite the ancient charm of the Blue mosque, but it was a breathtaking monument nonetheless.
Views of & from the gigantic Çamlica mosque
The other thing we really wanted to do in Istanbul was visit Büyükara Island, the largest of the nearby Princes Islands. In theory, it’s an easy ferry ride away, but Istanbul had other plans for us.
We had planned to go on our last day, the first of May. We knew it was a public holiday, Labour Day, so we bought lunch the night before. We awoke to headlines, “May Day Blockade in Istanbul: Police Barriers Errected, Roads Closed”. And so it was. We walked down empty streets to the ferry terminal and could easily cross roads for the first time in our trip as no cars were about. There were, however, police. They lined every street corner with automatic rifles and bullet proof vests, standing in front of barriers which blocked every artery of the city. The whole city had been suffocated – I had never seen so many police in my life. We had to go the long way around, constantly walking into dead ends and squeezing through gaps.
When we eventually arrived at the ferry terminal, we were greeted by more police and more guns. They told us the terminal was closed and no ferries were running. No anything was running, it seemed. All public transport had been cut off in an attempt to stymie the expected protests against President Erdoğan, accused of imprisoning his political opposition, banning the consititutional right to protest and causing the economic crisis, amongst a host of other offenses.
The protests went ahead anyway, in the end. The 50 something thousand police deployed made hundreds of arrests. Luckily we’d made it to the Island by then, thanks to a very kind, off-duty, francophone tour guide. We hired bikes and rode around the island, blissfully unaware of the conflict going on across the Sea of Marmara.
Photo by Ozan Koze/AFP via Getty Images
Read more about the protests here: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp8jdk9jlgpo
That was a dramatic end to our Istanbul trip anyway. We rounded it off with an 11 hour overnight bus ride to Göreme, Cappadocia. More updates to come.
Signing off,
Milly
p.s. we’ve been drinking so much Turkish tea!
