Istanbul: a postcard from the lost world

Istanbul is a dazzling, beguiling city. Once the capital of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, its epic history was shaped by a myriad of cultures including Arabic, Armenian, Greek, Bulgarian, Jewish and Kurdish. Its waterways are mythic; the Golden Horn, the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara. Shimmering domes, minarets and medieval towers rise from its seven hills.

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We’ve just finished the Lycian Way, a 500-kilometre trail in southwestern Turkey that takes the walker past traces of Lycian, Greek and Roman civilisations, through coastal villages and high up into the rugged Taurus Mountains. But we’re not done with walking. Istanbul’s labyrinth of neighbourhoods, bazaars, backstreets and passageways hold enough intrigue for a lifetime of exploring.  

On a walking tour, led by a liberal, forthright and engaging Turkish woman, centuries of political history unfold through stories of the changing fortunes of Istanbul’s Greek Orthodox, Sephardic Jewish and Muslim inhabitants. 

Another day, we join a food tour and walk the backstreets of three Istanbul neighbourhoods, crossing the Bosphorus from the European side and finishing in Üsküdar on the Asian side. We taste culture, history and tradition in everything we sample as we wander in and out of breakfast salons, markets, bakeries, delis and traditional workers’ cafes. Sitting in a 16th-century caravanserai, we hear tales of Sufi dervishes who promoted the spiritual properties of coffee. In our upturned cups, a fortune-teller sees a dolphin, a symbol of joy. Later in the day, we see a pod of bottle-nosed dolphins surfing the bow wave of our ferry and jumping (for joy) out of the water. 

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We wake to the muezzin’s call to prayer, foghorns rolling across the Bosphorus and the cry of seagulls. We ride ferries as far north as the Black Sea, gazing on hillsides green with forests and dotted with pale, white minarets. At day’s end, we gather over dinner with Kaylee and Chris, our congenial hosts. As night falls, the balmy gardens of Emigan are lit by glittering fireflies. 

Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence seduces us. Conceived at the same time as Pamuk was writing his novel of the same name, it’s an intriguing assemblage of objects, memories and sensations. It’s a museum that’s a love story, a melancholic rift, a history of life in Istanbul in the second half of the 20th century and a fiction. 

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Our friend Lincoln encouraged us to visit the 11th-century Monastery of Christ at Chora in 2014. We make a pilgrimage to the church again, this time in Lincoln’s memory. One of the oldest monuments of Eastern Orthodoxy, the interior of the church shimmers with some of the most beautiful Byzantine mosaics in the world. The Ottomans plastered over them when they converted the church into a mosque in the 16th century. Then, after the new Turkish republic converted the church into a museum in 1945, the mosaics were uncovered and brilliantly restored. (Since our visit, we’ve learnt President Erdogan has ordered that Chora be converted into a mosque and the mosaics and frescoes covered again.) 

We roam the ultra-conservative neighbourhood of Eyüp. Its mosque, one of the holiest in Turkey, is on the site of the tomb of Eyüp Ensari, prophet Muhammed’s standard-bearer. This Ramadan Friday, there’s a throng of pilgrims; women in full niqab, pious men, young boys dressed for a circumcision ceremony in ornate white and gold costumes. 

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In the neighbourhood of Fener, once the Greek quarter of the city, there’s a different vibe. Bohemians are moving in, restoring the old Ottoman houses and opening funky cafes. Despite the expulsion of its Orthodox population, Fener is still home to the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople (the Greek `Pope’) and is the spiritual centre of the Greek Orthodox Church. 

We take a ferry to the Princes’ Islands. On Heybeliada, we walk up through pine forests to the top of the mountain to visit the 11th-century Greek Orthodox monastery of Aya Triada. It was the main Greek Orthodox seminary in Turkey until the government closed it in 1971. We wander the ghost-quiet corridors and classrooms. There are still textbooks on shelves, chalked blackboards and desks lined up, waiting for students who will never return. 

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We leave Istanbul at first light, the earth’s shadow dusky pink above the horizon, the water of the Bosphorous silken, the domes and minarets of a thousand mosques glowing golden. It’s been a magical, mystical sojourn, a kaleidoscope of sensations and experiences in a city with a palpable sense of its turbulent, magnificent history. 

Istanbul, June 2018

 

Postcards from the Lost World are from places we roamed before borders closed and overseas travel ceased. As we sit out the long interlude between journeys, we reimagine past wanderings and dream of a time before this time began.

Other postcards from the lost world: Gotland, Achill Island, Jodhpur and Cinque Terre