In which Sid and Doris see another side of Turkey by public transport (Istanbul not a good place to cycle).
After seven days on the trot of cycling, this morning we did not get up and fold all our clothes and electricals into two Ortlieb panniers and set off onto a hot road. We went to a cafe with real coffee and ate all their croissants. If they had had more we would probably have eaten those too.
Then up to Taksim Square via The shopping street, Istiklal Caddesi, up and down which runs an antique tram on a lollipop railway with loops at each end. It progresses very slowly so the ride lasts longer. Outside the Galatassarai college and again up in the square the police were ready for Sid and Doris with armoured water canon trucks.
Sid was pleased to see the town’s Ataturk monument set against the background of the new mosque. This secularist approach seems to be taking some time to really take root.
The travel business of the morning was to look for a map or even road atlas of Turkey, with roads on, at a scale of better than 750,000 to 1. After visiting about a dozen bookshops and outdoor shops we can only believe people go where they have been before or all have Garmin mapping. The idea of a map was greeted with bewilderment.
As you will recall from our foray into the fortress in Belgrade, Doris is a great one for mosaics. So having bored ourselves into submission on the matter of maps we took a bus out to the Chora church. The walk from the bus to the church only slightly worrying as we seemed to be well off any tourist track. But this shows you how big Istanbul was all that time ago; the church was enclosed by city walls in AD413, though had been started about 80 years earlier. The building we went to see was late 11th century with the mosaics dating from about 1320. It was also used as a mosque for about 400 years. It is now a museum, with staff who may have been on the Bulgarian Customer Care Course. Do these people get tenure?
We were not able to see the outside because it is in restauro under a large barn-like shelter. Inside quite a lot of the walls are hidden behind netting while the work goes on. Sid’s favourite mosaic was a perpetual staircase in the style of Escher. It really is very lovely.
Back on the bus via the Street Where You Go To Buy Wedding Dresses.
On our way ‘home’ Sid lobbied for a visit to Gourmet Carrefour. We bought local goat cheese, Turkish Gruyere, cherries, bread, more than enough butter, Swedish ginger thins, St Dalfour marmalade, Earl Grey tea, cherry juice, sparkling water and exotic snacks. Travelling through really poor places is deathly dull for the palate. Did we show you the ‘mixed salad’ on our last night in Bulgaria?
[It was like the “shopska” salad without the cheese. And the shopska salad is cucumber and tomato with cheese grated on the top. In fact I have put the picture in here again so you can enjoy the look of excited interest on Sid’s face one more time. D.]
And a couple of days back we excitedly ordered the mezes. Fabulous, at last. And they brought a meze, a processed cheese goop. One meze, and not even a good one. So this afternoon we had something like a dormitory feast, gorging on tasty things we like. (S mentions that the Edirne Pepper is an un-necessarily tasty fing though you do get a vairy big badge.)
Let’s finish with some pics from our apartment room which is somewhere on a steep street in Bezakoy. Two views from the balcony, and two pics of street sellers calling their wares – one general fruit chap and one specialist garlic seller.
(Our building is called the Casa di Bava if you want to Google it.)
We have been looking at how our journey will deviously join up our trip to Gallipoli, a swift visit to Troy (AFR) and then the ferry out of Ayvalik to Lesbos and points west. We begin to see a route to Greece and out to Italy. Next is to think about is where to pause for R&R, dinghy sailing, mountain biking, little hikes and picnics. Enough of epic and on to the epicerie.