Lost in Istanbul Then Found at the Fishmarkets

This city has minarets in abundance. Turn any given corner and there is a minaret. But you never get tired of them.

The Grand Bazaar, on the other hand... there is only one and you get tired of it pretty quickly.

Some gratuitous stair porn. I've always liked stairs and this place is a stair fetishists Valhala. Some of the built landscape here is like an Escher drawing come to life. 

Highlight of the morning was a Turkish coffee sitting on the stool in the archway of this courtyard. I had no-idea where I was, Nor do I now, except that it was just outside the bazaar someplace. The guys making the coffee were doing so from a tiny shop the size of a large closet. they were running the coffee and tea off on little silver trays. I approached them ans asked for a cup. The halting sign dialogue that followed went something like... "Really, you want Turkish coffee, not Americano?... okay, but you take sugar?... no? Really, you should take sugar, very strong..." Well, its probably a great tribute to Brisbane's baristas that the coffee I've had on this trip so far, including this one, has only been okay. Charming spot, though.  

The Golden Horn from the Galata Bridge. The dance these ferries were conducting was mesmerizing. looking forward to riding a few.

Seagulls over the fish market.

More seagulls...

... and what must be a very jaded cat. "Fish? Nah, seen a hundred thousand and you've seen 'em all."

Um... I'm honestly not sure which mosque this is. I'll find out...

I know this one is called the New Mosque... by shuttle driver said so.

The Grand Bazaar was the first place on my list today, not least because I needed a pair of swimming trunks, and I needed a new hat. The first was because I overlooked the fact that this place is a hotel AND spa… with full use of saunas, pools and everything else included in the stay. The second was because I left my hat on the plane.

Yup. I lost another hat in another foreign city. I’m going to have to stop bringing my hats overseas.

Anyway, the Grand Bazaar was not much use for either of those, since the only men’s attire they seemed to sell were leather jackets, counterfeit jeans and cheap shirts from China. In fact, the Grand Bazaar was a bit of a let down. I can’t really say why. The highlight was a coffee had sitting in a tiny leafy courtyard out the back. Again, I love this city’s convoluted use of space. It is truly three dimensional.

After that, I exited the bazaar from another exit and had no idea where I was, so I took a guess and wandered off…

<oh, must be ten o’clock… there’s the eardrum-busting call to prayer>

… and became completely lost. I did my best to use the map, but honestly have the streets just aren’t named, or are misspelled, so I eventually resorted to Google maps and the GPS in my phone. That is the first time I have used GPS to navigate anywhere. Just as well, because I was literally kilometres away from where I thought I was and heading in the wrong direction.

So I headed back to the hotel, feeling a little flat as Istanbul has proved to be a difficult place to just walk through. I found some department shops that sold board shorts and a hat, so picked those up, then sat and had a beer for an hour. Then it was down to the docks and the Galata Bridge to catch the fish markets and mosques at sunset.

That changed everything!

The evening was cool and the breeze off the Golden Horn was brisk and filled with spray. Watching the ferries was fascinating. I’m not familiar with navigating ferries, but the manoeuvres these boats were doing seemed like white knuckle stuff. I’m looking forward to riding on a few.

So, my first full day in Istanbul taught me that this is not a city to walk around. I’ll have to be a bit more focussed than I usually like to be and catch public transport around the different districts.

But tomorrow it’s the two mosques and the Istanbul Archaeology Museum.