Motorail train services started between Villach city of Austria and the northwestern province of Edirne, Türkiye. According to Hurriyet newspaper, the train carrying 80 cars and 150 passengers departed from Villach on April 19 and expected to arrive in Edirne soon. The journey is 1450 km and takes 28 hours.
The cost is around 395 euro one-way for a car plus one person in a shared 6-berth couchette compartment.
Tolga Çakır
Istanbul – One of the most worn-out cliches about Istanbul is that the city straddles two continents. Most tourists stay in only one of them for the entire duration of their trip and it’s usually the European part.
Only a few venture to the Asian side although there are many pearls from the Ottoman era to be found in the shadow of modern Istanbul, such as Beylerbeyi Sarayi, one of the lesser-known sultan’s palaces.
The best way to reach these Turkish delights is by crossing the shimmering Bosporus river. The boat moors at a quay below wooded slopes. Pastel-coloured tower blocks stand among the trees.
Beylerbey is an upmarket district of town which owes its name to the sultan’s extravagant home on the banks. After all, Topkapi and Dolmabahce are not the only palaces in Istanbul worth visiting
‘The further north you go from here the more expensive it gets,’ said tourist guide Oktay Ozserbetci. Captains of industry and construction magnates have settled here along with intellectuals, artists and old, established Istanbul families who reside in the lavishly-restored wooden dwellings which date back to the Osmanic era.
The sultans were partial to the fresh breezes hereabouts and the magnificent views over the Bosphorus. They used to spend the summer at Beylerbeyi Palace, strolling along the gravel paths between white lanterns and neatly-clipped bushes.
This place is still a refuge in bustling Istanbul even though the palace now lies in the shadow of a suspension bridge which spans the Bosphorus over a length of 1,074 metres. Traffic roars over it at the lofty height of 64 metres above the water.
The sultans liked to take a cup of coffee at one of the little kiosks along the bank. The booths are known as Kusluk which means birdhouse in Turkish. Handsomely-decorated portals front the many jetties and these are a popular backdrop for tourists, newly-married couples and those here on a day’s excursion.
Sultan Abdulaziz was a giant of a man who ordered the summer palace to be erected here on the site of a palatial wooden construction.
The building work took four years, finishing in 1865. The new building had no heating or cooking facilities and meals were delivered from elsewhere.
What it lacked in creature comforts however was made up for by a degree of munificence which the last Osmanic sultan was reluctant to forego.
Oktay Ozserbetci leads visitors past the gold-plated, coffered ceilings and huge mirrors into a large chamber. The centre of the room is dominated by a group of Empire furniture arranged around a marble table. On it stands a blue vase.
‘This was the admiral’s waiting room,’ explains Oktay. He describes the interior as a blend of baroque and rococo in the Osmanic style. A massive marble basin filled with water was on hand to ensure to ensure a pleasant room temperature.
Oktay carries on to the dining room. ‘The cedarwood chairs are upholstered with gazelle leather,’ he says. The bedroom with the sultan’s short, wide bed and intricately-carved paravent gives off the air of a fragile doll’s house.
After the Young Turks staged a putsch in 1912 Sultan Abdulhamid II lived here until his death in 1918.
The first floor is reached via a wide, wooden staircase. This was the preserve of the ‘harem mothers.’ The Blue Room reveals the true magnificence of the old Osmanic dynasty.
The Japanese and Chinese porcelain vases date back to between the 11th and 13th centuries, the chandeliers are of Bohemian crystal and the double-edged carpet spreads over more than 140 square metres. The panegyric inscriptions on the ceiling are in golden Arabic letters.
‘The most beautiful room is here,’ calls Oktay, leading his guests into the VIP box, a cabinet lined in dark wood without a single nailhead to be seen. The room is completely sound-proofed and was used by the sultans to consult with visitors without the usual interpreters present.
No amount of diplomacy was able to stave off the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and one of the reasons why it could not last is enshrined in this very building, explains Oktay.
via Visiting the sultan’s palace in Istanbul – Monsters and Critics.
YEREVAN. – Armenia has great chances to increase influx of Russian tourists considerably, said Russian official during round-table discussions on tourism held in Yerevan.
Head of Federal Agency on Tourism Alexander Radkov said Egypt and Turkey, traditional directions preferred by Russians, experience hard times. Therefore, Russians show stronger interest in cultural tourism.
“Due to cold climate in Russia, the sun and the sea are always in demand, but people do not want to visit the same places every time. Nowadays, Russians have become more interested in cultural tourism and Armenia has a good chance to receive more Russian tourists,” he said.
Armenia is interesting for its religious monuments, skiing resorts and cultural directions. He stressed there should be “an Armenian brand” to attract Russians. Alexander Radkov promised to lobby Armenia’s interests in Russia.
via Russian tourists will prefer Armenia for Turkey and Egypt | Armenia News – NEWS.am.
While in the Sultanahmet area, it is always a great temptation to run away from the people you are with and sketch the Ayasofya— which is naturally, what I did. The sun was warming the small stone wall opposite the former basilica, upon which I planted myself for a quick scribble and a listen to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds on my beat up little iPod. The cerulean sky was nearly cloudless and mesmerising in its depth, and I found myself staring at the blue, kicking my feet like a happy child, unwilling to add much detail to my drawing.
Lunchtime slowly rolled around and took us to the oddly named Pudding Shop, formerly known as Lale Restaurant, which was apparently a favourite haunt of hippie backpackers in the sixties. Traditional Turkish cuisine served cafeteria-style and a delightful selection of puddings are what an empty belly can look forward to at Pudding Shop. I selected a plump, rice and meat stuffed tomato called a dolma, topped with a dollop of puréed potatoes, and a plate of rice with semizotu, or purslane. It was insisted that I try the crème caramel for dessert, which was reportedly divine— and didn’t disappoint.
via harika.
By A. Craig Copetas
Bloomberg News
ISTANBUL — Ottoman Empire chef Ugur Alparslan spends more time in the library than he does in the kitchen.
“These are the lost recipes,” Alparslan says as the sun sets over the Golden Horn and the tables at his Tugra restaurant in the Ciragan Palace Kempinski hotel on Istanbul’s shore begin to fill with 21st-century merchants seeking the missing tastes and aromas of imperial Ottoman Constantinople.
For Alparslan, 49, his ancient menu is as real today as the many portraits of Sultan Mehmed II, who in 1453 conquered Byzantium. The House of Osman, or Ottoman Dynasty, shaped the city on the Bosphorus into the first headquarters for what would become the luxury-goods industry.
Occidental trumpery merchants assigned to the Ottoman court often compared meals at the sultan’s Topkapi palace and elsewhere in the city to those served at Belshazzar’s Babylonian feast. Back in Europe, their reports were at first digested with a pinch of salt, until the 19th-century French chef Alexis Soyer traveled to Constantinople during the Crimean War for a taste of the empire’s Balkan-Caucasus-Persian-Arab-Levant-Mediterranean fusion cooking.
“For me, delicious and lavish food was the epicenter of the Ottoman Empire,” Alparslan says, unveiling a $27.10 grilled winter-celery appetizer decorated with beans, gingered olive oil and tarragon sauce. Yet the chef laments as another choice, a $28 saffron ravioli stuffed with flakes of sun-dried chili and thyme sauce, slides off the serving spoon.
“The sultans did not embrace the printing press,” he says. “So I continually search old handwritten manuscripts to find promising new dishes from the past. I see my job as illuminating history through food.”
Sifting through 493 years of Ottoman culinary chronicles isn’t for the meek. The sultans only ate off of gold, silver or green celadon plates that alchemists said either detected or defused poison.
If the toxins failed, the killers turned to kitchen scissors, as was the case with Sultan Abdulaziz. He was assassinated in 1876 by rivals just a few yards from the Ciragan ovens, where Alparslan and his eight assistant chefs today concoct a $42 charcoal-grilled lamb “kulbasti” swaddled in smoked walnuts, eggplant, onion and sprinkled with a sauce of fresh- squeezed pomegranate juice.
The only mystery is whether Alparslan’s mastery of the skillet would have landed him a job in any of Topkapi’s 10 kitchens, which included separate larders, stoves and recipes for the sultan, the grand vizier, the harem and the eunuchs. Sultanic scribes noted that the imperial kitchens daily served some 370 pounds of almonds washed down with 63 gallons of musk-scented rose water. And that was just for snacks.
Ottoman business and political leaders conspired to obtain cooking titles such as “Superintendent of Sherbets,” a sort of dessert manager, whose responsibilities would have included overseeing the creation of Tugra’s $15 cinnamon halvah wrapped around fig ice cream or the restaurant’s baked quince with clotted cream laced with pomegranate syrup.
High-ranking military officers in the sultan’s elite Janissary Corps vied for the exalted position of “corbaci,” or soup cook, an influential decoration akin to a knighthood that allowed them the privilege of wearing a ladle on their belt. Alparslan’s $19 sour lentil soup with fried eggplant and chickpeas is a triumphant reminder of the Janissary’s luxury mess hall and the need to keep an army fed.
Tugra opened in 1991, though locals say the restaurant’s past chefs would have met the same fate as those whose dishes displeased the sultan.
“A golden cord, tightened around the neck, the strangled body put in a sack and thrown in the Bosphorus,” is how English teacher and carpet dealer Huseyin Palioglu describes the outcome of a meal poorly served to the sultan and his guests. “There are many restaurants in Istanbul that offer palace cuisine, but Tugra is as accurate and delicious as the food can get under the circumstances.”
Alparslan, who took command of the kitchen in 2002, has transformed Tugra from a luxury tourist trap inspired by whimsy into one of the world’s finest restaurants. It’s an historical incubator, where it’s best to avoid the overpriced French vintages in favor of a $207 2008 Doluca Alcitepe Saroz, a Cabernet Sauvignon-Shiraz blend from the Dardanelles.
The wine nowadays is poured without a great dollop of the finely crushed natural Bahraini pearls once enjoyed by the empire’s commercial elite. Still, the heady 14.9 percent alcoholic content helps one imagine a time when affluent global businessmen gathered in Constantinople over clotted buffalo yogurt to discuss goat-hair futures.
• DETAILS: Tugra, Ciragan Palace Kempinski, Istanbul; www.kempinski.com or 011-90-212-v326-v4646.
via Chef recreates ‘lost recipes’ of Ottoman Empire – Travel – MiamiHerald.com.
NEW YORK, NY (April, 2011) — Because Istanbul is known only as an exotic and historic city, few are aware that it has become a hip, cool destination with incredible designers, sophisticated restaurants and cafes, music festivals with top Turkish and international talent, trendy boutiques and a lively nightlife that attracts cosmopolitan travelers from around the world.
Below are a few suggestions for places to “see and be seen” in Istanbul:
Lunch at Istanbul Modern
Situated in a converted warehouse on the Bosporus, the Istanbul Modern features contemporary art by local artists, a sculpture garden and restaurant. After strolling through the exhibits, be sure to plan lunch on the stylish terrace overlooking the Bosporus, where the view rivals the art and the food is wonderful too.
Get a Bird’s Eye View: Mikla and 360
Mikla, located on the roof of the Marmara Pera Hotel is one of the city’s most elegant dining venues and has unforgettable skyline views. One of the coolest bars in Istanbul, 360 is a rooftop lounge with panoramic views of the city’s skyline from the spire of St. Antoine Church to Topkapi Palace and Sultanahmet. Its central location on Istiklal Street makes it popular with trendsetters in Istanbul, who congregate for sunset cocktails, artfully presented modern Turkish cuisine and the latest dance tunes played by popular DJs.
Istanbul’s newest restaurants, nightspots and cafes
• Nublu Istanbul @ Babylon, an offshoot of Nublu NYC, offers hot music groups and artists, and is owned by internationally acclaimed Turkish jazz artist Ilhan ErÅŸahin.
• Bird Bar & Grill, serves world cuisine inspired by the chef’s travels to France, Italy, New York and elsewhere.
• Up Lounge Bar & Restaurant in the New Tulip City Hotel welcomes customers with a modern Mediterranean and seafood menu prepared by Pelin Görpe, a young chef who cooked in several popular restaurants in the United States.
• Corvus Wine & Bite, owned by the Corvus Vineyards, offers a great spot for a glass of wine and tapas dishes.
• Owned and managed by the 360 Group, Fish is a multi-level venue specializing in unique appetizers and seafood dishes.
Foodie Havens: Contrast of Contemporary and Classic
• Minyon at W Istanbul: The latest venue for Istanbul’s hottest new chef, Emre Capa, Minyon has become one of the stars of the city’s trendy dining and nightlife scene. This contemporary space provides an upbeat entertaining evening of dining on Capa’s “small plates” cuisine, viewing artwork by young Turkish artists and feeling the rhythm of electronic and lounge music. Surprising dishes from around the globe such as mint and lemon risotto, a square ciabatta burger with pear confit, and mastica crème brulee blend with Capa’s special style.
• Asitane’s chef has spent years studying the recipes of the lavish Ottoman era and serves true Ottoman “court” cuisine with over 200 historic dishes. The restaurant’s charming garden provides an oasis of tranquility amidst the energy of downtown Istanbul. It is located beside a hidden treasure, ancient Chora Church with its rare and spectacular frescos of the life of Mary.
Explore a trendy neighborhood – Cihangir
Cihangir is a small bohemian neighborhood where many painters, caricaturists, actors, writers, journalists and foreigners reside and enjoy the bookstores, galleries, and boutiques. The area’s many cafes and bistros provide a venue for lively conversations about theater, film, literature, politics and philosophy. Book a table at the bustling Meyra Café and Restaurant or visit other popular spots including Café Susam, Kahvedan and Smyrna.
Cool Art on the Edge
When Americans think of Istanbul they tend to think of history, the glories of the opulent Ottoman Empire and ancient archaeological sites. In fact, Turkey’s cultural capital also has one of the liveliest contemporary art scenes in the world.
• Opened in 2005 in what had once been Istanbul’s Victorian-era Bristol Hotel, the Pera Museum is a cultural center with permanent and changing exhibits of art and ceramics
• Santral Istanbul, another new contemporary art museum, was created by Istanbul Bilgi University as a project for urban revitalization and encompasses educational programs, outdoor recreation areas, residences for visiting artists and ample space for the creation and display of contemporary works of art
• Misir Apartments, deceptively contained in a restored 19th-century building, are home to some of Istanbul’s most controversial and modern artists whose works are regularly shown in galleries on the premises. Visit the Galerist and Galeri Nev which showcase the work of local artists who have caught the attention of international dealers.
Shopping, Chic and Funky Markets and Boutiques
There may be no better place in the world to shop than Istanbul. Already famous for its Ortaköy Bazaar, the 4000 shops in the 15th century Grand Bazaar and colorful 17th century Spice Market, Istanbul is also home to trendy shopping areas full of designer boutiques, which attract sophisticated visitors from around the world:
• Nisantasi on Istanbul’s European side and BaÄŸdat Caddesi, or Baghdad Avenue, on the Asian side are the “Rodeo Drives” of Istanbul
• The handsomely restored Akaretler row houses in Besiktas are known for their expensive homes, museums, art galleries and exclusive shops
• The little neighborhood Cukurcuma is a favorite among antique experts and artists
• Equally artistic Cihangir, with its hilly streets, small boutiques, vintage shops and cafes might make you think of San Francisco.
For more information on Turkey, call 1-877-FOR-TURKEY or contact the Turkish Culture and Tourist Offices in New York at 212-687-2194 or in Washington, D.C., at 202-612-6800, or Los Angeles at 323-937-8066 and visit their Web sites at www.tourismturkey.org.
About Turkey
Turkey is a modern country with a captivating blend of antiquity and contemporary and of East and West. The cradle of civilization and center of world history today stands as one of the fastest-growing tourism destinations in the world. Turkey was the site of the first human settlement; the seat of the Byzantine, Roman and Ottoman Empires; the birthplace of Homer and the last home of the Virgin Mary, just to name a few. Today Turkey, with its spectacular coastline, majestic mountains, cosmopolitan cities and quaint villages is one of the world’s most fascinating destinations.