Tag: Istanbul

Navigating Turkey – NYTimes.com

Navigating Turkey

By ANDREW FINKEL

ISTANBUL — G.P.S. navigator devices have started popping up on the dashboards of Istanbul taxis, but I’ve assumed that, like furry dice and troll dolls with wobbly heads, they are fashion statements more than tools. I’ve never seen a driver use one unprompted or even consult a conventional street atlas.

Maybe drivers don’t bother because Istanbul’s municipal authorities change the names of streets with arbitrary frequency. My own street, less than 50 meters long, was renamed from one type of flower to another just three years ago, the fourth change since 1939. The other day I was informed that our house number had also been changed — from 4 to 6 — which is odd because there is only one other house on the street. An astonishing 12,000 villages, or 35 percent of the country’s total, were renamed between 1940 and 2000. Many have been Turkified from Greek, Armenian or Kurdish. In the other cases, the reasons for the changes are unclear.

By far the greatest hurdle to cartographic literacy in Turkey is that officialdom still regards maps with the same sort of Cold War suspicion it once had for Polaroid photos of tank traps or lemon-juice sketches of naval yards. This is an expression of the view that information is power and so is best released sparingly. The military’s General Command of Mapping decides whether a map is in the public interest or could be “exploited in the international arena,” and there are stiff penalties for those who disagree. In practice, this prohibits the publication of maps at a scale larger than 1:200,000 — where one centimeter represents two kilometers — a degree of precision more than adequate if you are driving from town to town but not if you are rambling from hither to yon. The famous British Ordnance Survey paper maps, beloved of British hikers, are typically 1:25,000.

There are exceptions. Some firms may produce detailed city maps under special license and provide mapping data for commercial use. The Turkish military issues large-scale maps that, despite being marked “TOP SECRET,” find their way to the academics or road builders who need them most. And hotel clerks happily provide guests with fold-ups that show the way to the Blue Mosque and back. But Turkey is the only place I’ve been in Europe with no public contour maps at a scale of at least 1:50,000.

This is strangely anachronistic in the Google era, when satellite imaging can spot a dachshund on its daily run and Soviet military maps of Turkey at 1:100,000 are freely available on the Web. The Turkish legislation dates back to 1925, when maps were printed on paper and not stored as vectors in digital code. But today the villains bent on using maps to do harm can get their hands on all the data they need, so it’s tourists, off-road bikers, archaeologists and guardians of the countryside who suffer. And in a natural disaster, keeping the 1:25,000 maps under military lock and key means more lives lost.

The now-legendary example of how mapping can come to the rescue was Haiti during the 2010 earthquake. With breathtaking speed, members of Open Street Map — a voluntary Wiki-army of cartographers around the world — transformed up-to-date images taken by aircraft and satellites into maps that showed not only streets but exactly which streets were blocked by collapsed buildings or bridges. The information was triangulated with on-the-ground data from aid workers trying to reach people buried under rubble: their frantic text messages were translated by the expatriate Haitian community online.

Crowdsourcing, or turning the interested man or woman on the street — and the Web — into a mini-Mercator, is the way of the future, according to Suha Ulgen, who advises the U.N.’s chief information technology officer on how to use maps for humanitarian responses. A Turkish national, Ulgen tried to repeat the Haiti experiment during the recent earthquake in eastern Turkey. “Google maps just didn’t show enough detail for the worst-hit town of Ercis,” he said. So with the private satellite-imagery company Digital Globe providing the images and Open Street Map interpreting the data, he set to work.

The result was an instant digital map of Ercis brimming with all the information the rescuers needed. Yet it only had a limited impact. The emergency services were too distracted, and in some cases local responders were too busy rescuing their own relatives to take on a new technology.

The answer, Ulgen concluded, is to raise map-awareness before disaster strikes, especially in a country as seismically active as Turkey. This means claiming maps as a right rather than something the authorities let us see on a need-to-know basis.

I’m doing my bit. Now, whenever I get into a cab with a sat-nav, I insist that the driver turn it on. On a recent sortie, I was trying to get to an address at the periphery of Istanbul’s main airport. “It’s no use,” the cabbie told me after the screen came up blank. “It’s a classified zone.” We got there eventually, but the traditional way, following his nose and rolling down the window to ask for directions.

Andrew Finkel has been a foreign correspondent in Istanbul for over 20 years, as well as a columnist for Turkish-language newspapers. His latest book, “Turkey: What Everyone Needs to Know,” will be published next year.

via Navigating Turkey – NYTimes.com.

December 5, 2011
Welcome To Turkey-Land: First Impressions Of A New Ex-Pat

The general consensus is that Istanbul is amazing. “What? Wait. You’re going to Istanbul? OH. MY. GOD. I am so freaking JEAL-OUS!”. You almost just have to whisper the word ”Constantinople” in a room for people to start spontaneously orgasming all over the shop.

Presumably it is fairly un-PC to say, therefore, that for the moment at least, I’m not the biggest fan. I’m not sure quite what I was expecting, but I think it involved a few more turrets, more old men with no teeth sitting on carpets and rather less being cold.

There are some gems I’ve seen so far, indeed, and I fully expect — and hope — to look back on this post in a month’s time and shake my head in shame at this naive version of myself. For the moment, however, I have decided to give myself a little bit of space to be a moaning and disillusioned Brit.

I moved here from London just over a week ago to work for an English-speaking daily newspaper here, based in the ”Media Towers” located about 45 minutes into the city’s boomburb. The publication has a large staff based between here and the capital city, Ankara, with a small number from the U.S. or the U.K. The best thing about the office so far, apart from the stunning view of some large industrial cranes and the airport, is the free gym.

On first impressions, it looked like a perfectly respectable example of a workplace fitness facility. Upon closer inspection, however, this stuff could have come out of the Ark. As I attempted to rev the treadmill – last used by Noah himself — into some semblance of life, an elderly man materialized behind me, hailing from roughly the same era.

From his rather frantic gestures, I gathered that he was keen to show me round. This quickly turned into him putting me through one of the most grueling workouts I have ever had. It is remarkable how much pointing and shouting will drive you into pushing yourself to extent that you emerge, an hour-and-a-half later, with your spine partially dislocated, limbs incapable of anything but the most basic of movements and a sense of absolute accomplishment.

At least if Istanbul doesn’t win my heart I’ll leave with a smashing six pack (and potentially an ancient Armenian body-builder).

By Hannah Bowman

via Welcome To Turkey-Land: First Impressions Of A New Ex-Pat | The Expeditioner Online Travel Magazine.

December 5, 2011
The reluctant pilgrim
Andrew Unsworth | 04 Aralık, 2011 02:06

BYZANTINE GLORY: The Hagia Sophia as seen from the Sultanahmet park, and a mosaic depicting the Dormition of the Virgin in the Chora church (below), both in Istanbul

On a visit to Turkey, Andrew Unsworth finds himself in the footsteps of the faithful, past and present

Real pilgrims travel with a mission, to go to a particular place for a specific reason. So perhaps I was not a real pilgrim, but visiting Turkey for the first time, I often felt like one. Religious or not, devotion is a feeling you cannot avoid when stepping into Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, one of the greatest buildings in the world, and one that is so familiar from travel writing and TV that you fear seeing it may be an anti-climax.

It isn’t at all, and you can tell that as you approach from the nearby 17th century Blue or Sultan Ahmed Mosque, itself a breathtaking building.

Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) rises like an organic cluster of domes, minarets and buttresses from the earth, whose colours stain it. Its fabric is a jumbled record of alterations, additions and repairs, because since it was built more than 16 centuries ago, the third church on this spot, it has been restored, repaired after quakes, neglected, added to and altered innumerable times. Much of the exterior buttressing was added to prevent the massive dome, nearly 33m wide and 56m high, from collapsing.

Building was started in 532 on the orders of the emperor Justinian I, and after the first dome had collapsed in 538 it was consecrated in 562. It served as a Christian cathedral under the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches until 1453 when Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks, then as a mosque until 1931. It has been a museum ever since.

Standing in the doorway, itself a massive door from an ancient Roman temple, I paused to take in the moment: the glimpse into the cavernous interior, darkness, columns, mosaics and bright light flooding through tier upon tier of windows. Then, standing among the throngs of tourists under that dome in a space as big as a rugby field, our guide asked us to meet outside in 30 minutes to leave for lunch. “Right,” I said, “in 45 minutes,” and fled.

This is almost a joyous building, and Justinian was probably justified when he said: “Solomon, I have outdone thee.” Everywhere dark plays with light, heavy columns and piers contrast with floating domes and apses, and above all, exquisite mosaics of Christ and angels live alongside verses from the Koran. Restorers have been sensitive to the need to keep both Christian and Muslim elements of the decoration. The harmony is striking.

You look up, but you cannot help but look down as well for the marble floor is uneven, with slabs cracked by age and earthquakes, even in the upper gallery from where, like an empress of old, you can peer down into the void of the hall.

Whether it was vanity or faith that inspired men to make such places, you cannot help saying a prayer before leaving, pausing again and again for one last look, then heading for a glass of tart pomegranate juice from the vendors outside.

. CHORA

On a hot afternoon, a colleague and I walked down a scruffy and nondescript Istanbul street in search of both a restaurant specialising in Ottoman cuisine and a church museum a friend had advised me not to miss.

They turned out to be next door to one another, but both closed for the afternoon break. So we sat under a tree in the garden of the Kariye or Chora church, looking at the marigolds and roses in the heat, and the ancient walls and buttresses that supported the church. Noises came from the playing fields in the valley below where there was a fair of sorts in progress.

Eventually inside the dark, cool interior, we were greeted by scenes both similar and very different to Hagia Sophia: entrance halls or narthex, vaults, domes, mosaics and frescoes, yes; but on a far smaller and more intimate scale, a monastery or country church more than a cathedral in the capital of the Roman and Byzantine Empire.

The main body of the church – well, museum since 1945 – has few remaining mosaics, the side chapel or parecclesion has bright frescoes, including six impressive saints in black-and-white vestments in the apse.

But the real glory of Kariye is the mosaics in the two entrance lobby areas – the inner tells the story of the Virgin Mary’s life in pictures, the outer the story of Jesus, his birth, life and miracles. In two domes, he is depicted at centre surrounded by all his ancestors.

My favourite scene was of the miracle at the wedding in Cana, with Christ looking on as servants pour water from jugs into huge terracotta urns before it is turned into wine – always, I have thought, the most practical of miracles.

Mary’s is perhaps more interesting as it depicts her birth, her parents, St Anne and Joachim, her introduction to Joseph who is always pictured with his existing son, a young adult, even on the way to Bethlehem, and the Annunciation. Finally, without getting into theological complexities, her death or dormition in Jerusalem with Christ holding an infant in swaddling clothes as a symbol of her soul.

The mosaics are both human and simple. Always in the background are buildings, pools, trees, soldiers, apostles, animals and pheasants, with acanthus leaves or flowers tucked into corners.

Inspired by the art, I was carried away and bought a panel of modern painted tiles depicting a tree at a shop over the road. I have no idea what to do with it. Later, the lead in the paint on the tiles was to cause a bit of embarrassment with an airport scanner, but that is another story.

. EPHESUS

On the west coast of Turkey near modern Selçuk, Ephesus was the third stop on my pilgrimage, the ruins of the ancient Greek and Roman city mentioned in the Bible. The apostle John lived here and could have written his gospel here; Paul also lived here and wrote his letter to the Corinthians here, and while he was imprisoned in Rome he wrote his Epistle to the Ephesians.

Ephesus had a population of 250000 at its peak, and an amphitheatre that could seat 25000. It had its famous library of Celsus, to which Anthony and Cleopatra donated books. Its temple of Arternis or Diana was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and some of its columns ended up in Hagia Sophia after it was destroyed in 401 by the Bishop of Constantinople.

The remains of the city centre cluster almost incongruously in a valley that could be in the Magaliesberg: the rest has gone. Large groups of tourists, most from cruise ships docked in nearby Kusadasi, stream along Curetes Street, which runs down the valley to the library, its ancient paving chiselled with grooves to prevent you slipping.

At the library I was keen to find the underground passage that, I had been told, led to the nearby brothel. Our conservative guide was having none of it – she had never heard of the tunnel and, no, the building she had just shown us was an ordinary house. But then her English did not even include the word brothel, even if the guide books did.

Perhaps the most enigmatic site at Ephesus is outside the town, on top of a hill covered in pine trees. It is a humble stone house now rebuilt as a chapel where, many believe, the Virgin Mary lived out her life after being brought here by St John.

It’s a perfect spot to retire even if a bit far from the shops and library, but the ruined house was only “discovered” in the late 19th century after a sick German nun had a vision of the place and priests went looking for it.

The House of the Virgin Mary is now a place of both pilgrimage and tourist tat, depending on your faith, and has been visited by four popes. This is a matter of faith: the tradition of Mary living in Ephesus only started in the 12th century.

We joined the short queue into the house, where each visitor is allowed two candles, a moment before the altar, and leaves to light the candles outside. On the terrace below, I gulped cool water from the tapped spring because I was thirsty, almost forgetting that it was miraculous water.

Do you have to wish? Is it bad to keep the candles? I tucked mine into my camera bag for a friend back home who is blessed with a lot more faith than I.

You can pray outside the house, by tying a prayer written on a scrap of paper or cloth onto a long wall covered in thousands of prayers. The avenue of souvenir sellers back to the parking lot was even longer, so it was impossible to leave without buying a small silk icon of the Virgin. For a friend, of course.
- – Unsworth visited Turkey as the guest of Turkish Airlines, which flies daily from Cape Town/Johannesburg to Istanbul
December 5, 2011
Biden’s Day Out in Istanbul

(MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images)

VP strolls through the cobblestone streets of Istanbul’s Samatya Square neighborhood, gets a “good price” at the fish market.

Read the pool report below.

VPOTUS neighborhood visit

On a gorgeous sunny Sunday, VP Biden left the Hilton Hotel for a walkabout in an Istanbul neighborhood (some basic details from WH below). En route, his motorcade rolled along the coast of the Sea of Marmara, with the minarets of the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia looming on the hill above.

The VP, wearing a blue blazer, open-neck shirt and aviator shades, strolled up a cobblestone street lined with fish stalls. He stopped at one, out of earshot of the pool.

As the VP resumed his amble, another fish-monger called out, saying he’d give him a good price. Biden, who was by now clutching a plastic bag, said, “I already got a good price.”

VP shook hands and waved at passersby, including some peering down from their windows. He stopped again to greet a young boy. “Come visit me in the White House,” he said.

The boy’s father replied, “But how are we going to get there?”

A few steps later, he stopped at a fruit stand, flashed a small wad of lira, and bought oranges, tangerines, and other fruit. He tossed a tangerine to the same boy he had greeted earlier; the boy made a perfect catch and smiled with delight.

After that, the VP stopped by a pastrami and honey market.

Justin Fishel of Fox engaged the VP in a brief chat, asking him how his day was going.

“You can tell I’m eating whatever I can eat,” Biden replied.

Asked what he was buying, the VP said, “I got some sweets, I got some fruit, I got some olives, some cheese, and the ambassador ate all the fish.”

That was a reference to US Ambassador Frank Ricciardone, who had been busily noshing as he walked.

Was the VP taking anything back for the wife?

“Well, knowing Franny and the plane and you on it, you probably will eat it all on the way back,” he said (Fran Person is his body man)

“Only if you share,” Justin shot back.

“I’m happy,” Biden said. “I’m gonna share.

The VP then headed into the Develi restaurant, where he is lunching privately with Greek religious leaders, including Father Alex Karloutsos from New York and Andy Manatos, a prominent Greek-American.

Pool is holding on another floor of the same restaurant.

WH details on neighborhood:

The Vice President will visit Samatya Square, a traditional Istanbul neighborhood. Samatya is in the Fatih district and represents a “mosaic of life” in Istanbul, having been home to Turks and various minority groups for centuries. The neighborhood includes many traditional small local vendors: grocery shop, butcher, fish stand, bread maker and more.

via The Page by Mark Halperin | Biden’s Day Out in Istanbul.

December 5, 2011
PKK top member arrested in Istanbul: deputy PM

ANKARA, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) — Turkey’s Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said on Sunday that a top member of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) was arrested in the Turkish largest city of Istanbul.

“A top member of the terrorist organization PKK, whom I cannot identify right now, has been caught in Istanbul,” Arinc was quoted as saying by the semi-official Anatolia news agency.

Arinc said that Turkish security forces had been successful in all their operations against the PKK.

The deputy prime minister said the fact that the PKK was receiving support from foreign countries made the fight against the PKK difficult, adding, “we need foreign support and measures that will cut the terrorist organization’s sources in order to succeed in our fight.”

Listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, the PKK took up arms in 1984 to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey.

More than 40,000 people have been killed in conflicts involving the PKK during the past over two decades.

via PKK top member arrested in Istanbul: deputy PM.

December 5, 2011
A stroll in the city of sultans

Turkish delights … Istanbul shines. Photo: Getty Images

The magic of Istanbul is best discovered on foot, writes Ben Groundwater.

THERE’S a moment in Istanbul when the realisation hits. You’ve looked at maps, you’ve seen where the attractions are, you’ve plotted ways to get between them. But it’s only when you stand in the small space between two of the city’s drawcards – the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia – that you understand how close everything is.

Some cities were made for walking. Istanbul is one of them. You could roll out a carpet between the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, and most of the city’s other attractions are similarly close. There’s a palace a few hundred metres away; ancient baths just up the road and the Spice Bazaar down the hill.

Fishermen on the Galata Bridge. Photo: Getty Images

Given the insane state of the traffic most days, walking around Istanbul makes sense. Here’s a tour of the city’s highlights on foot:

Stop 1: Topkapi Palace

Begin your walking tour at the jewel in Istanbul’s crown, the former residence of the Ottoman Sultans, which is now a major drawcard for tourists. It’s best to get here first thing in the morning, as it will be chockers by the middle of the day.

A glass of Turkish Tea. Photo: Getty Images

The palace grounds are nice enough to stroll around, with shady lawns and ancient buildings. But most visitors come for the museums, which house collections of precious jewels, antique weapons and Ottoman clothing. The Harem, too, is worth the extra admission cost, with its intricately designed rooms that once housed the sultan’s concubines. Lucky concubines – it’s the best spot in the palace.

Stop 2: Hagia Sophia

If you can walk out of Topkapi and miss the Hagia Sophia, you’ve probably stepped into the river. The two attractions share a wall and when you throw in a couple of towering minarets, it’s impossible to overlook. This imposing structure began its life in the 6th century as a basilica but was later converted into a mosque by the Ottomans.

For a long time the largest enclosed space in the world, it’s still a formidable building, best viewed from the interior balcony running around the top of the mosque up near the 30-metre-wide dome. Hagia Sophia is worth visiting for the mosaics alone but don’t forget to stick your thumb in the “Weeping Hole” on the ground level, which is supposed to bring good luck. Or a sore thumb.

Stop 3: Blue Mosque

Walk out the exit at Hagia Sophia and what do you see? Minarets, domes … Yep, it’s the Sultan Ahmed – or Blue – Mosque, Istanbul’s most famous landmark. On the outside the 400-year-old mosque is a shocking shade of not-blue – it’s the tiles on the inside that give it its popular name. Non-worshippers are allowed inside the mosque, just remember to wear clothing that covers your shoulders and knees and take your shoes off before entering. It’s well worth the effort, with 20,000 handmade tiles and 200 stained-glass windows. The courtyard outside the mosque is similarly picturesque, although roasting hot in the middle of the day.

Stop 4: Cemberlitas Hamam

Just 100 metres up Divanyolu Street (the one with the tram line running along it) is Cemberlitas Hamam, a traditional Turkish bathhouse that Istanbul residents have been sweating it out in since 1584. It’s a change of pace from all the sightseeing: here, your only job is to lie under the domed roof on hot marble until an attendant decides it’s your time to shine.

He (or she, depending on your gender) will achieve this lustre by scrubbing you down with hot soapy water, drenching you with buckets filled from ancient taps and then rubbing your skin and muscles with generous Turkish fury. A few minutes in the shower to wash off the sweat and soap and you’re ready to go shopping.

Stop 5: Grand Bazaar

Turn right out of the hamam, take your first left and you’ve arrived: shopper’s delight. Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar is a winding, sparkling, chiming maze of shops and stalls that sell everything from tacky souvenirs and rip-off handbags to beautifully made carpets and expensive pashmina shawls. Shopaholics will want to spend days there – the not-so-browsing-inclined will be trapped in a private hell with no way out.

All purchases are made with the traditional haggle, so it pays to be in the right frame of mind (that is, ready to argue and ready to walk away). And don’t worry, you will be making purchases. Getting away from the Grand Bazaar’s 4400 shops without being tempted by at least one item would take a Herculean effort of willpower.

Stop 6: Galata Bridge

Follow your nose down the hill to the north and you’ll eventually come to the riverbank and the Galata Brige, which is a riot of activity throughout the day. On top of the bridge hundreds of fisherman dangle lines into the water from the sides, while cars and pedestrians race past behind them.

Down at water level the bridge is lined with restaurants selling the very fish the men above are chasing. However, don’t be tempted.

Stroll across the bridge to the Galata side, take a sharp left at the bank and you’ve found the world’s greatest fish sandwiches. Street salesmen barbecue fillets over the coals before adding a spice rub, onions and herbs and slapping it all on a crusty roll. Perfection.

Stop 7: Galata Tower

While you’re on the Galata side of the bridge it makes sense to trek 10 minutes up the hill to Galata Tower for a panoramic view of Istanbul. It’s easy enough to find, as the 67-metre-high tower dominates the city skyline and the queue of tourists out the front is a dead giveaway on ground level.

Once you’ve enjoyed the view, there’s a small open-air teahouse at the base of the tower that’s perfect for resting tired legs and enjoying one of the real treats of Istanbul life: a cup of piping hot Turkish tea.

Stop 8: Spice Bazaar

Time now to head down the hill and back across Galata Bridge to the Misir Carsisi, or Spice Bazaar, just behind the riverbank in Eminonu. The bazaar is the city’s second-largest covered shopping complex after the Grand Bazaar and has a similarly dazzling array of produce in an equally bustling environment.

Rather than carpets and lamps, here it’s all about edible goods – spices, obviously, and also herbs, sweets and dried fruits. Oh, and tacky souvenirs. Many stalls give out free tastings of Turkish delight, meaning you could well depart weighing a few more kilos than when you arrived.

Stop 9: Gulhane Park

Tired? From the Spice Bazaar, follow the tram tracks east until you spot a large clearing on your left – that’s Gulhane Park, which was once part of the outer grounds of Topkapi Palace. It’s now a place for the general public to play, relax and, in the case of the park’s more secluded areas, have a sneaky cuddle in.

While the grassy areas are perfect for resting weary feet, the hill on the east side sports a teahouse with beautiful views over the Bosphorus River. The tea is good and the seats are comfortable – what more could you ask for?

Stop 10: The Golden Horn

As the sun is setting, head down the hill on the east side of Gulhane Park to Kennedy Caddesi, the main road that follows the banks of the Bosphorus, wrapping around the Golden Horn.

Following it to the right, you’ll come across stacks of boulders that have been warmed by the sun during the day, and which now host one of the more bizarre slices of Istanbul life.

Hundreds of men gather at this spot each evening – some dangle fishing rods into the water, others strip down to their Speedos so they can work hard on their tans on the warm rocks.

Others still take their lives into their own hands, diving into the roiling, choppy current of the Bosphorus and riding its natural flow around the Golden Horn. It’s a bizarre sight and a 100 per cent local experience in an area that can sometimes feel as if it’s been designed with tourists in mind.

It’s also a great way to end a walking tour – lying back on a hot rock under the setting sun, watching Istanbul life go by.

The writer travelled as a guest of Singapore Airlines.

Trip notes

Getting there

Singapore Airlines flies daily from Sydney to Istanbul, with “early bird” return economy airfares available if booked before November 30, from $1749. 13 10 11, singaporeair.com.

Staying there

The Hotel Sultan’s Inn is centrally located in Sultanahmet and has double rooms from about $49 a night, expedia.com.au.

See + Do

Topkapi Palace is open 9am-5pm every day except Tuesdays. Entry is $10, with $10 extra to enter the harem, topkapipalace.com.

Hagia Sophia is open 9am-7pm every day except Mondays. Entry is $10.50, hagiasophia.com.

The Blue Mosque is open 9am-9pm daily, although it’s closed to visitors during prayer times. Entry is free.

A “traditional style” scrub at Cemberlitas Hamam costs about $35. The bathhouse is open 6am-midnight daily, cemberlitashamami.com.

The Grand Bazaar is open daily, times vary from shop to shop.

Galata Tower is open daily and an elevator to the top costs $10, galatatower.net.

The Spice Bazaar’s opening times vary from shop to shop but it is open daily.

Gulhane Park is free to enter and a cup of tea at the cafe costs about $1.

More information

english.istanbul.com.

Three other Istanbul attractions

1 Uskudar A short ferry ride across the Bosphorus lies a different world. Uskudar is part of the Asian side of Istanbul and has far more of a Middle Eastern feel to it than its European sister city. Well worth an afternoon of exploration.

2 Istanbul Modern The city’s contemporary art gallery sits on the banks of the Bosphorus and houses works by Turkish and international artists. It also has a swanky restaurant and best of all on a hot day, the gallery is air-conditioned. See istanbulmodern.org.

3 Besiktas Sydney has the North Shore, Istanbul has Besiktas. This is a different side to the city — quiet streets are lined with small teahouses, where men play backgammon and shoot the breeze. It’s a pleasant change from the tourist-filled Sultanahmet.

Read more:

November 29, 2011