Istanbul: exotic and friendly -- a bargain, too!

Holiday Inn Istanbul City was formerly the Hotel Oclay and the family is still actively involved in the property's operation. It is in a great location on a main thoroughfare, just inside the ancient city walls. There is a tram stop directly in front of the hotel, but we found it to be a nice, safe walk of perhaps a mile and a half to the Grand Bazaar, Blue Mosque, Topkapi Palace, etc. Along the way, you'll pass many places to eat or stop.

As for the hotel itself, we checked out several of the rooms and found all of them to be decent-sized and well-maintained, with mini-bars and windows that open. (You might want to close them at night, since there are two mosques in the immediate area and the morning's first "call to prayer" pierces the air at 5am. We didn't mind that at all, but others may feel differently.)

There is a well-appointed restaurant with a full menu as well as lighter fare available in the lounge-bar area. There is a nice indoor pool area. Housekeeping was excellent. Rates are more reasonable than some of the more monumental hotels in the city; many of which are located across the Golden Horn in the Taksim area.

In addition, the Holiday Inn Istanbul City offers free airport pickup, which should be arranged in advance (you can do it by e-mail.) A taxi back to the airport for an early morning flight was 22 million T.L. (less than US$17 when we visited in March 2004.)

We found this hotel to be an excellent choice; not a luxury property, but certainly first class and better than what we would classify as a typical "tourist-class" offering.

In the Cennet restaurant near the Grand Bazaar, patrons can don fezzes and veils to be serenaded by strolling musicians (a tip is expected and well worth it) and women in traditional Islamic dress fashion crepe-like wraps in a sunken cooking area. Carpets and an authentic Turkish theme immerse you in the experience. It might even sound a little over the top, but it’s a fun place and if you want, you can just stop in for tea and take it all in for awhile.

(Reservations might be a good idea in the evening, but we stopped in during the afternoon and while there were enough people there to have a nice time, there were plenty of tables.) There are no chairs; people sit at low tables and there are pillows.

An English translation of the menu is available and there is a wide selection of crepes available: spinach, potato, cheese, minced meat, and chicken are a few examples. Other offerings include Turkish ravioli and a several kebob choices. The apple tea is divine, so don't forget to enjoy that, too.

Maybe it's a bit touristy, but with the atmosphere, the service and the food, this place is well worth a stop.

Seyran is a small, Turkish franchise that has 10 locations scattered around Istanbul. Located on the inbound side of a main drag and at the entrance to a busy market street for foot traffic, the place has more comings and goings than a beehive. The street out front is jammed with buses, taxis and brave souls in their own vehicles, deftly navigating their way into the central business district for hours each morning in a continuous river of metal that moved in fits and starts. Parking is prohibited in front of Seyran because the city can ill afford to give up a lane of traffic. A uniformed woman spends several hours each morning working a half block stretch writing tickets as Seyran’s regular patrons make quick stops.

Inside, smartly uniformed employees take care of what is mostly a carryout business. This place is baklava heaven, with trays of the stuff displayed along the glass storefront, along with ornately prepared cakes and desserts. A big part of the morning trade is preparing lunches that well-dressed workers grab on their way to the office. (Casual days don’t seem to have caught on in Istanbul yet.) It is possible to observe everything going on from a comfortable perch in the mezzanine and each morning. I take the same corner table and have a cup or two of coffee and a simit (pronounced like "sea-meat", it’s something that vaguely resembles a bagel and they are sold everywhere in Istanbul, from street vendors on up.) The mezzanine is a haven from the bustle and I find that I seem to fit in even better later in the mornings, when I return with my daughter. (By the looks of it, this seems like a very typical thing to do for many middle-aged businessmen, only the younger ladies that accompany them don’t seem to be their daughters; they just look like they could be.)

Coffee in Turkey is different than coffee in Western Europe. If you simply order coffee, you will probably get Nescafe and it is actually a lot better than it sounds. At Seyran, I order mine with frothy, steamed milk. On top of the mousse are a few granules of Nescafe to dress it up a little. It’s smooth and decent.

We enjoyed an absolutely fabulous meal after the owner of a restaurant called Altin Kapi caught us walking by and started a conversation that ended with him assertively telling us that he would have our table ready at 8pm. He may have been surprised to see us return, but we were introduced to the staff and given a tour of the facilities. As our kabobs were being prepared, freshly baked balloon bread was brought to our table.

Our waiter introduced us to a young English teacher and his fiancée, a preschool teacher. He didn’t want to waste the opportunity to practice English with a native speaker and we learned much about life in Turkey as we shared a bit about life in the U.S. (We saw no other tourists in this place when we were there.) The main attraction here is the kabobs, but there are excellent salads. This is a place for eating, but not drinking. The total tab was less than $30 for two people enjoying an outstanding dinner with the all the trimmings.

If you happen to be passing the Pasha Restaurant during the day, you can expect an invitation from a well-placed representative who works the street out front aggressively. Don't be put off. We stopped in the afternoon and had absolutely wonderful salads for a very good price, but we offer the menu prices advisedly for those might be interested in something more extensive. There is an upstairs dining room for dinner that is well appointed and has plenty of windows overlooking this busy street on the tramline near the Blue Mosque. Bar service is available for those who like a cocktail or wine with dinner. We chose to eat outdoors and it was a pleasant place to spend some time in a little haven where we could take in the people and the ambiance. Service was friendly and attentive. An adjacent pub shares the outdoor dining area, making it a great place to meet people from all over the world.

While shopping malls may seem like a relatively recent cultural phenomenon to westerners, a trip to Istanbul’s famous Grand Bazaar provides a half-millennium-old counterpoint to that point of view. Acres of stalls, which are really small shops, spill their wares out into named streets in an ancient, covered facility of many acres that is filled with hand-painted archways, heavy walls and pillars. Popular items include colorful dishes, jewelry, silverware, glassware, water pipes, and, of course, carpets.

Merchants in the Grand Bazaar must be some of the world’s leaders in terms of how much merchandise they can display per square foot of floor space. Shop after shop looks like Ali Babba’s cave; filled with colorful, shimmering treasures that beg to be examined. Search out some of the hidden courtyards, where you may stumble into areas where craftsmen are at work or you will find locals relaxing, away from the bustle.

Throughout the bazaar and elsewhere, it seems like half of Istanbul is either selling carpets or shilling for someone who does. And no matter where you live, a good carpet salesman will have a cousin who lives somewhere near you. You may indeed be able to pick up a prize Persian rug for less than it would cost you back home. Still it takes some background to know what you are buying, whether it is worth what you are paying and whether or not you can even count on it being delivered.

After a filling lunch one day, we stopped at Ereneler Nargile ve Cay Bahcesi, a tea and hookah garden a few blocks from the Grand Bazaar. For the equivalent of less than $4 each, our floor-model water pipes were loaded with apple-cured tobacco and we enjoyed tea as we enjoyed the incredibly smooth flavor of the load, which was kept going by an attendant who would drop small pieces of charcoal with tongs into the bowl. It is a very relaxing and peaceful way to pass some time that has broad appeal in this part of the world. (This is not the place to go for people who have a problem with smoking. The level of tobacco use in Istanbul seems to make Paris look reserved by comparison.)

You will find water pipe gardens in various locations around the city and it is one of those things that can enhance your experience to try, as well as giving you another story to tell. This particular spot has a good selection of water pipes to choose from if you care to make a purchase, although you will have no trouble finding these items for sale just about everywhere from the airport and the Grand Bazaar to countless shops and souvenir stands. There was a mix of Turks and tourists using the facilities. It seemed like a load was good for at least 15 minutes and probably more.

It’s 5am and the early morning stillness is pierced by the day’s first call to prayer. The plaintive, melodic words are simultaneously echoing and diffusing over the city of 10 million from dozens of minarets that define the ancient skyline of Istanbul; a mystical chant that reminds us again that there are many worlds within our own and we are in one of those other worlds.

It’s true that we encountered a few raised eyebrows when people asked us what we were doing for spring break. A country that shares borders with places like Syria, Iran, and Iraq isn’t exactly the first place that pops up on most people’s radar screens when they’re planning to escape the tail end of a long Wisconsin winter. On the other hand, I was a little surprised when I entered Istanbul into the Northwest Airlines booking engine with a zone coupon code and came up with a fare of under $423 roundtrip. Upon further investigation into accommodations, amenities, complications and costs, there was just no good reason not to give it the green light.

Istanbul can trace its history back to the seventh century BC, which makes it one of the oldest cities in the world. Unlike the nearby site of the ancient city of Troy, there are miles of ancient walls that are still standing. This provides an interesting contrast to the monumental traffic that often clogs busy Istanbul as the major commercial hub that it is today. The Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires all saw the significance of the city’s geographic position during their periods of rule.

From our hotel just inside of the old city walls, we could easily walk about a mile and a half to a compact neighborhood that is home to the Grand Bazaar, the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, Topkapi Palace and the final resting places of various sultans. We could take a tram instead for a mere million lira, but our walk takes us into a bustling world of street life that winds past restaurants, shops, sidewalk vendors, a cacophony of sounds, a kaleidoscope of sights and a smorgasbord of smells. Uniformed children attend school near our hotel and instead of a staccato bell ringing to mark transitions in the schedule, a few computerized bars of Moonlight Sonata play. Begging and panhandling appear to be essentially outlawed, but there are people who quietly stake out a piece of sidewalk with a bathroom scale and charge 300 lira -- much less than a penny. There are some single-serving toilet paper peddlers.

Throughout the bazaar and elsewhere, it seems like half of Istanbul is either selling carpets or shilling for someone who does. And no matter where you live, a good carpet salesman will have a cousin who lives somewhere near you. You may indeed be able to pick up a prize Persian rug for less than it would cost you back home. Still it takes some background to know what you are buying, whether it is worth what you are paying and whether or not you can even count on it being delivered. Carpet salesmen have all the persistence of Florida timeshare peddlers.

A number of Istanbul’s most important tourism sites are located within easy walking distance of each other, including the Grand Bazaar, the Blue Mosque, Haghia Sophia (a mosque today, but originally built when Istanbul was the Christian city of Constantinople), Topkapi Palace and the Byzantine Basilica Cistern. From historic architecture, intricate mosaics and smaller bazaars that surround many of the mosques to Turkish baths and retail activity at every level, the Sultanahmet neighborhood and the Bazaar Quarter are easily enjoyed without a guide and barely even a map.

Almost every business that does much trade with visitors will have people on staff who are able to speak very passable English, so it is not all that difficult to get around. Menus offer English translations or you can simply see what is being prepared and take it from there. Food is plentiful, tasty and very reasonably priced. With the city so densely populated, there are bakeries, grocery stores, street vendors, restaurants, hookah gardens and watering holes galore. The most common style of cooking seems to be kabobs; from individual sized offering to giant pillars of various types of meat that are succulently prepared and then thinly-sliced from as fans of Greek gyros will find familiar.

Business owners that we spoke with told us that American tourism was way down in this country of mosques, where more than 90% of the population is nominally Islamic. But Turkey is a country with a secular government. Activities continue as usual on the streets during the five-times-daily calls from the minarets of this enchanting city, just as life continues in any U.S. city while church bells ring. We will always have fond memories of our visit and we expect to renew our acquaintance again with this ancient, interesting city.