I'm awake for some reason after 26 hours of flying and waiting. Istanbul is "interesting". I'm not sure what to say about it, it's third world in many aspects. Some of the stuff is amazing, my highlight was the Basica Sistern, a truly massive underground cavern built by the "Romans" to store water for a city that has no rivers. I enjoyed the boat ride as well up the Bosperous. We got a glimpse of the Black Sea.
There is a downtown commercial area with modern tall buildings we didn't visit. The airport is very large and modern and quite a ways from city center. We stayed in the "Old Town" and walked everywhere. Any street other than a main one is coblestones and the sidewalks are often disrupted with holes or pieces of concrete laying about. Traffis is, well, insane, and you have to watch out as a pedestrian for taxis and scooters and motor bikes.
We were advised not to drink tap water even though the motel is 6 months old. I ingested a bit and had very mild diarrhea, nothing major. Dining out is pricey, a simple lunch would be $60-70. The food mostly is in the OK range, every place serves the same stuff unless you step up a bit. Inflation is horrible. A 200 Turkish Lira note is worth about $3.
We met some Turks and got to know them a bit, they are very friendly, they do try and sell stuff to you of course. If you don't buy, it's OK with them. There are a TON of shops around of course often with no one buying and the salespeople not looking concerned about it. The streets in places are very crowded with locals. The Old City is of course touristy.
Our boat ride up the Bosperus stopped in a village for lunch. We had maybe 100 tourists on the boat and there were probably 20 pretty large restaurants there with table cloths overlooking the Bosperus. The one we chose had maybe 40 tables and 3 occupied. I have no clue how they stay in business, our friend said they get maybe two tourist boats a day in season, and no locals there can afford to dine out. We walked around the village a bit, there wasn't much to see.
Turks smoke, a lot, to the point even the streets smell like smoke. The shop owner often is standing outside his place smoking seemingly unconcerned that he has no customers. They don't jump on you if you show interest, but if you stay a minute, they will order tea or Turkish coffee for you, it's a tradition I was told. And you feel compelled to buy something.
We spoke twice with one shop owner, Abdulah, who sells scarfs, very nice ones. We talked about religion. I ended up overpaying for some scarfs and he came running after me to return 200 lira. He said honesty was important in Islam. We returned the next day and bought some more for gifts, he was a nice man. We also bought some rugs and jewelry from a set of stores owned by a family. The rug salesman comes here each year and said he was including two more pretty expensive rugs in our shipment on "consignment". He said if I didn't want them, he'd come by and pick them up. He wouldn't give me a price. They are gorgeous, my wife doesn't know about them. The first small rug we liked he said was $7500, handmade silk etc. We ended up buying it for $2200, but then he bought us lunch (so we over paid). We returned the next day and he and I had raki together. He said they had been badly hurt by the Ukrainian war because Russians couldn't visit with the same amount of money as before. I bougght some more cheaper rugs. Ha. He's a great salesman. The rugs are pieces of art.
I'll post some more photos later probably. I liked the Turks and feel compassion that their government does such a poor job for them. As for security, I never felt any threat even at night from anything. I'd call it a safe country/city to visit. My wife is more alert in France about theft than we were in Istanbul, by far. The best part was spending some time with locals chatting about their lives and conditions. They seem upbeat even with conditions being so poor overall.
We visited three mosques, including the Hagia Sofia. They are huge and impressive. The former has murals somewhat damaged of Jesus and Mary and John the Baptist and some emperors that had been covered up and were restored. The most impressive item was the Basica Sistern, a huge underground water storage area over 1600 years old. Muslims don't believe in such depictions for their prophets. Attire entering a mosque there is pretty relaxed.
